Why do many elderly people die after breaking a hip?
As I understand it, the most usual cause of death is/was pneumonia.The mechanism was that in the days before modern treatment of fractures, the elderly person was confined to bed for several weeks to give the broken bone(s) a chance of knitting. When one is normally active, the activities of daily living enables us to clear our lungs. When we are lying on our back and inactive, these mechanisms do not work so well. Consequently, the lungs are prone to be attacked by nasty bugs. Add to this the facts that the patient’s immune system is not working the way it did when they were younger, they have just suffered major trauma with the fracture of a large bone and they are in a hospital which is a good source of nasties that can kill you.I lost one relative that way in her early nineties.A generation later, when another person of about the same age broke a hip, they were in the operating theatre within twenty-four hours to have the fracture pinned. A few hours of coming out of the anaesthetic they were being encouraged to stand and put some weight on the broken leg (with the assistance of mechanical aids) and the amount of exercise they were ‘encouraged’ to take increased by the day.After about six weeks of treatment and rehabilitation, they were discharged to their own home, and they are still living more than two years later.Another relative is a person with many years of nursing experience. Her days in a hospital included service in a ward where the first situation applied and she was astounded at the modern methods of treatment and their effectiveness.
Is it normal to take days to wake up after a aortic valve replacement surgery?
My grandfather just had Aortic Valve replacement surgery on Tuesday and is still not waking up....he is almost completely breathing on his own and his vital signs are good but not waking up or moving his body hardly any. He has only moved his left arm and leg very little.
What are the chances of dying in surgery?
Surgical deaths are really very rare. Outside of penetrating trauma (gun shot wounds, etc.) I've seen very few deaths in surgery. Really sick people do die after surgery, sometimes hours or days or weeks later. But actually dying in the OR is uncommon.Surgical risks factors are age, comorbid conditions (high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, obesity,etc.) the severity/complexity of the surgery and anesthesia. There's also the skill of the surgeon but for simplicity we will assume the surgeon is competent.So an 80 year old patient with sepsis from a perforated bowel is at significantly higher risk of dying than a 20 year old woman having a breast augmention.Someone once told me my chances of winning the lottery were less than my chances of getting killed by a vending machine. I tell my patients that their risk of dying in surgery is less than either.
Life expectancy of brain cancer?
I'm Really Sorry, I don't know much about brain cancer. I did know a woman that had brain cancer, also inoperable. She was on chemo and things went really well. she was told she was ok..then about five years later they found cancer again. Once again she was on chemo...That happened about ten years ago..Now she is holding down a job and doing well. The doctor's can't even determine how long someone has. We found out my husband had cancer in October. The doctor's said he had about five years to live.. He passed away in January. Less than three months.. I will keep you and your mom in my prayers..
Why do abortion doctors get paid better than coal miners?
They have a specialized set of skills and knowledge that takes years to cultivate. A coal miner is much easier to train and more people can seek out such employment. At the very least, abortion doctors tend to provide other services and even if they only do abortions they still had to go through the same basic education that brain surgeons do. Abortion requires a lot of surgical training and has a lot of complications that could go wrong and affect the woman's physical health. All that adds to their financial compensation.
Why can broken hips with the elderly cause dementia?
let’s begin by differentiating demetia from delirium.dementia is a progressive decline in mental function. it starts somewhere around age forty but does not become clinically apparent until about age seventy. this is because most of us use very little of our brains on a daily basis to get through life. we are pretty much on auto pilot. this is especially true when we are elderly. when the typical clues we use to get through our day are missing, our lack of underlying function becomes apparent. this is referred to as sundowning, as it often happens after dark, when there is less information being input to tell us what’s going on. so elderly people with dementia staying in the hospital often experience sundowning.delirium is an acute aberration of mental ability. people can become delirious for lots of reasons, including intoxication with drugs, infections, psychiatric disorders etc.so, elderly patients with hip fractures can have long standing dementia that manifests itself after the hip fracture throws off their routine. they can also have acute delirium from post operative infections, emboli (medullary fat from the fracture travels to the brain), pain medications or other drugs they are on, or a pre-existing condition.there is typically nothing about the fracture itself that causes the change in mental status. it’s just that hip fractures tend to happen to frail, elderly patients, and the same people tend to have dementia and delirium.
How exactly do elderly people die from falls?
There are many reasons that elderly people die from falls. Some cause are immediate, such as cases where the elderly person falls and hits their head.Other causes are less immediate but no less devastating. Falls can cause an elderly person to break a hip or suffer a traumatic brain injury. These injuries can lead to long-term hospitalization which carries its own risks. Long hospital stays decondition the patient and reduce their mobility. Lying down for extended periods of time puts the patient at risk of pneumonia. Being in the hospital increases the patient’s risk of contracting a hospital-born infection. If surgery is necessary to fix a broken bone or other injury sustained in a fall, infection is always a risk.In general, when an elderly person with compromised health falls, it impacts their health in ways that are very difficult to recover from. The general deconditioning that takes place while treating the injury is difficult to recover from if the baseline health of the person is compromised to begin with. Often the elderly person never fully recovers from the injury and cannot return to their home or their previous lifestyle.All of these factors can lead to death from a fall.
After a stroke caused by a clot, how long does the blood clot remain in the brain?
There is an adage that when something involves the brain, it's like real estate - it's all location, location and location. Even with the evolution of intracranial bleeds, location (what space they occur in) is important. The Question suggests it is about intracerebral bleeds (blood within the brain itself, instead of around it), so I will answer accordingly.All clot within the brain eventually reabsorbs, if the patient lives long enough. There is much variability in how long this takes, but in general, the larger the clot, the longer it takes.A small "bruise" may disappear in a week or two on CT or MRI. A larger clot may take 3 - 6 weeks to clear. The really big ones may clear in terms of their density on CT, but will show permanent MRI changes and leave a cavity and distorted residual brain behind.Please keep in mind that if you look hard enough (for example, using PET scanning, or post-mortem fine histology) you can find identifiable residua more often and for a longer time.Also keep in mind that such structural evaluations have only a weak relation to how well the brain functions around the clot, and how quickly recovery of that function takes place. Anyone who has been in this business long enough will remember a patient with normal CT and MRI who nevertheless exhibits a deep and prolonged coma. On the other hand, we occasionally see surprisingly good function in patients with impressive clots in so-called "non-silent" parts of the brain.It's amazing I think to see how the body has a sense of what tissue belongs where and in what quantities - even in the brain, which is more isolated from healing and immunological cells than other organs. Hope this helps!
Ok this is a very embarrasing and difficult question to ask?
As I said this is very difficult for me to post , but I really could use some input. I had a very radical back surgery in October of 2009. Sexually everything was just fine.I have been having some complications so the Doctor has given me 2 epidural steroid injections, Each was in six spots. After the first injection I was unable to have an orgasm. It has been about 8weeks and I still can't. All system are working fine, but in the end .....nothing. Has anyone ever experience this or has been unable to have an orgasm for a long period of time. I am getting very worried that this is permanent. I did speak to my doctor nd was told it is not from the injection, but all was fine until then. He also told me to look it up. Please, this was very difficult for me to post, so please no sarcasm or meanness ok? I thank anyone who answers in advance.