#god sometimes we get family members with MPOA who are acting irrationally

[laora-ryn]

so I work on a polytrauma inpatient floor, right? which boils down to more or less a TBI floor. Where people have A Lot Of Issues related to their head injury, which can include physical, cognitive, sensory, vestibular, basically anything you can think of

sometimes I just think about this patient. who was cognitively affected badly enough that they were determined to not have capacity, so their partner was MPOA. which is very common, the problem is that this partner was convinced that they knew better than the medical/therapy team about what the patient needed or what their capabilities were

on one interdisciplinary update meeting, the PT had just gotten finished telling everyone how the partner took the patient up and down a large flight of stairs, which they were DEFINITELY NOT clear to do, because 'oh they can handle it it's fine.' this was heart-stopping enough

and then the optometrist gets on with the most defeated look on her face. and explained. how this patient has a pretty complex pair of glasses due to their TBI affecting their vision, but they had communicated to the optometrist and the other low vision specialists that the glasses were working well for them and that they had decently functional vision.

but the partner took the glasses. and was yelling at the optometrist about how they were awful and how they wanted someone else to evaluate the patient because clearly they weren't working for them.

BECAUSE THE PARTNER PUT ON THE GLASSES THEMSELVES. AND COULDN'T SEE THROUGH THEM.

this pt got discharged home this week and the vibe of the meeting was 'godspeed friend, you're going to need it'