One of my happy memories as in Intern is the ward Sister on one of the wards where I worked. In those days of open Nightingale wards with 10 patients down each side and Sister very much in charge of everything, "Frankie" ruled supreme!
One of her great delights was hidden in the linen cupboard. Here amongst the sheets and pillow slips were to be found two large Winchester bottles containing hospital grade brandy! What she did was to get the Interns to order a "wee dram" of Brandy for all the elderly ladies on the ward - and that meant 90% of the patients - which was duly administered in a cup of warm milk .... minus about 5mls of the prescribed "dose". Over a period of months she managed to fill two Winchesters that she kept for the Staff Christmas party, which was always a roaring success!!
Since then I've always been under the impression that a small drop of spirits was the least offensive form of night sedation for the elderly: but sadly recent research may be proving me wrong. What the researcher found was that sleep quality ratings were worse for those drinking alcohol compared with those who received a placebo drink in the trial. And women who drank alcohol suffered more sleep disruption than their male tipplers!
The only thing that I can say about the study was that the researchers got their subjects to drink until intoxicated, something any self respecting senior would reject with great indignity! In fact the study reinforces the serious downsides of drinking outside ones safe individual limit -as a rule of thumb that means one to two standard drinks for a woman and two to three for a man, allowing for size variations, medications, illnesses etc -.
What I'm looking forward to is the result of a trial where those with mild sleep disturbances are enrolled and one group gets the "Hot Toddy" and the other gets the Warm Milk: anyone interested?
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