Coming Home

MUSCLE ATROPHY - COMING HOME FROM HOSPITAL!

 

Think of any hospital in the UK, (or anywhere around the world for that matter), and you would of course think of nurses dispensing tablets to the patients and attending to the needs of the person in the form of making them comfortable. A simple view of what a nurse does of course as there is often far more to it than that.

 

 The photo is for illustration purposes only!

 

The services that the hospital staff carry out are of course many and varied and also includes duties that range from all sorts of specialist care to the hospital administrators and aftercare services that are often involved in making the arrangements needed before a patient is released from hospital.

The subject of rehabilitation before being released from hospital is also a very vital thing, and in the case of an elderly parent or relative coming home from a prolonged stay in a hospital bed, a very difficult one for both the person themselves and for those involved in looking after them when they come home.

 

There is nothing like having the care and support of friends and family and the required attention needed in the comfort of your own home but this of course is not always easy if the person returning home is less than mobile and needs additional home support as a result.

 

In the case of a younger, or more able-bodied person, coming home from hospital this is often a simple case of having an on-going routine of exercises that will get the person walking again unaided and as a result a good degree of mobility should come back over a period of time. For an elderly person however who was never that mobile in the first place there is a great danger that not only will their recovery and mobility fall very short of what they need but they could also suffer additional problems before returning home such as, 'Atrophy' - muscle waste, if not fully dealt with at the time.

 

In such a situation the patient could very well be more worse off than before they went in for medical care, due to muscle waste in the legs in the main, having been bedridden or chair bound for a prolonged period.

 

Elderly people are at greater risk of muscle waste if hospital staff do not provide physical treatment in the form of getting them walking again, or other forms of physiotherapy based exercises, before the patient comes home. This being the case an elderly or frail person unable to walk far, or lacking in mobility, will often find themselves neglected by hospital staff who for various reasons are unsure if it is wise to give such physiotherapy, in the case of extreme frailty, thinking that a fall or further damage may result, and of course the problem of legal compensation by the persons relatives, if such a time consuming and risky routine of physical exercises are given which results in an accident while in hospital.

 

Further taking into account that the patient maybe was unable to stand due to the nature of the illness in the first place the result in cases like this often means that the frail older person will come home after a long period of being bedridden in hospital far less able to walk than before they were admitted into medical care due to the problem of muscles going to waste and not being exercised daily.

 

The ideal solution to the problem of lack of mobility or being unable to walk unaided due to muscle waste would be to provide a full on exercise routine aimed at developing leg and general body strength and getting them mobile again, rather than playing it safe regarding any medical or legal concerns, long before they came home instead of just leaving them inactive in a hospital bed or chair all day long.

 

Sadly however when you take into account the risk factors and medical reasons involved in getting the older frail person up to a reasonable level of mobility before coming home is a very understandable situation with no true answers to the problem - which makes it all the more sad for both the carer and the patient returning home with regard to the problems that both will have to face for sometime to come.

 

Talking from experience - and saying it as it is! - There can be no other way!

 

Written by Dave J. Lomas - Dragonwriter (UK) - All copyrights reserved.

 

Original issue date: 6th of February 2014

 

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