Hospitals in the 1950s (specifically stroke care)

I can't answer your stoke question.

Children were allowed to visit hospital, but they generally couldn't visit patient rooms until they were 12 or 13 (since little tikes have a way of running around everywhere and making a lot of noise). Children had to stay in the main waiting room (which allowed smoking, by the way). Visiting hours ended around 8:00 or 9:00 pm.

I was going to add my own comment about cigarette smoking - in many hospitals, you could even smoke in the patient's room, or at the very least, hang out in the hallway with a lit cigarette in your mouth.

You could definitely smoke in the patient's room — and so could the patient.

Visiting hours, however, were fairly strictly enforced as I recall. Only two or three hours long, and only one or two visitors at a time. The medical part I know zip about.

Do you realize how depressing it is to have part of your life viewed as HISTORY???

Hospitals stays were much longer back then. My mother had surgery on her leg veins (stripping out varicose ones) in 1955 and was in the hospital for three weeks as I remember. I was 11 and not allowed to visit her. I could wave at her window from outside the hospital and that was all. And, I'm pretty sure visiting hours in general were much restricted as compared to now - about three two-hour periods a day and that was all.

Stroke care - I'm not sure. My grandmother had one in 1952 and died in the hospital. I don't think there was really any treatment available - just hoping for the best. There was another word used for stroke prior to that (and possibly then) that might help you track some infomation down - try apoplectic fit or apoplexy and see whether that brings up any old information. I think diagnosis was based mainly on visual findings - the typical stroke symptoms.

Hope that helps. Puma

Puma said:

Stroke care - I'm not sure. My grandmother had one in 1952 and died in the hospital. I don't think there was really any treatment available - just hoping for the best. There was another word used for stroke prior to that (and possibly then) that might help you track some infomation down - try apoplectic fit or apoplexy and see whether that brings up any old information. I think diagnosis was based mainly on visual findings - the typical stroke symptoms.

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Apoplexy

Grandmother (in the 50s) and my Dad (in the 60s) - they were to be kept calm. Their doctors encouraged family to talk to the them. The sooner they were trying to talk the better.

Dad started talking as soon as anyone entered. Though English was his first language, he used any words he could access from all the languages he knew - English, German, French, Latin. He used so much German that doctors thought he was German and got him a German speaking doctor. He was seen by more than one doctor. I guess the German was a cardiac specialist. To keep speaking and save his ability to lecture (he was a professor) Dad repeated most of King Lear, which made the nurses think he was depressed. End of story, he did keep his speaking skills and his ability to lecture. Grandmother recovered from her stroke without problems.

One of my friends at school had a stroke as a child and the left side of her face drooped/sagged a bit. Neither Grandmother nor my father had that happen.


You might want to check to see whether or not the hospitals in the area for your story were segregated. Also remember no medicare or medicaid.
Doctors tended to treat nurses as servants and weren't interested in their opinion. n the 50s nurses didn't have a union, but they were proud of their work and many gave all they had to it.

I remember being in the hospital in 1954 (tonsils). That was about the time that tile floors came in (think they were called asphalt tiles) and the floor was in a pattern of tiles in two different colors. Very modern and up to date (for then.) There were three kids in the room I was in, one was a toddler and she was in a wood crib much like ones used in homes. Mothers were allowed to stay overnight in the room and slept in chairs beside the beds. By today's standards, that hospital room probably would be substandard for a third world country. I remember it as being dark and not anywhere near as clean as we expect hospitals to be.

But tile floors - those were somewhat the standard in hospitals in that period and possibly a nice authenticating touch to add. Puma

From...

an outsite the States pov I remember that massage was used on the afflicted limbs. I was too young to really notice but I think it was the District Nurse who visited my Great Aunt every day to work on her muscles.