[ExI] wheelchair driving drunk

[spike]

On Behalf Of Alex Blainey
Subject: Re: [ExI] wheelchair driving drunk

 

-----Original Message-----
From: spike <spike66 at att.net>


>>.If such a device continually monitored the air around a patient's head,
it could be programmed to know the weight of the patient and could deliver
alcohol into a drinking water mechanism.......
> spike 


>.What about a catheter or trans-dermal bladder based measurement device?
Possibly for delivery also. Its effectively part of the bloodstream as a
fluid & nutrient buffer as well as a waste disposal storage point. Full of
the alcohol byproducts from the liver and giving an indication of hydration
I think it could be quite accurate. Would it get around issues of other
devices getting false reading due to hydration level? (if that is an issue)
Alex Blainey

 

Good thinking, but now I am thinking of how to do this without involving
medical personnel.  Read on please:

 

 

Gregory Lewis wrote:

 

>.I'm a doctor.

 

Pleased to meet you Dr. Lewis.  I was hoping some of you guys would chime
in.

 

>. Pretty sure none of this is being contemplated by the medical profession,
primarily because of the medical norm that nicotine/alcohol/etc. are bad
things, and not the things one prescribes to one's patients.

 

Agreed.  This is why I am hoping to use those chemicals that don't require a
doctor.  This in itself creates a new level of complication in two ways.
Elderly people tend to have a handful of pills they take for various things.
Alcohol messes with a lot of medications, killing some and amplifying some.
One might argue that a person in the condition I have described might as
well just drop the meds, but I wouldn't make that call myself.  In any case,
I wouldn't suggest any doctor prescribe such a device.  This would be a case
where engineers would modify devices already in existence, and just put them
to work without a doctor's supervision.  This is as much for the doctor's
protection as it is to help the patient.

 

When you hear the next phase of the idea, you might see where I am going.

 

>.Also the related medical norm of the treatment/enhancement distinction:
giving stuff to improve patients health is okay, as is stop disease negative
effecting wellbeing - giving out drugs to make one feel happier is generally
not deemed acceptable.

 

Ja.  That part is rolled into that whole ".First, do no harm." business.
One could argue that making the patient cheerfully drunk might be doing
harm.  I wouldn't ask an actual doctor to participate in it.

 

We already have hands-free alcohol enabling devices, such as a beer hat:

http://atimetocastawaystones.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/beer-hat-beer-helme
t-pic-8.jpg

 

We needed stuff like this in college, especially at football games.  An
example of such an occasion at the University of Florida when at a game, one
needed both hands free to do the gator chomp when the team scored or made a
good play.  One hasn't really lived until one has witnessed half a crowded
stadium doing the gator chomp.  One could not risk spilling one's beer.

 

What I am proposing would be a beer-chair.  But not necessarily with beer.

 

>.(There's also the generalized social fallout: "Evil nursing home drugs the
elderly!" etc. etc.)  Dr. Gregory Lewis

 

Ja.  We would really need an independent contractor to do this, rather than
have the nursing home have any involvement.  This too could be arranged for
a reasonable price.

 

Now for the other part of the idea.  If we manage to work out some means of
allowing a patient to spend their declining days comfortably inebriated, our
next problem is taking care of the bodily wastes.  I had a scheme for this,
one which still would not require a doctor or anyone with any actual
liability risk.  If a patient is drunk, there is an additional risk of
getting them to a toilet on a regular basis.  Toilets are still made of cold
hard ceramic material which presents a risk to the brittle bones of an
ageing AD patient.  But consider the following flight of fancy.

 

If we had a wheelchair in which the patient sat on a ring of individually
inflatable bladders with sensors, we could rotate the load bearing part of
the rear to prevent bedsores.  The patient would sit over a cone-shaped
waste-handling device with a tank receptacle.  The patient could just let it
fly at any time, since they wouldn't be wearing any undergarments, but
rather a water-proof apron of sorts with elastic around the waist.  Sensors
could react when the patient expels waste material, and spray the behind
with a jet of warm water and a blower for drying purposes.  We can even
imagine the wheelchair rolling itself to a waste-dumping station.  We could
imagine a feedback system introducing a laxative into the water as well.
Hell if we are imagining a mechanism like this one, we might as well attempt
to design one which would allow the patient to be put in it in the morning,
stay right in it all day and be placed in their bed at night, with no costly
human intervention in between.

 

Ja I realize this vision is growing quite complicated and expensive, but if
you know how much nursing homes cost, you will immediately see how practical
is this idea.  If kept sufficiently drunk and comfortable, perhaps an AD
patient could be kept in her own home rather than in a facility.  Recall a
typical AD patient can cost about 8k per month.  I can envision a good
electric wheelchair with entirely non-invasive instrumentation, fanny
washer, all of it, for a couple months nursing home fee.

 

spike

 

 

 

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