Conference of Officers in Charge of Government Hospitals Serving Veterans of the World War
History
Conference of Officers in Charge of Government Hospitals Serving Veterans of the World War
Medicine, Military; Military hospitals; World War, 1914-1918 -- Veterans -- Medical care -- United States
From the standpoint of rehabilitation of the epileptic, I must take into
consideration the particular type of epileptic we have in the hospital.
As Dr. Treadway stated, the majority of these man have not reached
probably the school grade of seven years. There has been an attempt on
the part of the rehabilitation department to make lawyers, doctors,
diplomats out of these epileptics. It is absurd and cannot be done.
These men are social and economic lepers, so far as their rehabilitation
is concerned. The communities do not want them. Their families do not
want them and the responsibility for their care rests upon the
Government. Then what is to be the solution of the disposition of these
men? I can see but probably two solutions to the question. Voluntary
hospitalisation is out of the question. I believe that that part of the
Bureau concerned with the compensation of these men, from an economical
standpoint, must take into consideration the question of the grouping of
these epileptics. There is a class which can live at home. There is
another class, not definitely formidable, which does need custodial
care. Then there is the psychiatric epileptic who needs psychopathic
institutional care. In arriving at the disposition of these men you must
take into consideration those three groups.
Then there is another group, there is a mixed group of epileptics. In
many instances we have noted, after a long period of observation, that a
man may react to some situation, starting out in a hysterical seizure
and wind up in a definite epileptic attack. That has been true in quite
a number of cases and I should like to urge upon the Bureau District
officers and those concerned, this one thing:
In referring cases to East Norfolk, I think a very careful examination
should be made of these men to determine as nearly as possible that they
are epileptics.
At East Norfolk there is a situation existing which I have endeavored to
correct; that is hospitalizing psycho-neurotics,—neuropsychiatry cases
which are not definitely epileptic, which are made worse by contact with
the epileptic patient. These men are being made worse every day. Some of
them simulate very closely the epileptic; many have learned to bite
their tongues as the epileptic does. They should not be hospitalized;
about 25% of the cases are not epileptic. I think that should be taken
into consideration and a careful survey made of these patients before
they are transferred to East Norfolk.
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