Posts Tagged ‘illness’
Written by Shawn Onseo on 23 April 2010
COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) is a generic term used to cover two conditions – chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Both cause obstruction of the airways, though in different ways, and reduce oxygen-CO2 exchange efficiency. As a result, detailed tests are required to distinguish the two diseases. But a set of generic tests which measure airflow, blood oxygen levels, and other factors are still used in an initial diagnosis of COPD.
Spirometry Tests
The first COPD test is a non-invasive test called lung spirometry. Spirometry evaluates lung capacity by measuring the lung’s ability to exchange air. The spirometry test requires the patient to deeply inhale and then exhale air into a measurement tube. Three components are then measured: FEV1 (forced expiratory volume after one second), FEF25-75 (forced expiratory flow at 25% to 75%) and FVC (forced vital capacity). These measurements are ranked by your doctor and compared to healthy patients. An initial COPD diagnosis is made if the patient ranks lower than 70% compared to a healthy person.
The spirometry test is typically performed several times. In some cases, a bronchodilator is used which lessens the airway restriction and then a “post-bronchodilator spirometry” test is performed. Using this method, your physician can both confirm the COPD diagnosis and tell if the condition can be treated effectively.
Measuring Lung Volume
Doctors also measure lung volume using gas dilution or plethysmography. Lung dilution involves inhaling nitrogen or helium and measuring the gas volume to determine lung volume. Body plethysmography requires the patient getting into an airtight chamber and breathing in and out through a tube. The air volume is measured as pressure changes in the chamber to determine the approximate lung volume of the patient. These tests results are going to be adjusted based on a patient’s height, age, and other factors so that the patient can be compared to similar people with healthy lungs.
Diffusion Capacity
Since the primary function of the alveoli (the tiny sacs at the end of the bronchioles or airways) is to enable gas exchange (of O2 and CO2), a measure of their diffusion capacity is diagnostic. In this test, the patient inhales a small amount of CO (carbon monoxide). In large amounts it is toxic, but at the levels of the test it is perfectly safe. The amount taken up into the blood is measured by extracting a blood sample and measuring the CO content. This is one way in which emphysema is detected.
Oximetry
In order to diagnose COPD, doctors need to determine how much oxygen is in the bloodstream. This can be done several ways. One test measures oxygen content in arterial blood but removing blood from the arteries can be very painful so oximetry is an alternative that is used in many cases. Oximetry involves shining light through the thumb and measuring the light that comes out the other side. This measurement can tell doctors what the oxygen levels are without drawing blood but it is not as accurate as actual blood tests.
Find out more about COPD treatment options at www.HealthHints.org. Stop by Shawn Onseo’s website to see more free tips on quitting smoking, COPD, lung health and more.
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Tags: chronic bronchitis, COPD, disease, emphysema, Fitness, Health, illness, lung health, Self Improvement, self-help
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Written by Aidyn Huffman on 18 April 2010
In the places where warm blooded animals sleep, you will find bed bugs. These tiny parasitic insect have one food: the blood of birds and mammals. They are more transferred in places where different animals interact. For humans, that means hospitals, apartment buildings, the workplace and schools. Bed bugs are less likely in rural areas then in the city. This was not always the case.
The fifty years between the early 1940s and the late 1980s were the first time in history that a substantial portion of the human population lived without sharing its bed with the bed bug. Prior to the use of DDT, bed bugs were a common nuisance throughout human history. Widespread use of DDT spray to control pest populations in the 1930s and 1940s were believed to have exterminated bed bugs from essentially all of the continental United States by the end of World War II.
Resurgence in the bed bug populations of the United States and Canada started in the 1990s. The growing epidemic is showing no signs of slacking. Some reports place the rate of increase at 500 per cent over the past decade.
It is believed that there are a number of factors behind this new epidemic of bed bugs. The increase in international travel has been cited as one possible cause. Another widely cited contributory factor is new methods of pest-control. In the 1990s fumigators began to use bait to control cockroaches rather than pesticide sprays. The bait introduced poisons into the colonies. This process was found to be more effective and less intrusive than spraying and the use of insecticidal and other sprays was reduced to almost nil.
The discovery that outbreaks were popping up in geographically disparate locations led to the discovery of problems in the poultry industry. Epicenters in Delaware, Texas and Arkansas were found to center around poultry farming operations. Infected poultry were transferring insects and eggs onto the workers.
New York City and Toronto, Canada, have seen an increase in bedbug infestations cases since the early 2000s. Three hundred and seventy-seven cases were reported in one year, with the most worrisome incidents being those in hotels, schools and high density housing clusters. Worst fears were realized when that years total was surpassed by 20 per cent in a five month period of the next year.
Bedbugs have developed massive immunities to two of the most used chemical families of pesticides: pyrethroids and deltamethrin. A study of bed bugs from randomly selected areas around the continent was conducted by the University of Kentucky. It found that the insects were more resistant to pyrethroids by a factor of thousand compare to bed bug kill data in tests from the 1970s.
Bed bugs get around in the clothing and on the person and lodge in beds and furniture. Pets and children can become carriers if they get into the nest or boroughs of warm-blooded animals, where bed bugs are present. Travel in areas where bed bugs are prevalent frequently results in the bug returning home with traveler.
A summit is or just has been held on bed bugs and their resurgence by the Environmental Protection Agency in the USA.
Find important information and details on the best ways to achieve bed bug control easy and fast! When you have all the tools you need to effectively achieve bed bug control, you will be able to start enjoying your sleep without itching.
categories: bed bugs,insects,pests,bugs,exterminator,disease,illness,medicine,home,family
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Tags: Bed Bugs, bugs, disease, Exterminator, family, Health, home, illness, insects, medicine, pests
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Written by Rachelle Gordon on 07 March 2010
Renal dialysis diet is a recommended to patients who are undergoing dialysis. Why do we require this renal dialysis diet? Well, the purpose of this eating habits is to maintain a balance of electrolytes, minerals, and fluid in sufferers who are on dialysis. The special diet is crucial because dialysis alone does not successfully remove ALL waste items. These waste products can also construct up among dialysis remedies.
But what is renal dialysis? Renal dialysis is an artificial process by which waste products and excess fluid are removed from the physique by diffusion from one fluid compartment to another across a semipermeable membrane. Active or mechanical dialysis cycles blood through a machine (dialyzer) or cycles dialyzing fluid into and out of the clients abdominal cavity (peritoneum) via a semipermeable membrane to eliminate impurities and toxins and to maintain fluid, electrolyte and an acid-base balance. Passive dialysis uses the client’s peritoneal membrane as the filter.
Acute renal failure may require dialysis until the client’s kidney function improves and starts filtering the client’s blood independently. ESRD is defined as irreversible, chronic renal failure requiring regular dialysis or a kidney transplant to sustain life.
You can find two kinds of renal dialysis diet procedures in common clinical usage: hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis. Both hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis are acceptable modes of remedy.
Throughout the hemodialysis procedure, blood passes through an artificial kidney machine and the waste materials products diffuse across a synthetic membrane into a bath solution recognized as dialysate after which the cleansed blood is returned to the client’s body. Hemodialysis is accomplished generally in three- to four-hour sessions, 3 times a week.
Occasionally, medical complications occur where a client retains a lot more fluid than is healthy following a normal dialysis treatment. Ultrafiltration is a process of removing excess fluid from the blood through a dialysis membrane by exerting pressure. This procedure is part of a hemodialysis remedy and is included in the composite rate for the hemodialysis treatment. Ultrafiltration is not a substitute for dialysis.
Throughout the peritoneal dialysis process, waste items pass in the client’s body through the peritoneal membrane into the peritoneal (abdominal) cavity where the dialysate is introduced and removed periodically.
Renal dialysis diet is utilized as an adjunct to sufferers undergoing dialysis. This unique eating habits will also help you maintain proper fluid and electrolyte levels in between dialysis treatments. Coupled with dialysis, it will successfully assist you feel as good as feasible and lessen complications in the build up of toxins from having renal disease.
If you want more information on All You Need to Know About the Renal dialysis diet, don’t read just rehashed articles online to avoid getting ripped off. Go here: Important Facts About Renal Diet That You Should Know About
Tags: chronic renal failure, dialysis treatment, disease, Health, illness, kidney, kidney diet, Kidney Failure, kidney stones, renal, renal diet
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Written by Jack Haddad on 13 February 2010
Many elders and their families are considering home care as a viable option, as the costs for nursing care facilities rises to astronomical figures. Many elders enjoy the independence of living in their homes, while receiving the required medical care that cannot be furnished from their relatives or friends.
At some point we may need to make decisions for ourselves or our loved ones when living at home alone is no longer possible and more care is needed. But can we afford the elder care costs? How much do the options really cost?
The preponderance of evidence from studies of cost-effectiveness suggests that home health care is less expensive than extended hospitalization from the standpoint of third-party payers, especially when specific patient groups are studied, such as those with incurable cancer requiring parenteral nutrition or individuals requiring intravenous antibiotics.
A prospective clinical assessment by Kramer et al, which was published in the Journal of Health Services Research, reported the following:
Case-mix differences between 653 home health care patients and 650 nursing home patients, and between 455 Medicare home health patients and 447 Medicare nursing home patients were assessed using random samples selected from 20 home health agencies and 46 nursing homes in 12 states.
Home health patients were younger, had shorter lengths of stay, and were less functionally disabled than nursing home patients. Traditional long-term care problems requiring personal care were more common among nursing home patients, whereas problems requiring skilled nursing services were more prevalent among home health patients.
Considering Medicare patients only, nursing home patients were much more likely to be dependent in activities of daily living (ADLs) than home health patients. Medicare nursing home and home health patients were relatively similar in terms of long-term care problems, and differences in medical problems were less pronounced than between all nursing home and all home health patients.
From the standpoint of cost-effectiveness, it would appear that home health care might provide a substitute for acute care hospital use at the end of a hospital stay, and appears to be a more viable option in the care of patients who are not severely disabled and do not have profound functional problems. The Medicare skilled nursing facility, however, is likely to continue to have a crucial role in posthospital care as the treatment modality of choice for individuals who require both highly skilled care and functional assistance.
Moreover, home care appears to be a more viable option in the case of patients who are not severely disabled and who do not have profound functional problems such as mental status impairment or incontinence.
As discussed previously, prospective payment under Medicare is likely to increase the number of elderly patients discharged from the hospital with “subacute” care needs. That said, home health care should be encouraged by public policy as an alternative
for many of these individuals by creating incentives for treating patients with skilled care needs in the home.
Furthermore, there is considerable interest in expanding the scope of home health services to provide a substitute for patients generally treated in nursing homes and covered by Medicaid. Medicaid Waiver Programs (Section 2176) and other demonstration
programs approach this by providing additional services (such as homemakers and adult day care), which assist in compensating for functional disabilities and poor social supports.
In view of the changing demographics of the population, it seems advisable to pursue alternatives to nursing home care for patients in need of long-term care. Onemajor advantage of home health agencies is that they require considerably
less capital to initiate than is required for nursing home construction. On the other hand, it is extremely difficult to provide a range of functional services in the home or community at a cost comparable to nursing home care for patients with heavy care needs in this area. The
cost-effectiveness of the home care option seems to depend in part on the ability to select patients who would otherwise utilize nursing home care but who can be treated in the home at comparable or lower cost.
Jack Haddad, MD, MBA
Portfolio Manager
MD Capital Management
Affiliated Hospitals
Sutter-Roseville Medical Center, Roseville, CA
San Francisco General Hospital, San Francisco, CA
San Jose Orthopedic Medical Group, San Jose, CA
Highland Hospital, Oakland, CA
Dr. Jack Haddad, MD, MBA is the founder and owner of King of Home Care, an independently owned non-medical In-home care agency. In addition to his compassion and dedication to the home care industry, Dr. Haddad’s expertise and knowledge with Home Care is evident by the clinical research trials that he has conducted over the years.
Tags: disease, elderly, elderly care, Health, home care, hospice, Hospice care, illness, in-home care
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Written by Jack Haddad on 07 February 2010
Researches from Germany conducted a study to evaluate the significance of home care patients suffering from advanced cancer. Results were published in Med Klin, 15;95(3): 136-42.
Analysis of the study was derived from interviews with relatives of patients with terminal cancer diseases. They had participated in the home care of 50 consecutively treated patients 2 years previously.
The value of home care was evaluated on the basis of the personal experience of those concerned. Data showed that the holistic concept of palliative home care could be implemented by a specialized team at a high quality level.
Under the favorable conditions of the familiar surroundings, an atmosphere of trust developed as a result of the cooperation with the family members, people close to the patients and with family doctors. It contributed to a relatively high quality of life and to alleviate the emotional stress. Most of those involved were able to accept the hand of fate. On this basis, the terminal phase could be satisfactorily arranged and preparations made for a good quality of death.
During the home care, appreciation of the value of the family increased. The intensified family relations were mostly sustained after the patient’s death. The results document the great personal importance of home care for patients, their caretakers and families. The positive experience and the awareness of having contributed substantially to coping with the life crisis made it easier for the bereaved to grieve and to rearrange their life. Stepwise discriminant analysis was performed using admission, discharge, and combined variables. In our final model of the predictors of discharge disposition, the use of admission functional variables, age, and sex correctly classified 100% of the NH group and 91% of the other group, with IADL, ADL, and mobility defining the function that discriminated the groups.
In conclusion, other studies have been conducted on predictors of bereavement outcomes in family caregivers of persons who have died of cancer. The literature has been divided into common themes of predictors: characteristics of the deceased person, characteristics of the bereaved person, comparisons of bereaved and non-bereaved persons, well-being of the bereaved person prior to the death, prior interpersonal relationships, characteristics of the illness, characteristics of the caregiving experience, and characteristics of terminal care.
A number of recurring patterns point the way to identifying persons who may be at increased risk for poor adjustment during bereavement. It is apparent that men and women express their grief somewhat differently. Whether men or women are at greater risk for poor adjustment, however, remains to be determined.
There is some empirical evidence to suggest that lower socioeconomic status and linguistic barriers interfere with adjustment during bereavement. There is a dearth of culturally relevant services to help palliative-care patients and their family members make the required adjustments. The literature makes apparent the need for open awareness of the impending death and for careful and thoughtful planning for where and how the death ought to occur.
The regular and frequent presence of professional caregivers contributes to family caregivers’ satisfaction with care. Discrepant findings point to the need to explore the issues that underline them. Older bereaved caregivers appear to have some advantages over younger ones, but this finding is not universally found in the results of these studies. Methodological problems include small sample sizes and large variations in the particular bereavement outcomes studied.
Jack Haddad, MD, MBA Portfolio Manager MD Capital Management
Affiliated Hospitals Sutter-Roseville Medical Center, Roseville, CA San Francisco General Hospital, San Francisco, CA San Jose Orthopedic Medical Group, San Jose, CA Highland Hospital, Oakland, CA
Dr. Jack Haddad, MD, MBA is the founder and owner of King of Home Care, an independently owned non-medical In-home care agency. In addition to his compassion and dedication to the home care industry, Dr. Haddad’s expertise and knowledge in hospice care is evident by the clinical research trials that he has conducted over the years.
Tags: disease, elderly, elderly care, Health, home care, hospice, Hospice care, illness, in-home care
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