Mum given DNR

[Fluffycloudsfloatinginthesky]

Just posting in here for support I guess. My mum has been in hospital after a fall she has sometimes been a bit confused but was moved ward as she no longer had medical requirements. Yet 2 days later she has been given a DNR and they say she still has an infection.

iI just found out tonight and have no idea if they don’t think she will pull through and something is imminent or it’s a ‘just in case’ thing.

its just all too much. I have a dd who is awaiting CAMHS referral and struggling at school, my eldest is sitting A levels in 2 weeks and has just been referred for CBT and also to Gastroenterology as she’s constantly feeling sick and keeps having to leave lessons.

My sister has massive mental health issues and I know she won’t be able to cope. My dad obviously will find it hard.

I just feel like everyone will be leaning on me and I could do with a bit of someone to lean on.

It should’ve been discussed with your mum or next
of kin if she’s not able. I’m presuming she’s elderly but generally its a discussion thats
often had with elderly patient when they are in hospital, it doesn’t necessarily mean they think they will need it it’s more of a advanced planning kind of thing to get the patients wishes on paper before they’re in a situation where it is needed. The form these days focuses around what they value too in terms of being at home or in hospital and stuff like that. The chances of CPR being successful and them ‘returning to normal’ in an elderly person is very very small so people often choose to not put themselves and their family through it and go peacefully. It also doesn’t mean that any other treatment wouldn’t be given ie antibiotics, etc.

As others have said a doctor will make, we hope a good decision in the moment about assisting or not breaking someones ribs.
However the need to pull out and get signed dnrs, usually from a vulnerable family member disgusts me.
When most of my family agreed, but I'd hadn't I had a really patronizing nurse try to explain my view away with broken ribs.
Honestly a good doctor will do the right thing in the moment.

It's quite delicate and there should be a lot more public information about the area.

It ties in to the low rate of CPR training. When I attended sessions, it was emphasized that the chances are never good - but if someone's heart isn't beating, you are never going to make things worse by trying CPR and AED use, and overall more people will survive if people do give it a go. Then we were all told to push a lot harder ("if you don't hear the ribs crack it's probably not hard enough" or something similar).

I have had 2 relatives have DNAR and if anything I would say they were both OVER-treated in their last days. It's just that when their hearts did finally stop, nobody rushed in and started whacking them to see if they could live another day or two with broken ribs.
By contrast, another relative didn't have it, and his wife (who found him after he passed away in his sleep) was traumatised by the sights and sounds of the paramedics performing CPR on his body.

You have to ask - if somebody cut off their air supply for a minute while jumping on their chest, how well would they recover? It's not about age, or shouldn't be. I have a friend who had a cardiac arrest in the gym and was successfully revived, in his mid 80s.

The annoying thing is that DNAR forms tend to get lost! Had an incident last year when we were asked to "discuss his treatment" and his wife went, "A DNR form was signed when he came in a few months ago!". Honestly.

Banks for the comments everyone. I went to see her yesterday and spent all afternoon there. She was quite drowsy and a bit confused at first and also a bit wheezy but got a more more alert later. We had to go to fracture clinic and xray so I thought she would be really sleepy when my dad / sister came. She wasn’t though and they said she was better than the day before. I then went again this morning and she was properly alert - had a good two way conversation with her for the first time since she’s been in which was Good Friday.

it seems like the extra strong antibiotics have kicked in.

she cannot even really stand up at all so mobility still an issue but we are ina much better place than when I started this thread.

Did you manage to speak to anyone about the DNR? I know it seems shocking to hear about, but like many others have already said, it’s likely to be a kindness. My very unwell FIL ‘could’ have slipped away peacefully with an internal bleed recently, instead they patched him up so he can lie in bed in pain/medicated a while longer.

just thought I’d update. My mum came off the IV antibiotics yesterday. She is better then before she went into hospital. It turns out she had Pneumonia, this was community acquired so before she had the fall.

having googled the symptoms of pneumonia in elderly people are quite random and not chest / lung related) and they match the issues she was having in the few weeks before she went in. Symptoms for which the gp did a load of tests for and didn’t come up with a diagnosis. So actually probably a good job she had a fall in the end as got her into hospital.

as a note they are stuff like incontinence, weakness and falls, loss of appetite and confusion.

Theres a lot of confusion about what a DNR is and what that means for the patient. A DNR doesn't mean they're expecting the worst to happen, it's simply a way of saying that IF the worst were to happen ie cardiac arrest that they wouldnt perform CPR. The reasons for this are usually because it is a violent degrading process with a very low likelihood of success and if they were successful how do they then explain to a confused elderly patient that every rib in her body is broken and she will likely suffer another arrest soon.

Think of CPR as a procedure/surgery, they are saying that they dont think it would be worth the suffering to even attempt it and that the effort would be futile. They arent saying that they're expecting this to happen, its discussed with every very ill/elderly patient or their family. It's also discussed thoroughly and documented however even if family disagree its mostly a medical decision made by the medical team, it's not something that family 'decide' on more that they have input into it.