Running Head: HEALTH PRACTITIONER
Health practitioner
Aggressive Care for the Elderly: Too Much, Too Late
While she lay on the backboard, an old lady moaned with a lot of discomfort. She had fallen off from her bed in the nursing home and had been tightened by straps onto the board; there was a cervical collar that was sliding onto her chin upwards making her unstable (Leap Edwin 2011). A new person to the nursing home might think that the device she was placed in was a form of torture appliance. In a way it may have been. The device was, additionally to being uncomfortable; it caused ulcers that result from too much pressure due to the plastic material that made them. The scene seems quite familiar.
Looking at the old woman, it ran through my mind the kind of poor and below standard form of treatment that these elderly patients are subjected to; an aggressive from of treatment. They come to see us not as a result of gravitation and balance, but as a result of the manner in which we mix the medicine accompanied by legality and expectations.
Take an instance that the 97 year old Alzheimer’s patient has been accrued to a cervical spine fracture due to the situation she has undergone, will we later turn to performing surgery on her? Take another instance that when an 85 year old woman who is attributed to multi-infarct dementia later suffers from thoracic spine fracture, will we be forced to call in surgeons? And another instance where a lucid 100 year old man who is attributed to suffering from a brain hemorrhage, will we be forced to send him to the neurosurgeons?
The element of being cruel is evident in us; we are not applying any form of common sense and kindness, when nursing homes put their patients to emergency centers for further examination and treatment.
In the varied forms of treatment that we apply to the elderly, injuries are just part of the problems. Is the patient who is suffering from end-stage emphysema and treated with pneumonia, be placed on a ventilator for further accorded misery? Is the patient who is bedridden and confused as result of several strokes, get the satisfaction of a coronary stent if her chest pain is accrued from heart attack? Such questions are quite relevant considering their ethics and economics, taking into consideration that most of the money is spent in the last few months of one’s life.
Source: Paul Fischhbeck, Camegie University James Hilston/ Post-Gazette
It may be seen that there is a pull and push of the physicians when that are handling most of our elderly patients, most of all those that are in no position to add to their own opinions when making decisions. A bigger share is the lack of the any effort from the government to handle tort reform, the weak and helpless bodies of the elderly patient and confused minds are left subject to tests, examinations and therapies that take that joy in their lives and degrade the meaning.
On the physician’s point of view, taking care of the elderly in the nursing homes is a fraught that has a peril. They are attributed to the wide range of chances of going against the standards of caring or sustaining the litigation that is gotten from the family of the patient. They are also not confident of interpreting in the right manner the Medicare rules, that accrues to the physicians to get demeaning finances and hospitals for illegal access, not laying strict attention to the rules and regulations of the clinic, returns to the hospital for the same problem as before and a missed treatment. Moreover the biggest threat or fear is performing the wrong procedure and resulting to the suffering to a patient.
It is a pity that we are not able to sort out this problem, then let the elderly to have their much need comfort rather than suffer in the back boards and plastic straps. When it comes to taking care of the elderly at times what is less is actually more. The knowledge and practice of performing less and allowed to do less by the relevant sectors, is a massive and real challenge.
Bibliography
Leap Edwin, 2011, Aggressive Care for the Elderly: Too Much, Too Late, Healthcare, Taki’s Magazine.
