Conversando com a pessoa a ser amputada : uma contribuição a psicologia medica

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

1991

RESUMO

The amputation of lower limbs is frequently indicaled as radical treatment for cronic arterial diseases. The amputee s psycho-social adaptation is deeply interwoven with the way the patient will react to the illness and face the surgery. This study aims at investigating and understanding the theories and feelings patients develop towards arterial disease. It also seeks to comprehend the expectations patients nurture about such an aggressive surgical intervention, the outook they have for rehabilitation and the relalionship they establish with the therapists. Twelve patients suffering from peripheral chronic artereopathy were followed up during hospitalization. They were interviewed not only during pre and pos-surgery periods, but also at hospital discharge and, later on, at their homes. The chronic arterial disease was described as an extremely painful, progressively limiting, serious pathology of long evolution. It inflicts great losses. To explain the disease onset, the patients elaborated theories which took into account several aspects, such as experiences prior to the illness, and mystical beliefs, mobilizing omnipotent fantasies of annihilation and destruction. Non-scientific attempts to cure the diseases were tried out based on these concepts. The positive, though short-living results obtained through eventually inefficient medical treatment also triggered off pessimism and skepticism towards the possibility of conserving the limb. Amputation has always been looked upon by the patients as a possible solution to their health problem. Besides realistic results, such as life preservation and pain relief, surgery, for amputation has also been either connected with idealized expectations, along the line of the cure for all health problems, or translated into the need for punishment, like some think that served you right. Due to the lack of physical rehabilitation planning and to the bleak chances for social reintegration, the forecast consequences concerning the loss of a limb mean, in most cases, living on the same limited life which the disease had previously imposed. Patients show little awareness of their real situation. Patient-doctor communication was felt to be insufficient to dissipate doubts and fears. The gathered evidence provided grounds for hypolheses to be raised which may contribute to facilitating the relationship between the person to be amputated and the therapeutic team.

ASSUNTO(S)

medicina e psicologia mutilados - psicologia

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