Problem: Respond to my classmate discussion post
Amanda Rivera posted
Muscles are essential to the human body's movement and coordination with other organs and functions (e.g., the skeletal system & skeletal muscles). A muscle's job is to contract and shorten, or to relax back to its resting length, with this, it made me think about two scenarios near and dear to my heart. My 70-year old relative and her lack of regular exercise, and another relative who is inpatient for a rare stroke disorder. For the continuation of the discussion, these two persons, or patients A and B, are of concern regarding muscle focus.
Patient B has been inpatient for a while now. When first admitted, she had air compression machines for her legs. Normally, I would see gym-goers use these to compress their sore muscles. The hospital used these to circulate the blood in her legs as she was bed-bound post- surgery and unable to walk for a few days. The first thing I thought of, before we started Week 5, was her muscle atrophy. "The mechanism involves the use of a certain low-frequency pulse current to stimulate the nerves and muscles to contract the muscles, thereby optimizing local blood circulation and promoting the recovery of the damaged muscles (Chen et al, 2021)." Therefore, it makes me think of other admitted patients and how these machines would help them regain some muscle strength, which is essential to normal movement.
Patient A, alternatively, makes me think of muscle atrophy as we age. The official medical term is sarcopenia, which is the age-related loss of skeletal muscle mass and function. It is associated with increased physical frailty and increased risk of morbidity. "The loss of muscle mass occurs incipiently from middle-age (-1%/year), and in severe instances can lead to a loss of -50% by the 8-9th decade of life (Wilkson et al, 2018)"; Why does this matter? Working previously in the Admissions Department at a hospital showed me that many elderly patients require emergency surgery after falling. Sometimes, it would be at 2 o'clock in the morning when we would need to call in on-call clinicians to perform a hip replacement. Therefore, the main thing that would help future patients is tackling muscle atrophy before they are admitted. "Exercise therapy is the most effective treatment for skeletal muscle atrophy (Huang et al, 2022)."
What may help inpatients at risk of muscle atrophy include the aforementioned machine, drug treatment, gene therapy, physical therapy, and more (Huang et al., 2022). Ultimately, the decision on the best course of action would be made by the clinical staff and the patient. Need Assignment Help?