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During the pandemic, it has been my great privilege to contribute to the Scottish Government’s Clinical and Professional Advisory Group on Care Homes (CPAG).
I took early retirement from my post as a consultant stroke physician at the end of 2017 but have continued to work in undergraduate medical education on a part-time basis. I am based in the Education Centre of the Trust where I have worked since 1997, so my return to clinical duties at the height of the pandemic was a temporary redeployment.
COVID-19 has proven to be particularly harmful to older people, who are more likely to experience severe symptoms, and be hospitalised as a consequence. COVID-19 affects multiple organ systems, has been shown to affect physical function, and is associated with prevalent delirium.
Major trauma was once perceived as a realm of vehicle accidents or violence affecting young or middle-aged people. The Trauma Audit and Research Network has now shown that the majority of patients attending hospitals with severe injuries are >60 years of age and have fallen from a standing height. Many of these patients have multi-morbidity and are complex to manage.
Busy, noisy, and unfamiliar. Hospitals can be frightening and disorientating for people living with dementia who describe not being sure where they are, why they are there or what is happening around them.
He was sitting on the bed. He had presented to the emergency room with fever and shortness of breath and was labeled a PUI - “Person Under Investigation.” Every time he took a deep breath, I saw his chest wall retract between his ribs.
Earlier this year health and social care organisations across Newcastle upon Tyne (Collaborative Newcastle) were focused on how to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Earlier this week I wrote about ongoing and sometimes over-polarised debates within British geriatric medicine, BGS membership, and government policy around community versus acute hospital care for older people with frailty who require skilled assessment and treatment.
The month of Ramadan has passed relatively quickly. I have spent some long days at work and at home being rather hungry and thirsty. I have been fasting for around 17hrs a day and am eager now to return to being able to eat and drink during daylight hours.
An interdisciplinary group of clinicians and scientists have carried out a rapid review of the COVID-19 literature in relation to older people, which has just been published in Age and Ageing.
The novel Wuhan coronavirus, COVID-19, has been shown to affect every age group across the world. However, the severity with which it manifests, and the outcomes of the disease, appear to worsen with increasing age of the person infected.
Over the past month the landscape of healthcare has dramatically changed as a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic. All acute trusts, primary care organisations and social services have had to remodel their working patterns in order to manage the rising number of patients with Covid-19.
To the two infamous certainties in life, we can now add the fact that Coronavirus (COVID-19) is going to stretch us all psychologically and physically and also as a broader society. Worse, for some the stretch will be too much, leading to their untimely death.
Person-centred care, for those who are enthusiastic about it like me, can at times feel like a religion. To be a pure follower of this approach, it means respecting the holistic aspects of a person, including perhaps interests and beliefs.
It takes time to recuperate when getting over an acute illness but can ‘preventing deconditioning’ help? In a clinical context, we can define deconditioning syndrome as ‘A complex process of physiological change induced by inactivity that can affect multiple body systems and may result in decline in physical, psychological and functional abilities’.