Mitral Valvotomy in Elderly Patients

Abstract

Disability and Breakdown-Binks , MEDICALJOURNAL The situation in which these requests have been arising is analysed and related to the presuppositions which lay behind the ideas expressed in the requests.There is no evidence in this country that families are irresponsible, but plenty to indicate that shortage of hospital services for the elderly in the area under review are artificially produced, there being, overall, on accepted criteria, a great excess of hospital beds in relation to the resident population.The main cause for this was the obsession with medical science and technology giving a producer-orientated service, the source and generator of runaway medicine.The old historical accidents of " acute " and " chronic," given indirect statutory sanction in the past, have been perpetuated despite the disappearance 20 years ago of the legal obligations which determined their perpetuation.The alternative to the scientific approach is the rejection and conspiracy of residual custody, with their assault on human dignity, for those for whom or to whom science could do nothing. This traditional approach cannot be contained in an affluent society with full employment and a decreasing number of single women.The answers lie in the historian's method of approach, which is more inclusive than the scientific, the concept of breakdown in practical and effective living, and the place a hospital has in providing sufficient support for the maximum of personal independence.Disability is not the same as disease and explanation is not prediction reversed.

Fifteen-to Twenty-Year Study of One Thousand Patients Undergoing Closed Mitral Valvuloplasty

“…[4][5][6][7][11][12][13][14][15][16] The one factor emerging which unequivocally and overwhelmingly influences long-term results is significant calcification of this mitral valve. This is Circulation, Volume XLVIII, August 1973 consistently true regardless of age, sex, preoperative status, or the presence of minor degrees of mitral insufficiency or minor aortic valve disease.…”