Tuberculosis Is An Illness Of The Elderly, The Alcoholic,...

Introduction Pulmonary tuberculosis is an illness of the elderly, the poor, the alcoholic, and, today, the drug addict. TB, an indication of the frightening mortality of tuberculosis is contained in a report written about New York City in 1826. At that time New York had a population of 166,086. The total number of deaths in the two years preceding the report was 9,359, of which 1,579 were due to consumption. This means TB accounted for 17% of deaths due to all causes. Even today, almost 150 years later, TIn 1971 in New York City there were 310 recorded deaths from TB. In 1972 the total rose to 331. Once up on a time although Pulmonary TB a leading cause of death was under control in US, still hundreds of cases were reported every week†¦show more content†¦TB patients need to take two first line drugs for a period of 18 months – two years, with this chemotherapy patient is non infectious within a period of 2 weeks and can come back to his normal daily activities even going back to work also. As a result hospitalization for TB these days is minimal; patients who tested positive for TB were usually hospitalized until smear is negative continuing the chemotherapy on an outpatient basis. Hospitalization is also useful in assessing or analyzing the drug side effects during chemotherapy. Role of nurse 25 years ago taking care of a patient infected with TB for a nurse was very complicated and the nurse would be late in completing her assignments due to time consuming isolating techniques at complete bed rest and facing an anxious patient for months and even years making the job undesirable and there was also a danger the nurse who is treating TB patient would infect herself with TB. But the breakthrough in the chemotherapy in the treatment of TB has distinctly affected the role of nurse. The new TB drugs have eliminated most of the dangerous aspects that involved in TB patient care, but the new role of nurse is more difficult because of increased responsibility, the success of treatment for TB depends on the patients regularly following the medication for a long period just like Hypertension and it is the duty of R.N’s to make certain