Managing autism in the ED – a new episode of Pomegranate

Aaron, a young man with autism, and his grandmother (and carer) have always found trips to the emergency department (ED) overwhelming. A simple two-page summary of Aaron’s history prepared by his psychiatrist is one of the ways his hospital visits were improved.

In this episode of Pomegranate – the RACP’s podcast, hear about the difficulties children with autism have when confronted with the hyperstimulated environment of the ED, the toll this can take on these children’s carers and ways medical specialists can interact with these patients to calm the situation.

In the podcast, psychiatrist Dr Kenneth Nunn says triage is something that can frustrate carers who have to repeat the patient’s history multiple times, which is where the simple patient history summaries that carers can hand to staff come in.
Aaron’s grandmother, Annette, has found this an invaluable tool. 

“All of a sudden everything changes, they suddenly think, okay, this could be serious, because some of the stuff with Aaron, people think couldn’t possibly be happening,” she says.

Consultant paediatrician Dr Meena Rattan says children with autism respond very well visual cues that explain to them what is going to happen using pictures. 

“Say Aaron has come, ‘So this is Aaron; he is sitting in the emergency department; this is doctor; this is nurse.’ And they kind of expect that this is going to follow this. And then you show them the picture of tablets, this tablet will be brought in by the nurse and they are going to dispense it to you.  So, that actually makes it really helpful for them to understand what is going to be the process involved,” she says.

Listen to Managing autism in the ED podcast episode by downloading or streaming on iTunes or  Android, or listen online.  

Claim CPD credits for listening to Pomegrante through MyCPD.