PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF BREATHING DIFFICULTIES IN POLIOMYELITIS

This article presents the importance of obtaining an adequate history of the patient's prepolio emotional state and its value as a guide in the person's management while undergoing treatment. However, the probability of being unable to determine the history of the child at the time of admission makes it important to review the steps and methods of handling all children during the period between the onset of illness and the securing of a full history. In brief, this means that proper handling should be accorded all children, particularly in relation to admission, in order to assure maximum safeguards for those who are predisposed toward emotional instability. Clinical observation sometimes affords an important clue to this in that it is not unusual for parents to ask the staff not to tell their child he has polio. In such cases it is usually weeks before the child asks the question, and often three to four months before he dares to voice "Am I crippled?" The implications for management of the patient and proper psychological handling are only too obvious. Author raises many questions and delineates four major problems which relate underlying psychological factors to breathing-failure threat in poliomyelitis. These problems may well be used as the nucleus of systematic research into "psychological reactions frequently associated with difficulties in breathing resulting from poliomyelitis." (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)