CONVALESCENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 13, 16 January 1926, Page 16

CONVALESCENCE

THE DOCTOR AND WHEN WE '

ARE GETTING BETTER.

When a patient has "turned the corner" of a grave illness, and it is safe to relax the vigilant care he has hitherto demanded, the doctor is liable to lose interest to some extent in the further progress of the case, says the "Lancet." It is a very natural reaction from the strain of his heavy responsibilities; when recovery is practically assured he can minimise the output of his mental energy, and, with a cheery '' How are we to-day?'' can chat of irrelevant mattors with' a vague idea of "cheering the patient ;up.'' TEet to \th« patient himself the period of convalescence is, perhaps, ?the moat trying part of the illness.

In the acute stage he lies passive, concentrated on the one supreme effort of .battling for life, and released Itoa mil o.ther a-espoasibilitios by the, assiduous care of doctor, nurse, and friends. As lire comes back gradually from ■this relatively simple form to the -highly complex thing that modern .civilisation has made- it, : his enfeebled powers are apt to groan under the burden they have once ijnojc to pick up and carry. The "fractiousness of convalescence" is so unimportant compared to the life-and-death issues we have to control as beat we can that doctors and nurses are too prone to dismiss it with a patronising .umile and forget that the patient is .not fractious from love of evil or original sin, any more, indeed, than is the child; both are struggling with an adjustment to life thai; is sightly overtaxing their powers Qf adaptation. The ;convalescent period is well worth the thoughtful attention of <the practitioner. «