I worked for over 8 years as an assistant in a geriatric rehabilitation ward next to a primary geriatrician and sensitivity of the elderly patient and his family are my weakness, as well as the concept of comorbidity and polypharmacy.

Now we no longer talk to elderly subjects above 65 years, but ultra octogenarians. Becomes understandable for anyone to understand how difficult it is to find at that age patients with a single pathology and therapy.

Treating patients in private practice ultraottanteni is fascinating to me but it must be remembered that at that age anything can happen. Meanwhile, you need a guide and is nessaria minimal assistance to get on and off the couch as well as stripping and secondly if the patient happens to have arrived by chance at the end of his life, I'm sure the media do not lose the opportunity to blacken the situation and launch insidious doubts about the cause of the fatal death!

But apart from this possibility that is part of life and is a risk that is inevitable to run and that can happen, unfortunately, my experience using acupuncture in this age group is surprisingly positive. My first private patient of that age that I remember was called Teresa was suffering from six months to a strange pain in the neck that, unlike normal cervical disorders, was located on the front near the sternocleidomastoid muscle, the pain was very strong and the sleep deprived, treatment with fans did not give results, and the patient had also had a recent loss of consciousness in the hospital with which they were made all the necessary investigations cardiology.

But it was surprising to know that all my life Mrs. ottantaquatrenne had never suffered from neck pain. Just put the needles his sentence was "I feel like a queen! finished treatment could move my neck without pain, I saw the patient twice more but the problem was resolved after the first application. The waiver was so sudden I do not ever happened.

Since then I have not placed limits on mental age of my patients, tell them that working on energy and considering the low overall energy at that age, it may be that the results are less obvious and much longer to occur, especially if the disease is chronic and overt physical problems due to organic degenerative.

But certainly having some time and economic resources, of course, being a private care, acupuncture therapy is very recommended to all elderly patients in order to reduce the amount of drugs that unfortunately quall'età are much more dangerous and poorly tolerated.

Meanwhile, renal and liver function are usually less effcient at that age and a simple pain medication comes more readily to potentially dangerous doses. The same goes for anti-anxiety drugs or hypotensive. An excess of drug at that age can cause mental confusion and even a nasty fall to the ground with all the possible consequences, from a broken femur, head trauma to the simple fear of falling new motor and loss of autonomy.

Has a law: an elderly person, the less you touch the better! EE 'a body which has found its unstable equilibrium, just enough to move a parameter to assist in a cascade of events, sometimes serious. Here's referral to a specialist geriatrician when treatment becomes difficult to handle is really necessary.

But I also believe that the most natural choice for insomnia, anxiety, pain is the most recommended for their safety and lack of side effects.

I recently began treating un'ottantacinquenne (casually called Therese), suffering from trigeminal neuralgia for over 10 years in the acute phase could not even feed to the severe pain in the maxillary region. After only 10 sessions, the patient appeared very skeptical that early reports today, I must say, not without satisfaction on my part, no longer had any pain in the face. Certainly the results are not always so clean and easy, but only for these two Terese's worth trying, do not you think?

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Tags: Acupuncture , elderly , trigeminal neuralgia , alternative therapy

Article published by Cathe on 07/20/2009 at 6:00 am in the category Acupuncture , articles . You can check out the comments to this entry through the feed RSS 2.0 . You can leave a response , or trackback a call from your own site.