Schizophrenia Patients Suffer More Hospital Injuries
—People with schizophrenia are more likely than others to sustain medical injuries during non-psychiatric hospital stays, a large national study finds...MORE
Colleges Not Meeting Guidelines to Limit Alcohol Access
—While many have implicated heavy student drinking in recent disturbances –– even tragedies –– on college campuses, few schools and communities have united successfully in curbing alcohol access, a new study suggests... MORE
Low Back Pain Is No Reason to Stay in Bed — For much of the 20th century, “rest”— which generally meant a few days to a week in bed — was the standard prescription for acute low-back pain. In recent decades, however, doctors started counseling patients to stay as active as they could... MORE
Goodbye, Acute Care, Hello, Rehab
When Jeff Miklaszewski, a 27-year-old musician and construction worker, rounded the corner of a single-lane road, he had no warning before the deer appeared in front of him. As he swerved, he lost control of his vehicle, resulting in an accident that nearly required the amputation of both of his legs.
But after only three weeks in the hospital, he was transferred to R Adams Cowley, an inpatient rehab facility in Baltimore. After such a serious accident, the quick transition to rehab— not unlike the deer in the road—came as a surprise, and the move brought apprehension that the level of care wouldn’t match what he’d experienced in the intensive care unit (ICU).
“The first couple nights I felt sad and almost abandoned in a way . . . It was coming from an environment of being high on the priority list to being thrown in with the rest of the pack. It was disheartening at first,” he says.
Miklaszewski’s parents experienced mixed emotions at his transfer, too—happiness and relief that he’d moved on from the ICU, but like Jeff, unease about the care and medical priority he’d receive in rehab.
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Check out CFAH’s new website, The Prepared Patient Forum. It is a consumer site where we have aggregated the news and feature stories HBNS has produced over the past few years and organized it so that the public can find good answers to questions about health care.
The Prepared Patient Forum also carries an interactive discussion about what it takes for people to find and use safe, decent care.
