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 Maxillofacial Trauma

And again, this is my son Joey.  He and gravity are very close friends.  But it happens everywhere, and this is a disease entity associated with young people.  I hope I was able to tailor this to most of you.  Some other notes related to these folks postoperatively and in terms of their postoperative course on the floors for those nurses and wannabe nurses that are out there.  Some important issues with regards to patients who are wired shut - patients who are wired shut, and it may seem obvious, but sometimes this is something that’s not so obvious when you are the person that has to take care of this person, they can talk.  Their tongue is not wired shut.  They have difficulty taking pills if they have all their teeth.  Okay.  Most of these patients, psychologically, from the time that they were in the womb and their jaws formed to the time that they suffered the injury, had been able to move their mouth to chew, move their mouth to talk, stick their tongue out and give raspberries at their teacher at school.  This is a huge psychological element of our lives, and these injuries take that away, with my help, wiring them shut.  Now that ability is gone for six weeks or so.  These patients are scared.  They feel claustrophobic.  There is a lot of TLC that’s required with these folks.  Their nutritional status becomes an issue because most of them, for the average 70 kg patient, they are going to need roughly 6-8 cans of Ensure Plus or Boost Plus rather, just to meet their basal metabolic requirement, not to mention what’s going on secondary to the trauma to sustain them nutritionally.  These are all very important concerns.  I can show results from repairs of patients with horrific injuries, but this is a team approach.  None of these successes happen without the nurses on the floor, the physical therapy people, all the other docs involved, this was a multidisciplinary approach to taking care of patients, and that’s an important element.  Nursing care postoperatively, for these patients, in many instances, have a huge effect on that 45 percent that don’t follow-up at least one appointment.  And I would like to thank you for your time and address any of your questions.