Epilepsy is a neurological disorder that results from disturbance of the nerves in the brain cells. As a consequence, the disturbance of the brain nerve cells sends the wrong signal to the body. During these periods, a person with epilepsy conveys peculiar behavior or evinces feelings that might be unexplainable such as strange sensations. Depending on the type of disturbance, the seizures range from small and undetected to long-time seizures that involve vigorous shaking. The seizures have no immediate cause, and hence, a person does not deem any seizure that is caused by a particular reason to be epilepsy.
The cause of epilepsy in most individuals is unknown as many people exhibit epilepsy symptoms without following any particular trend. However, there are known causes of epilepsy that include brain injury. If the brain is physically injured to the extent that the nerve system is affected, there are more chances that an individual will have epilepsy. Moreover, stroke might cause epilepsy since the nervous systems, especially the one extended to the brain, will malfunction, leading to the uncoordinated nervous system. Furthermore, drug and alcohol abuse is one of the known causes of epilepsy.
During the time of admission, Mr. Fredrick did not show any signs of a seizure, and hence, this fact was only supposed to be used as side knowledge. Mr. Fredrick is non-verbal in his communication and physically disabled; hence, he might not have been able to express his condition well to the medical officer both by the physical or verbal means. As a consequence, he was assigned to category five. However, judging from the reaction of the care staff, the medical officer ought to have reviewed Mr. Fredrick’s placement. The reason is that it was not normal for the patient to expose such kind of behavior. The practitioner should have reviewed his placement in order to determine whether the situation was as severe as they said. Moreover, while waiting for the review, there was no practitioner to assess the level of pain that the patient was experiencing. In fact, it is in the nurses’ code of professional ethics to review each complaint to establish the level of severity. Mr. Fredrick might have been in severe pain that needed anesthetic. However, the practitioner did not give the patient medical attention as they did not perceive pain as serious as the caregivers protested.
Mr. Fredrick could not verbally express what he felt, and for that reason, CT scan was necessary in order to assess the condition. The CT scan revealed that the patient suffered from Pancreatic Necrosis, which is a serious condition that results from acute pancreatitis. If pancreatitis occurs recurrently, with time, the tissues within the pancreas may become inactive or even necrotize as a result of which one becomes infected. An abscess, which is also an infection, might attack the necrotized tissues in the pancreas, leading to serious complications. When some parts of the pancreas die, they release the digestive enzymes to the fatty tissues. As a result, a bigger number of enzymes corrode the fatty tissue and continue to cause widespread death of these tissues.
There are several factors that might cause pancreatic necrosis, some of which include regular intake of alcohol that might cause the death of one part of the pancreas. Moreover, there might be hereditary pancreatitis that a child inherited from the parents. Additionally, some drugs might cause pancreatitis that in return leads to pancreatic necrosis; some of these drugs include diuretics, gliptins, and mercaptopurine. Furthermore, there are infections that could cause partial death of the pancreas such as mumps and viral hepatitis. Talking about radiation x-ray, it might also damage one part of the pancreas, triggering pancreatic necrosis that develops with time, though it might be a little slow in such cases.
It is possible to clinically diagnose pancreatic necrosis through blood tests. Apparently, it requires further CT evaluation to establish whether it is mild or acute necrosis. However, in this case, it was hard to establish the condition that Mr. Fredrick was suffering from since he could not give any verbal clues. What is more, since he was physically disabled, he might not have given enough physical clues to help the medical officers assess his situation.
