Cooperating In Our Health Care
May 10, 2011 by admin
Filed under Health Risk
HBF Health Funds asked:
Funny thing pain, if you’ve never had a severe pain then the suggestion of taking simple analgesia and resting the affected area all seems quite reasonable. I was reminded of this when I read recently of a doctor’s advice to someone who was suffering from sciatica. Having personally experienced sciatica, it’s a condition I would not recommend to anyone who wishes to walk, sit, laugh, sleep, or to just simply pull up your trousers. It’s a bit like a dentist drilling your teeth without an anaesthetic, but it affects your whole leg. In other words the pain is consuming, exhausting and without respite. Clinical studies do show that in the majority of cases the pain will eventually subside and surgery may not be necessary, but in the meantime the patient has to deal with the pain or deal with the medication required to dull the pain. Remember, pain-killers are not selective to the area affected. They affect the whole of the nervous system and elsewhere so there may be significant side-effects from these medications.
Dealing with severe pain can be a complex issue, but I suggest that you have to treat this sort of pain fairly aggressively as acute severe pain is relatively easier to treat than chronic severe pain. In the early stages of an injury or insult to an area of the body, most of the pathological processes are happening at the site of the injury or insult. Throughout time the brain begins to modulate this pain and so no only do you have the injured area to deal with, but you also have complex neural pathways within the brain to deal with as well. This often means a far more complex management plan and a far more protracted recovery time. Specialists are very skilled at dealing with these issues but they do rely heavily on the stories their patients give them. That means being honest in answering their questions and not being heroic with a grin and bear it grimace! Often the use of a pain scale is helpful with zero being no pain at all and a 10 being the worse pain you have ever experienced.
Another health issue we commonly down play is influenza. Over the years I have frequently heard people say that they would not have the flu vaccine because either they never get the flu or that they had it last week for a couple of days and then it was all over! Influenza is a serious debilitating disease that will usually last from 10 days to two weeks and often leave you flat on your back exhausted. It’s not a happy 10 days either as patients do not have the energy to read a magazine or even watch a DVD. You will literally feel ancient with every movement being a real challenge and that doesn’t include the aching all over or the fevers and sleepless nights. The influenza virus is also extremely contagious and most people are unaware that if you spread it to someone who is more frail than yourself that you may actually be putting their life at risk.
With the ‘flu the big challenge is to vaccinate as many people in the community as possible, including children, those employed and unemployed, the elderly and the infirm, to reduce the chance of an epidemic occurring. Recent research has also showed that vaccinating pregnant women in the last trimester of their pregnancy will help protect their new born infants born during the ‘flu season.
Medicine has evolved over the last 40 years, but the change has been fairly slow with doctors by nature being very cautious and conservative people. But we can’t leave the doctors to take all the initiatives. As patients we need to be good listeners in our approach to health by heeding all the great health messages that keep being given to us about vaccinations, smoking, alcohol, exercise and healthy eating. We also need to be good communicators and tell our doctors how we are feeling with conditions such as pain. If the team treating you doesn’t have the best information then it may be that you will not end up getting the best treatment!
Funny thing pain, if you’ve never had a severe pain then the suggestion of taking simple analgesia and resting the affected area all seems quite reasonable. I was reminded of this when I read recently of a doctor’s advice to someone who was suffering from sciatica. Having personally experienced sciatica, it’s a condition I would not recommend to anyone who wishes to walk, sit, laugh, sleep, or to just simply pull up your trousers. It’s a bit like a dentist drilling your teeth without an anaesthetic, but it affects your whole leg. In other words the pain is consuming, exhausting and without respite. Clinical studies do show that in the majority of cases the pain will eventually subside and surgery may not be necessary, but in the meantime the patient has to deal with the pain or deal with the medication required to dull the pain. Remember, pain-killers are not selective to the area affected. They affect the whole of the nervous system and elsewhere so there may be significant side-effects from these medications.
Dealing with severe pain can be a complex issue, but I suggest that you have to treat this sort of pain fairly aggressively as acute severe pain is relatively easier to treat than chronic severe pain. In the early stages of an injury or insult to an area of the body, most of the pathological processes are happening at the site of the injury or insult. Throughout time the brain begins to modulate this pain and so no only do you have the injured area to deal with, but you also have complex neural pathways within the brain to deal with as well. This often means a far more complex management plan and a far more protracted recovery time. Specialists are very skilled at dealing with these issues but they do rely heavily on the stories their patients give them. That means being honest in answering their questions and not being heroic with a grin and bear it grimace! Often the use of a pain scale is helpful with zero being no pain at all and a 10 being the worse pain you have ever experienced.
Another health issue we commonly down play is influenza. Over the years I have frequently heard people say that they would not have the flu vaccine because either they never get the flu or that they had it last week for a couple of days and then it was all over! Influenza is a serious debilitating disease that will usually last from 10 days to two weeks and often leave you flat on your back exhausted. It’s not a happy 10 days either as patients do not have the energy to read a magazine or even watch a DVD. You will literally feel ancient with every movement being a real challenge and that doesn’t include the aching all over or the fevers and sleepless nights. The influenza virus is also extremely contagious and most people are unaware that if you spread it to someone who is more frail than yourself that you may actually be putting their life at risk.
With the ‘flu the big challenge is to vaccinate as many people in the community as possible, including children, those employed and unemployed, the elderly and the infirm, to reduce the chance of an epidemic occurring. Recent research has also showed that vaccinating pregnant women in the last trimester of their pregnancy will help protect their new born infants born during the ‘flu season.
Medicine has evolved over the last 40 years, but the change has been fairly slow with doctors by nature being very cautious and conservative people. But we can’t leave the doctors to take all the initiatives. As patients we need to be good listeners in our approach to health by heeding all the great health messages that keep being given to us about vaccinations, smoking, alcohol, exercise and healthy eating. We also need to be good communicators and tell our doctors how we are feeling with conditions such as pain. If the team treating you doesn’t have the best information then it may be that you will not end up getting the best treatment!
Relationship Articles Offer Useful Relationship Problems Advice
Ann Marier asked:
Finding good relationship problems advice can be very difficult. It is not that there isn’t enough information. Almost everyone and their mother have relationship advice. If you tell someone, even a stranger on the street, that you are having trouble with a relationship, they will probably have something to say. Nevertheless, most advice for relationship problems is based on biases alone. Anyone you ask will most likely try to apply the lessons from their own relationship problems to yours. These lessons may be appropriate, but then again they may not be. Whether you are worried about breaking up relationship ties, or dealing with relationship problems for an ongoing relationship, it is always a headache if you can’t figure out what to do.
There is no point in getting relationship problem advice from a physician either. Even psychiatrists give lousy love advice most of the time. They say that they are qualified to give relationship problems advice, but in my experience they are often not good at this particular area. Don’t get me wrong – if your relationship is massively flawed and there is something psychotic about your partner, a psychiatrist will give you the right relationship problems advice – get out of it! Nevertheless, psychiatrists make terrible romantic partners. As such, how can you consider them fit to give relationship problems advice?
It has always seemed to me that the only way to get dependable relationship problems advice is to find a best friend who knows all about those things. Find someone with words of wisdom for dating help, go out for a few drinks with him whenever you are having relationship troubles, and trust his word implicitly. Friends like this are hard to find, and their skills at giving relationship problems advice should be fully exploited.
I get most of my relationship problem advice from my best friend. It is pretty odd because he has never been in a relationship himself. He’s actually not really been interested in dating at all, spending most of his time in more intellectual pursuits. Nevertheless, he gives the best relationship problems advice that you have ever heard. Maybe it is because he is looking at it from an outsiders perspective, but I swear that his advice is better than any advice column you could ever read! Getting romance advice from someone who has never been in, nor even desired, a romance is a little bit weird, but it has begun to feel totally natural to me.
Finding good relationship problems advice can be very difficult. It is not that there isn’t enough information. Almost everyone and their mother have relationship advice. If you tell someone, even a stranger on the street, that you are having trouble with a relationship, they will probably have something to say. Nevertheless, most advice for relationship problems is based on biases alone. Anyone you ask will most likely try to apply the lessons from their own relationship problems to yours. These lessons may be appropriate, but then again they may not be. Whether you are worried about breaking up relationship ties, or dealing with relationship problems for an ongoing relationship, it is always a headache if you can’t figure out what to do.
There is no point in getting relationship problem advice from a physician either. Even psychiatrists give lousy love advice most of the time. They say that they are qualified to give relationship problems advice, but in my experience they are often not good at this particular area. Don’t get me wrong – if your relationship is massively flawed and there is something psychotic about your partner, a psychiatrist will give you the right relationship problems advice – get out of it! Nevertheless, psychiatrists make terrible romantic partners. As such, how can you consider them fit to give relationship problems advice?
It has always seemed to me that the only way to get dependable relationship problems advice is to find a best friend who knows all about those things. Find someone with words of wisdom for dating help, go out for a few drinks with him whenever you are having relationship troubles, and trust his word implicitly. Friends like this are hard to find, and their skills at giving relationship problems advice should be fully exploited.
I get most of my relationship problem advice from my best friend. It is pretty odd because he has never been in a relationship himself. He’s actually not really been interested in dating at all, spending most of his time in more intellectual pursuits. Nevertheless, he gives the best relationship problems advice that you have ever heard. Maybe it is because he is looking at it from an outsiders perspective, but I swear that his advice is better than any advice column you could ever read! Getting romance advice from someone who has never been in, nor even desired, a romance is a little bit weird, but it has begun to feel totally natural to me.
TELEPHONE TRIAGE – MORE THAN JUST FRIEDNLY ADVICE
callcare asked:
Registered Nurses trained in http://www.callcarenet.com/products-nursecare.asp
telephone triage are exceptional health care providers. Many health care services offer around-the-clock telephone support. It ranges from simple health advice hotlines to full-blown diagnostic assessment. Telephone triage falls into the later category. Rather than providing answers to general health questions, the telephone triage nurse has been trained to assess a caller’s health condition without any physical examination.
In many cases the cause of a patient’s concern is obvious – high fever, a non-life threatening injury.But at other times, the cause for concern is masked by a number of overlapping symptoms. In order to be able to conduct effective telephone triage a nurse must rely on a unique skill set that takes into account a keen ear for detail, an extensive knowledge of how diseases and other ailments present themselves through a broad age range of patients and the ability to communicate in such a way at to create trust and credibility with the public. It takes a special, highly trained person to excel in this vital healthcare profession.
Sometimes a correct diagnosis through telephone triage will be able keep someone from making an unnecessary trip to the emergency room. Sometimes it will mean the difference between life and death. But it has not always been easy to get people to see the advantage of this specialized branch of the health care industry. It was hard for people to believe that someone could effectively make assessments as to severity of a health issue and then suggest an appropriate care response without making a thorough physical examination. Even if the nurse had a thick manual to refer to – the time it would take to cross-reference data might end up causing more anxiety and distrust that if the patient just went to the local emergency room. But all that would change when telephone triage entered the computer age.
The computer revolution changed how telephone triage worked.Taking advantage of sophisticated computer programs loaded with numerous interlaced medical diagnostic problem-solving procedures, the telephone triage nurse is able to discern a pathway that leads to solid diagnosis.The process is something akin to the famous 20-question binary search algorithm developed by early computer scientists.
Telephone triage nurses make use of an electronic chart that displays medical records on a person-by-person basis. The chart details medical history, recent and past diagnoses and all relevant medical data. Some systems even have the ability to display x-rays and other raw lab results. By asking the caller a series of directed questions, the program will guide to triage nurse to a new set of questions ultimately zeroing in on a conclusion. The end result is a medically sound diagnosis and a suggestion as how the caller should proceed.
http://www.callcarenet.com/products-nursecare.asp Telephone triage is not for everyone. The medical expertise needed is broad and factors such as personality and the ability to elicit trust and cooperation through a sophisticated communication skill set make this a very non-traditional nursing job.
Registered Nurses trained in http://www.callcarenet.com/products-nursecare.asp
telephone triage are exceptional health care providers. Many health care services offer around-the-clock telephone support. It ranges from simple health advice hotlines to full-blown diagnostic assessment. Telephone triage falls into the later category. Rather than providing answers to general health questions, the telephone triage nurse has been trained to assess a caller’s health condition without any physical examination.
In many cases the cause of a patient’s concern is obvious – high fever, a non-life threatening injury.But at other times, the cause for concern is masked by a number of overlapping symptoms. In order to be able to conduct effective telephone triage a nurse must rely on a unique skill set that takes into account a keen ear for detail, an extensive knowledge of how diseases and other ailments present themselves through a broad age range of patients and the ability to communicate in such a way at to create trust and credibility with the public. It takes a special, highly trained person to excel in this vital healthcare profession.
Sometimes a correct diagnosis through telephone triage will be able keep someone from making an unnecessary trip to the emergency room. Sometimes it will mean the difference between life and death. But it has not always been easy to get people to see the advantage of this specialized branch of the health care industry. It was hard for people to believe that someone could effectively make assessments as to severity of a health issue and then suggest an appropriate care response without making a thorough physical examination. Even if the nurse had a thick manual to refer to – the time it would take to cross-reference data might end up causing more anxiety and distrust that if the patient just went to the local emergency room. But all that would change when telephone triage entered the computer age.
The computer revolution changed how telephone triage worked.Taking advantage of sophisticated computer programs loaded with numerous interlaced medical diagnostic problem-solving procedures, the telephone triage nurse is able to discern a pathway that leads to solid diagnosis.The process is something akin to the famous 20-question binary search algorithm developed by early computer scientists.
Telephone triage nurses make use of an electronic chart that displays medical records on a person-by-person basis. The chart details medical history, recent and past diagnoses and all relevant medical data. Some systems even have the ability to display x-rays and other raw lab results. By asking the caller a series of directed questions, the program will guide to triage nurse to a new set of questions ultimately zeroing in on a conclusion. The end result is a medically sound diagnosis and a suggestion as how the caller should proceed.
http://www.callcarenet.com/products-nursecare.asp Telephone triage is not for everyone. The medical expertise needed is broad and factors such as personality and the ability to elicit trust and cooperation through a sophisticated communication skill set make this a very non-traditional nursing job.
