GERIATRICS POSTINGS 2
Part 1: Posting 1
A 72-year-old woman was diagnosed with duodenal ulcers and was living under the
palliative care of an elderly home. She has two daughters, but both of them live outside the
town and rarely visit the patient. She complained of abdominal pains, constipation and
congested cough. Upon diagnosis, it was observed that the patient had gastrointestinal
bleeding, low oxygen saturation and duodenal ulcers. She had a past history of smoking over
ten cigarettes a day and ulcers. Currently, the patient had undergone laparotomy repair of the
perforated duodenal ulcers and complains of extreme abdominal pains. She has been
complaining of congested cough for two decades now but does not want to quit smoking.
Above all this, the patient report confirms diagnosis for Alzheimer’s dementia, where the
patient complains of forgetting simple things. The MMSE score of the patient is 18,
concluding moderate dementia in the patient (Creavin, 2016). With surgical incision in the
abdomen, it is difficult for the patient to perform daily chores. In a personal experience and
conversation with the patient, it was revealed that the patient was having suicidal thoughts
after the statement of ‘not wanting to live anymore’. A series of functional decline has been
observed in the patient, as the patient has gradually got bedridden with lost mobility and
consciousness. To perform her daily activities like going to the washroom or changing
clothes, the patient requires extensive support from helping nurses, for which two nurses
attend the patient on an alternate day basis. It is can be determined that as the patient is living
alone in a single room, she is deliberately getting isolated from the environment socially, but
the nurses rarely take her outside, where she can interact with other patients in the care home
and relive her social life. This aspect of care has incurred negative quality of life of the
patient. From the conversation with the supervisors in the elderly care home, it was found out
that the daughters of the patients have not been contacted and messaged about the

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THE GERIATRICS POSTINGS

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