Alzheimer's Blogging:

For anyone who is new to my blog, I work as a paramedic for a private ambulance company. I do 911 calls but I also do calls at nursing homes involving senior citizens which is my favorite part of my job. So at two am I get a call for a 76 yr old female in respiratory distress. When we arrived at the nursing home and went into the patients room the nurse came running in asking us if the woman was still breathing. It seems that this patient is on oxygen all the time, but her 02 sats dropped while on the oxygen into the 70's at around one am. Now that is bad because our 02 sats are usually in the middle to high 90's. This nurse was a good nurse and gave this patient an albuterol SVN treatment which helped her. We found her in labor breathing, with diminished lung sounds and wheezing.

Now I just want you to put yourself in this patients shoes. She has a shunt in her head, a feeding tube and not allowed to eat, a foley to go to the bathroom in, always on oxygen and dementia/Alzheimer. Is this the way you want to live?

Sincerely,
Marie Fostino
Alzheimer's A Caretakers Journal
Seaboard Press an Imprint of James A Rock Pub., Co.
www.mariefostino.com
www.mariefostino.blogspot.com