If you end up in a hospital, any hospital, this is the care you should expect:
If you are in the hospital for a physical or mental illness you will have 3 different nurses a day. Sometimes if the nurses are working 12 hour shifts you will then have two nurses a day.
At the beginning of each shift each patient is assessed. This assessment includes, but not limited to:
- Vital signs
- Blood sugar reading (if necessary)
- Oxygen saturation reading
- A nervous system assessment
- A cardiac assessment
- A pulmonary assessment
- A gastric assessment
- A urinary assessment
- An assessment for pain
This may sound fairly basic, but if these assessments are not done; the patient could die.
Let me give you an example of a true story.
A man was admitted into a psychiatric hospital. He was psychotic. He was placed on an antipsychotic medication. Days and weeks passed, but he did not get better. He was gaining weight because of the antipsychotic medication. The man’s abdomen was distended. The man only spoke when spoken to. He did not complain.
As the weeks turned into months the man’s condition did not change with the exception that he slept a lot.
One day he began to have a seizure. The psychiatric nurses shipped him off the a medical hospital. The doctors at the medical hospital found that the man had an impacted bowel and it had opened up spilling poisonous waste into the abdominal cavity. The man went to emergency surgery only to die on the table.
The error the psychiatric doctors and nurses made was that NO GASTRIC assessment was done. The gastric assessment consists of listening to bowel sounds with a stethoscope in 4 quadrants of the abdomen. The patient is asked, when was the last time their bowels moved and if they are passing gas. Weight is monitored too. That’s it! If the psychiatric nurses or doctors had assessed this man every day as they were taught in college this death would not have occurred. His problem was PREVENTABLE.
If you find yourself in the hospital make sure the nurses and doctors are paying close attention to all of your body systems. It is basic, but you life literally depends on it.
Tags: assessment, Hospital, negligence
Here is a list of famous people who have suffered from Bipolar Disorder and Major Depression.
1. Abraham Lincoln- American President
2. Winston Churchill- Statesmen
3. Virginia Woolf-Author
4. Eugene O’Neill-Author
5. Robert Schumann-Composer
6. John Keats-Poet
7. Tennessee Williams-Author
8. Vincent Van Gogh-Painter, Artist
9. Ernest Hemingway-Author
10. Sylvia Plath-Poet
11. Vivian Leigh-Actress
12. Jimmy Piersall-Shortstop for the Boston Red Socks in 1950’s
13. Patty Duke-Actor
14. Gustav Mahler-Composer
15. Anne Sexton-Poet
16. George Gordon, Lord Byron-Poet
17. William Blake-English Poet
18. William Wordsworth-English Poet
19. Victor Hugo-Author
20. Robert Lowell-American Poet
21. Boris Pastemak-Russian Writer
22. T.S. Elliott-American Poet
23. Emily Dickinson-American Poet
24. Edgar Allan Poe-Author
25. Walt Whitman-American Poet
26. Alfred Lord Tennyson-English Poet
27. Hans Christian Anderson-Author
28. Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
31. Charles Dickens-English Poet
32. William Faulkner- American Author
33. Peter Tchaikovsky- Composer
34. Irving Berlin- Composer
35. Noel Coward-Composer
36. Georgia O’Keefe-Artist
37. Jackson Pollock-Artist
38. Michelangelo-Artist
39. Mike Wallace-TV Personality
40. Art Buchwald-Columnist
41. Bert Yancey-Golfer
44. Pete Harnish- Ball player for the Reds
45. Margo Kidder-Actress (superman’s girlfriend)
46. Sheryl Crow-Pop Singer
47. Meriwether Lewis-Explorer
48. Charlie Parker-Musician
49. Robert Louis Stevenson-Author
50. Leo Tolstoy-Author
51. Thomas Eagleton-Senator from Missouri: Brief VP candidate
52. Lawton Chiles-Late Florida Governor
53. Tipper Gore-Wife of Vice President of the United States
54. Carrie Fisher-Actor (Princess Leila in Star Wars)
55. Rosie O’Donnell-TV Host
56. Martha Manning-Reporter
57. Rosemary Clooney-Singer
58. Meri Danguah- Author, Willow Weep for Me
59. Ben Stiller-Actor
60. Jane Pauley-TV Personality
Famous people who have suffered from Schizophrenia
1. John Forbes Nash- Economist, Nobel Prize winner 1994.
2. Lionel Aldridge- A defensive end for Vince Lombardi’s legendary Green Bay Packers of the 1960’s, Aldridge played in two Super Bowls.
In the 1970’s he suffered from schizophrenia and was homeless for 2 1/2 years. He now gives inspirational talks on his battle against paranoid schizophrenia. His story is the subject of numerous newspaper articles.
3. Leo Tolstoy-Author of War and Peace, Tolstoy shared the extent of his own mental illness in My Confession. His experience is also discussed in Dynamics of Creation by Anthony Storr and Inner World of Madness by Bert Kaplan.
This is just a sampling of people who suffered with various mental illnesses. Some have gone undocumented and some under documented. A list would never be complete.
People just like you and me, who happen to be famous, can experience a mental illness.
We, as a people, walk a very fine line between mental wellness and mental illness.
Information Source: NAMI National.
Tags: bipolar, depression, famous people, Famous people with mental illness