Medicine Makes No Sense to Me

[jarandhel]

Why on earth would anyone prescribe a potentially addictive narcotic for a 93 year old woman? My grandmother, since being released from the hospital, has been on two medications: a blood pressure pill, which I get, and something called a duragesic patch which releases a painkilling narcotic into her bloodstream over the course of three day intervals. It also seems to have the side effect of making her rather out of it until around the end of a cycle, which makes sense since it is after all a narcotic. But I have no idea why it was prescribed... she has not, to the best of my knowledge, complained of pain. Let alone a level of pain where I would think something so extreme would be used to counter it. The nurse told us the other day that when it is discontinued it will need to be stepped down gradually since it's a narcotic. I don't know about anyone else here, but I would think that unless absolutely necessary no medicine should be given to a 93 year old Alzheimer's patient that has the potential to cause her to go into withdrawal when it is discontinued... isn't that just common sense?

Definitely asking this doctor some pointed questions about her condition and treatment when we see him tomorrow.

Comments

[arhuaine.livejournal.com]

Perhaps they're using it as a sedative? (If so that's higjly unethical but it happens a LOT in geriatric care).

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

*shrugs* Talked to the doctor about it today... he says it was a "comfort care" issue... he's not sure whether or not she's in pain, since she can't communicate, and he thought not giving it to her if she was would be worse than giving it to her if she wasn't. Which makes sense, sort of, until you think about the fact that this is a morphine-based medicine (yeah, didn't know that until he said it today either). He's given us permission, based on the side effects, to discontinue it for the time being and see how that goes. Due to the very small dosage, he said we won't have to step it down like the nurse had said... so, here's hoping that everything goes well as she comes out of it again.