Functional decline after hospitalization is not a verdict
Medicine knows that a blood pressure reading describes a moment. Yet when an older adult is hospitalized, a snapshot of function can become a verdict. A patient is assessed while infected, sleep-deprived, medicated, dizzy, or delirious. That performance can then…
Medicine knows that a blood pressure reading describes a moment. Yet when an older adult is hospitalized, a snapshot of function can become a verdict.
A patient is assessed while infected, sleep-deprived, medicated, dizzy, or delirious. That performance can then shape assumptions about whether the person can recover or return home. The dangerous leap is from “cannot today” to “will not again.”
Consider a hypothetical scenario familiar to rehabilitation clinicians. Before an …
Functional decline after hospitalization is not a verdict
