What a very sad story Julianne. I just hope that something good may
come out of the lessons that should have been learned. It seems
ironic that people who exercise their own free will to eat in fast
food outlets can then decide to sue them for feeing them unhealthy
foods, whereas no one could take action to prevent this happening
within a family.

janice
233/161/133

On Mon, 22 Sep 2003 22:20:07 -0500, "Julianne"
wrote:

I went to visit my client who had the extremely obese patient today and
learned that she had died.

For those of you who do not remember, this was a 40ish year old patient who
weighed close to 500 pounds. She was physically unable to feed herself and
her family seemed to mistake food for love. I spent an afternoon with the
agency trying to come up with a decent plan of care. We even went as far as
having the family sign a contract that they would abide by the written
dietary guidelines we provided. About two days later they called asking if
perhaps we could approach the MD about having a feeding tube inserted
because they were afraid she wasn't getting enough protein. Don't go there.

The food diary mirrored the dietary guidelines and no one ever knew how the
fast food wrappers got into her bed. The patient was extremely compromised
and needed to be up in the chair to breath. When the family got adamant
that she stay up in the chair, she activated her emergency alarm and
summoned 911 to put her back to bed.

It is tragic. It is not the story of those of us on ASD but it made me sad,
all the same. She has teenage kids. Thanks to everyone who responded with
good advice on how to motivate this patient.

For what it is worth, we did have elderly protective services involved. I
likened the patient to an alcoholic who's family poured vodka down their
throat until they passed out and as soon as the patient stirred, they poured
even more never giving the patient a sober moment to consider their choices.

j