Monthly Archives: August 2011

PREPARING THE ELDERLY FOR ER VISITS

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ambulance image

Compared to younger age groups, elderly people are more likely to be taken to the  emergency room (ER) via ambulance, receive a more extensive workup,  be admitted to the hospital,  stay longer, or have repeat visits.  An older person receiving emergency medical services is often too frightened or confused, or sick and in pain to give reliable information about his/ her health status and medical care.  Here are some helpful tips to make a sudden trip to the ER a little less harrowing:

Write It Down

Geriatric specialists recommend that older adults write down important information and leave it in prominent places where family or emergency medical personnel can see it. At the top of the page, write “Vital Information” or “Medical History of (patients name).” Put down your full name and preferred name or nickname, next of kin, designated decision maker, and health-care agent. Include their contact information and address. Also include:

  • Medicare/Medicaid/insurer’s identification number and phone number.
  • Physician(s): list all, including specialists; include phone numbers.
  • Advance directives: living will, durable power of attorney for health care (health- care proxy), do not resuscitate order. Even if you do not have an advance directive, write down your treatment wishes and preference, especially about care at the end of life. (5 Wishes form)
  • Medications: name and dosage, including eye drops and all over-the-counter (OTC) drugs.
  • Pharmacies and phone numbers.
  • Allergies: foods, medications, contact allergies such as skin rashes, itching and sensitivities.
  • Normal physical functions (dressing, personal hygiene, toileting, eating, walking, transferring, bathing) and whether the person needs assistance.
  • Dentures (type); hearing aid; eyeglasses.
  • Nutritional status, including special diet.
  • Medical/surgical history.
  • Pacemakers, other implants.

Keep this information (and advance directives) in a clear plastic folder next to routine medications and/or hang on the inside of the house (perhaps on the refrigerator), inside a cupboard, dresser or desk.  Make several copies of this information and make sure family members or designated friends, have a copy.place it wherever those who will accompany the older person to the ER may find it; perhaps on a bedroom dresser, inside a cuboard, in a purse or wallet.

A Exceptional Senior! -Australia WWII heroine Nancy ‘White Mouse’ Wake dies

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Nancy Wake in front of the Australian war memorial in Hyde Park Corner, London (2004)

At one point, Nancy Wake One of the most highly decorated Allied secret agents of World War II, Nancy Wake, has died in London aged 98. Born in New Zealand but raised in Australia, she is credited with helping hundreds of Allied personnel escape from occupied France. The German Gestapo named her the “White Mouse” because she was so elusive.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said Mrs Wake was “a truly remarkable individual whose selfless valour and tenacity will never be forgotten”. “Nancy Wake was a woman of exceptional courage and resourcefulness whose daring exploits saved the lives of hundreds of Allied personnel and helped bring the Nazi occupation of France to an end,” 

Mrs. Wake worked as a journalist in Europe, she interviewed Adolf Hitler in Vienna in 1933 and then vowed to fight against his persecution of Jews. After the fall of France in 1940, Mrs Wake became a French Resistance courier and later a saboteur and spy – setting up escape routes and sabotaging German installations, saving hundreds of Allied lives. She worked for British Special Operations and was parachuted into France in April 1944 before D-Day to deliver weapons to French Resistance fighters.

At one point, she was top of the Gestapo’s most wanted list. “Freedom is the only thing worth living for. While I was doing that work, I used to think it didn’t matter if I died, because without freedom there was no point in living,” Wake once said of her wartime exploits. It was only after the liberation of France that she learned her husband, French businessman Henri Fiocca, had been tortured and killed by the Gestapo for refusing to give her up.

“I have only one thing to say: I killed a lot of Germans, and I am only sorry I didn’t kill more,” she once said. She was Australia’s most decorated servicewoman, and one of the most decorated Allied servicewomen of World War II. France awarded her its highest honour, the Legion D’Honneur; she also received Britain’s George Medal, and the US Medal of Freedom. In 2004, she was made Companion of the Order of Australia.

She returned to Australia in 1949, where she failed several times to win a seat in parliament. In 1957 she went back to England, where she married RAF fighter pilot John Forward. Wake died in London. She had been a resident at a nursing home for retired forces personnel since 2003.

She is expected to be cremated and her ashes spread in Montlucon in central France, the scene of much of her heroism.Her story inspired Sebastian Faulks’ 1999 novel Charlotte Gray and a 2001 film by the same title, with the lead role played by Australian actress Kate Blanchard.

BBC News Story-8 August 2011 Last updated at 04:02 ET