Gnashing of Teeth

An elderly teacher was admitted with a fractured humerus. Retired for quite a number of years, she’d developed a drinking habit. The fracture was in her upper arm and was to have surgery the next day. For some reason her physician decided to delay the surgery and place it in a hanging cast.

During the night she became extremely agitated, apparently in need of a drink. She thrashed about in her bed and we were fearful she would fall and injure herself further. Placing her into a Geri-chair was no easy task, but once it was done we moved her to the nursing station where she could be watched. We tried many diversionary tactics, but she was adamant that she wanted out of the hospital. She wasn’t rational and she was fuming.

It wasn’t long until we heard, “Click-click... Click-click... Click-click.” We turned to see her waving her injured arm wildly, broken bone ends were grating against each other. We feared the broken ends would cause damage to nerves and blood vessels in her arm. We tried to notify her doctor for medication to calm her down. In the meantime I folded a bath blanket and using several sheets, splinted her arm securely to her body:. Now she really went wild unable to throw her arm around, she screamed to “Take this thing off,” and “Let me go home.” She looked at us with wild eyed fury.

When her free and uninjured hand couldn’t reach the knots, she began to bite at the linens pausing only long enough to scream at us and grab a breath of air. We could only watch, keeping her safe. We hoped she would eventually tire and fall asleep. There was nothing more we could do until her doctor called to give an order to medicate her. What happened next still amazes me to this day. Biting harder and harder, she kept worrying the linens until something flew out of her mouth. Searching the floor we found her two front teeth. She’d bitten down so hard that her teeth popped from her dentures. We’d stopped her from damaging her arm, but we made her so angry she broke her own dentures.

Fearful of the consequences, we called the nursing supervisor explaining the entire episode. She knew how wildly the woman was acting. We had to notify the nursing supervisor before calling the physician. We placed her teeth in her denture cup and put them at her bedside. After several more hours of raging and thrashing about with her non-casted right arm, she finally fell asleep.