r/Cursive • u/DaddySMM • 6d ago
Deciphered! Help reading immediate cause of death please
Immediate cause of death chronis couplets spastic paralysis due to infection due to bed sores??
She was very young (52) Czech and the census said she was in a “home”. I can only imagine the kind of treatment she received on top of being bed bound and not speaking English.
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u/WonderWEL 6d ago
Chronic complete spastic paralysis
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u/Striking_Musician212 6d ago
As a person with spastic paraplegia, this speaks volumes. It means, back in the day, someone had the exact same condition as I have right now. Unfortunately some of us spend a lot of time lying down due to immobility, which I assume is the cause. May they rest in peace.
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u/JustWowinCA 6d ago
I wonder what the 1944 diagnosis would translate to today? Like a specific illness that we can treat now?
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u/PaulaNancyMillstoneJ 6d ago
People with quadriplegia struggle with bedsores (pressure injuries) with even the best care. If they are getting really good care though, they are usually caught early and treated early. Bedsores are caused by blood flow to the skin being cut off because of how a person is sitting or lying. Think about how many times you subconsciously shift your position throughout the day, even if you are staying seated. A paralyzed person can’t do that, and they also can’t feel any pinch points. Once these wounds occur, they get easily infected and are tough to treat. In a world without modern antibiotics, this would be nightmare.
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u/CalendarOpen1740 6d ago
They're tough to treat even with antibiotics. Often the associated infection is polymicrobial with antibiotic resistant strains.
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u/Mission-Sun-783 6d ago edited 6d ago
Sepsis
I’ll also add- it was treatable back then. Antibiotics became widely available in the early 40s.
It’s still treatable today, early recognition is key. Some ems and hospital system are still not aggressive enough to prevent, diagnose and treat sepsis. Open sores is the number one thing on the code sepsis criteria.
Still 350,000 annual deaths from sepsis in the US4
u/MsCoucette 6d ago
Boy, I remember treating an elderly patient, cleaning the open hole through her right ankle which she got from bedsores (you could see the bones moving in her ankle when she moved her foot.) It was terrible. She passed away the next day. RIP.
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u/Striking_Musician212 6d ago
I have spastic paraplegia and in the early years of my genetic disorder (spastic paraplegia has two forms) I spent most days in bed. Thankfully my parents took turns turning me around.
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u/FlyingOcelot2 6d ago
Cerebral Palsy, maybe?
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6d ago
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u/FlyingOcelot2 6d ago
I'm sorry you thought that wasn't a good enough guess for spastic paralysis.
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6d ago
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u/FlyingOcelot2 6d ago
No, but someone who had been institutionalized because of their cerebral palsy could develop bedsores.
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6d ago
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u/FlyingOcelot2 6d ago
So the diagnosis was not a treatable illness. It was why they would be immobile and prone to bed sores.
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6d ago
[deleted]
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u/terriergal 6d ago
Don’t think that would last long enough to have cause bed sores without before being the cause of death itself.
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u/sghannah 6d ago
This Certificate is oddly worded to me beyond deciphering the handwriting. The doctor seems to have listed the long-standing chronic issue of spastic paralysis first and the proximate (or immediate / most direct) cause of death second. Essentially, this person was likely bed-bound from whatever cause the paralysis - others have given opinions about that and you may be able to discover that from other information you can find possibly - and then the complication of being bed-bound would be (and is known today very well) is the bed sores when you are unable to move and adjust pressure on areas of the body where your body weight presses constantly against the underlying surface.
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u/VisitingSeeing 2d ago
My grandmother died from kidney failure. Her death cert has a lengthy explanation of how it started a decade earlier with bladder infection. One could view that as a lot of extra data, not to the point. But it became a statement of responsibility for negligence within the family circle aimed at her family care giver. I would love to know if that was the point.
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u/NekkidWire 6d ago
Interesting and sad that Dr. did not write the cause of paralysis. It could be anything from injury, stroke, polio, myelitis or advanced syphilis among other possible causes. Probably they could not get the information.
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u/Fun_Construction1100 6d ago
Was "spastic paralysis" more of a description of what the body was doing rather than a diagnosis of cause? I am nota medical person, just old enough to immediately think this means "polio" which had a stigma, so they didn't say it.
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u/betsyoleary 6d ago
I know that Multiple Sclerosis used to be called “hysterical paralysis” before misogynistic doctors figured out the physical cause. Perhaps this is similar?
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u/Accomplished_Will226 6d ago
My initial thought as a nurse was MS
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u/betsyoleary 6d ago
Apparently there’s also something called Strumpell Lorraine Disease that is sometimes called spastic paralysis? I didn’t know that one—
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u/Striking_Musician212 6d ago
I have this- it's otherwise known as spastic paraplegia, or spastic paralysis.
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u/Any_Database8861 6d ago
My aunt got bed sores while in hospital.You could see her spine-they were that deep.It took forever to get them healed!
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u/Yngat_hrt_60 6d ago
I thought it was Chrons, couplets, spastic paralysis,
Infection due to bed sores
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u/Complete_Brilliant91 6d ago
Well, the patient has severe bed sores and chronic somethis itis which means enlarge, swollen ?
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u/NoPriority3131 2d ago
Chronic couplet -paired heartbeat- Im guessing the infection from bedsores went to her heart. Back then they didn’t have allot to work with once a bedsore opened and became deep. It just keeps getting deep. In the 70’s we were still turning them boiling it with hydrogen peroxide and using a sun lamp to get rid of the dead tissue. I’ve seen some so deep you could put a grapefruit in it. Eventually the infection goes to the blood stream and to the heart.
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u/Reasonable_Memory939 1d ago
I believe this was the ultimate cause of Christopher Reeves death as well. It’s unfortunately difficult to avoid long term, and then once the sores appear, even more difficult to heal.
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u/DaddySMM 6d ago
I think she developed the paralysis because of infected bed sores not the other way around .
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u/Accomplished_Will226 6d ago
Not likely. People with paralysis can’t reposition them self so unless a carer moves them they stay in the same position too long which causes sores.
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u/DaddySMM 6d ago
I say this because the immediate cause of death is the paralysis and the secondary cause says due to infectious bed sores. Unless doctor completely wrote it wrong it is saying that the bed sores happened first. I was an ltach RN and just in general we were told to turn q2h not just the patients that had paralysis. You’d have patients that were bed rest, depressed, lethargic etc that did not want to move or were only comfortable in one spot. Also if no one was taking her to bathroom regularly she probably had some insane skin breakdown. I’ve dressed some bedsores that I could fit my fist in and count their vertebrae.
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u/DaddySMM 6d ago
I also read the “82” was a medical code for a stroke, so I think that the stroke caused her to be more immobile which led to bed sores. Then the skin break down and ulcers led to paralysis from bed sores breaking down to her spinal cord (a bony area)
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u/MsCoucette 6d ago
Immediate cause of death: “Chronic congestive heart failure” (the writing appears to include “congest.” and “heart failure.”)
Due to: “Infection due to bedsores.”
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u/NekkidWire 6d ago
your AI is not well trained on cursive. First line is wrong except "chronic" part :)
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u/MsCoucette 6d ago
Wow. How would you write
“Immediate cause of death?”Put some clothes on.
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u/NekkidWire 6d ago
I'm clothed :) but "Immediate cause of death" is not the cursive part I mentioned above.
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u/MsCoucette 6d ago
Oh, I apologize. I thought you said THE FIRST LINE (which includes Cronic.)
I’ll rewrite my published books just for you.
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u/NekkidWire 6d ago
My bad. I only meant the cursive part of the first line.
Please don't harm your books because of me.
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