Word: patiently
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Actually, Presbyterian Hospital's decisions flowed from the pressures and imperatives arising from 30 years of social, medical and legal policies specifically designed to liberate patients from forced confinement. The development of effective drugs prompted states to begin the wholesale release of patients from hospitals. At the same time patient advocacy movements, citing stories of people left to languish for years in "snake pits," established an individual's right to refuse involuntary commitment or treatment...
...deinstitutionalized is common. But the director of the local mental-health association, Richard Van Horn, says "deinstitutionalization itself is not at fault. Adequate treatment dollars did not follow the population into the community." While the Federal Government initially planned to establish 2,000 community mental-health centers for released patients, no more than 800 were ever opened. Dwindling federal revenues have left communities without the means to treat the homeless mentally ill. New York State, for example, maintained 46,000 in-patient beds for the mentally ill in 1970; today the number is less than 6,000. Says Dr. Henry...
...heads a clinic called Chicken Soup Plus in Sacramento, charges only $30 for a pre-employment physical, far less than the $50-to-$75 fees that the city's doctors command. And, yes, she sometimes prescribes a pot of her own chicken soup, which she drops by a patient's home. Jean Sweeney-Dunn, who runs Community Nursing Services for the Elderly in Elmira, N.Y., asks $2 for a urine test and $5 for a blood-sugar analysis, a fraction of what a physician would charge...
...removal of a substantial part of the heart can severely restrict a patient's activities. In extreme cases, the organ's pumping action can be reduced by as much as 60%. To avoid these debilitating consequences, Jones' surgeon, George Magovern, wanted to try something new: bolstering her weakened heart with a muscle transplanted from her back...
...procedure was remarkable mainly because skeletal muscle and cardiac muscle are structurally different. Heart muscle works continuously, using oxygen at a steady rate. It never tires. Skeletal muscle is designed for short bursts of intense effort and fatigues easily. Ten years ago, while operating on a patient whose pacemaker had slipped out of place, Magovern made a chance observation. The patient's chest muscle, stimulated by the misplaced device, had doubled in size and showed no signs of fatigue. Other researchers independently proved that skeletal muscles actually come to resemble their cardiac counterparts when electrically conditioned...