PEDIATRICS Vol. 10 No. 4 October 1952, pp. 444-449
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SOME EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH RESPIRATORY INSUFFICIENCY IN POLIOMYELITIS

CLIFFORD G. GRULEE JR. M.D.1

1 The Department of Pediatrics, Tulane University Medical School, New Orleans.

EVERY physician who has cared for a patient acutely ill with poliomyelitis is necessarily impressed with the psychologic impact of this disease. Yet if a search is made for writings on this subject, little information is found. There may be several reasons for this. Poliomyelitis as an acute disease is of relatively short duration, and in a general sense the issue is promptly determined. As a consequence, the physician has little opportunity to collaborate with the psychiatrist, or to evaluate the emotional status of his patients with a view toward clinical investigation of the point. Probably of greater importance is the physician's knowledge that psychologic problems differ only in degree from those associated with other diseases. Stated another way, he is on familiar, though very difficult and perplexing ground.

Since poliomyelitis is an epidemic disease, it frequently follows that the work-load of the physician does not permit allocation of time necessary for proper handling of emotional problems. This becomes particularly true if the diagnosis automatically means admission to a "Polio Unit." Facilities in such units are primarily geared to specialized care of a few complicated and severe cases, but may become overcrowded and understaffed by the unselective and routine admission of any affected individual. Only the "don'ts" of dealing with social and psychologic problems can be recorded from such experiences.

In this discussion, interest is chiefly in the respiratory complications of poliomyelitis, but from the standpoint of the patient's emotional reactions we cannot disregard a compounding of anxiety-producing factors. First, we are dealing with a sick individual and the constellation of his family and community.

Submitted on June 3, 1952