In Richard Lehman’s BMJ journal review, there was an amusing bit of interest to Ricardians:
King Richard III of England was 32 when he died at Bosworth and then famously suffered the indignity of being buried in a Leicester car park. I think I probably drew your attention to this account of his post-mortem examination when it appeared online last September. Had Richard III been spared avoidable mortality in the form of a bashed-in skull and a spear through his spine, he would probably have needed a walking frame by the age of 70. He was never in the best shape:
I, that am curtail’d of this faire Proportion,
Cheated of Feature by dissembling Nature,
Deform’d, unfinish’d, sent before my time
Into this breathing World, scarse halfe made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable,
That dogges bark at me, as I halt by them.
(from The Tragedy of Richard the Third: with the Landing of Earle Richmond , and the Battell of Boʃworth Field by Wm Shakespeare c.1592, First Folio text 1623)With his nasty scoliosis and his habit of moving around castles with smoky rooms and no hand rails on the stairs, Richard III would have needed an OT assessment and a dosset box containing all the drugs which are now compulsory for elderly people in the UK:
simvastatin 40mg to add 2 days to life and cause muscle aches
tramadol 50mg to fail to ease pain & cause dependency, falls, confusion
naproxen 500mg to cause GI bleeds and fluid retention
furosemide 20mg to reduce fluid retention due to naproxen
omeprazole 20mg to prevent GI bleeds, encourage C diff
senna 7.5mg to counter tramadol constipation
citalopram 20mg to cause serotonin syndrome with tramadol
trazodone 50mg for agitation due to serotonin, to worsen it & cause falls
gababentin MR 800mg to see if it will help pain
paracetamol 500mg because it hasn’t helped the pain
tamsulosin 400mcg for nocturia due to age and furosemide
lisinopril 5mg for “grade 2 CKD” due to furosemide & naproxen
Seretide inhaler for low FEV1 due to scoliosis
etc.My kingdom for a bit of horse-sense.
