NURSE, DEFIBRILLATOR CREDITED WITH SAVING STUDENT'S LIFE

RUSSIAVILLE, Ind. -- Quick thinking by a Western High School nurse likely saved the life of a student who collapsed during gym class.
Drew Brantley, 17, a school soccer and baseball star, was playing basketball with classmates last week when he collapsed and appeared to have a seizure, 6News' Jennifer Carmack reported.
But nurse Brenda Strunk said she quickly realized it was much more severe.

When we got to him, we were trying to find pulse on him. We couldn't find a pulse," she said.
Strunk grabbed an Automated External Defibrillator located outside the school's gym and used it to bring the boy back from full cardiac arrest.
Brantley spent five days in Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, where doctors said he had a heart condition that had gone undetected.

Now he is back home and thanking the people, and the machine, that helped save his life.
"I couldn't tell you where one of (the AEDs) is in the school, although I guess I will now," he said. "I'm just so happy that everybody knew how to use it, and everybody got there on time."
His parents said they hope to use this second chance to make sure every school is equipped with one of the life-saving machines.

"Only because of that device and the people at school is our son still alive" said Ron Brantley. "Make sure you get them. Even if you don't have to use them, it's a security blanket."
The machines cost about $1,700 a piece. The Western School Corporation has 11 throughout the district near playing fields, cafeterias and gymnasiums, and six more are on order.

Source:
Theindychannel.com

ACETAMINOPHEN - THE BEST TREATMENT OPTION FOR OSTEOARTHRITIS?

Question: Acetaminophen - The Best Treatment Option for Osteoarthritis?

Answer: Experts are divided over the role of acetaminophen vs. NSAIDs as first-line agents to treat osteoarthritis. Both are popular and commonly prescribed for osteoarthritis patients. But when compared, which is more safe and effective? Which should be tried first?
In order to assess the safety and effectiveness of acetaminophen, previous studies have compared it to placebo and also to various NSAIDs (ibuprofen, diclofenac, arthrotec, celecoxib, naproxen). Researchers searched various databases and reviewed the published, randomized, controlled trials that compared acetaminophen to placebo or NSAIDs.

In their review, researchers assessed 15 randomized, controlled trials involving 5,986 study participants with hip osteoarthritis or knee osteoarthritis. The study participants took 4000 mg acetaminophen daily, placebo, or NSAIDS for about 6 weeks.

WHAT DOES A STROKE DO?

How strokes damage the brain.

DOCTOR SHORTAGE FUELS NURSE PRACTITIONERS' PUSH FOR BIGGER ROLE

BY ANDREW VILLEGAS
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
TYRRELL COUNTY, N.C. -- There are no doctors in rural Tyrrell County, N.C. There's only Irene Cavall, a licensed nurse practitioner and the sole source of primary care for 4,000 residents spread out over 600 square miles.

It's been that way since the county's lone doctor moved away two and a half years ago. Cavall sees as many as 40 patients a day at the Columbia Medical Center. It's about 40 miles west of the Outer Banks; an ambulance ride to the nearest hospital takes 25 minutes.

There are limitations to her work. By state law, she works under the supervision of a doctor, albeit one many miles away, and calls him and specialists as needed. For 15 years, however, Cavall has been helping patients with a range of routine problems - from colds to management of diabetes - that don't always require a doctor. As she said, doctors "don't need to give someone a Tylenol."

Nursing leaders say that large numbers of practitioners such as Cavall will be needed to fill gaps in primary care left by an increasing shortage of doctors, a problem that would intensify if Congress extends health insurance to millions more Americans. Advocates say nurse practitioners have the extra education and training needed to perform a variety of services, including physical exams, diagnosis and treatment of common ailments and prescribing drugs.

However, the American Medical Association and doctors' groups at the state level have been urging state legislators and licensing authorities to move cautiously, arguing patient care could be compromised.

This battle has been waged for years, even as nurse practitioners grew rapidly in number - there are 125,000 or more - and expanded their responsibilities. What's different now is the increasing conflict as pressure grows to use nurse practitioners and other so-called physician extenders, including physician assistants, certified nurse midwives and pharmacists. The Association of American Medical Colleges estimates there will be a shortfall of as many as 46,000 primary care doctors by 2025.

The AMA sparked harsh criticism from nursing groups when it released a report in October bluntly questioning whether nurse practitioners "are adequately trained to provide appropriate care." To back up its claims, the report cited recent studies that questioned the prescription methods of some nurse practitioners, as well as a survey that found only 10 percent of the nurse practitioners questioned felt well-prepared to practice primary care.

The nation's largest doctors' group concluded: "The time is ripe for legislators, health care policy analysts and nurses to thoroughly assess the quality of NP training in relation to the scope-of-practice expansions sought at the state level."

The American Nurses Association and more than two dozen other nurses' organizations termed the AMA report misleading, saying in a letter in December it "contains numerous factual misrepresentations." They rebuked the AMA for its "attempt to change the perceptions of NP practice as anything other than fully qualified professionals working within a legally established scope of practice."

Fueling the debate, the nonpartisan Brookings Institution's Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform issued a report in September by 10 experts that said one way to curb health care spending was to encourage states to permit "greater use of nurse practitioners, pharmacists, physician assistants and community health workers."

Nurse practitioners started out decades ago under the close supervision of physicians, with tight restrictions on what they could do, but they've successfully pushed state licensing agencies and legislatures to grant them more autonomy and broader duties. The AMA report said, for example, "all states now allow NPs some degree of prescribing privileges," and 12 have granted them authority to prescribe independent of doctor oversight.

Several states are considering laws to restrict or expand nurses' scope of practice. For example, in Colorado, one bill would allow nurse practitioners in addition to physicians to issue medical orders that direct patients' care at any facility. Another bill there would eliminate a nurse's right to declare a patient terminally ill.

Most states require nurse practitioners to obtain masters' degrees in nursing, but education and training requirements vary. Cavall, 60, has a master's, and she was a registered nurse for several years before she became a nurse practitioner.

She feels very qualified to take care of patients in Tyrrell County. "If you come from a background where you've seen just about everything, that gives you a really good basis for ... delivering that care," she said.

(Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization that isn't affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.)

Source:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/02/23/1495080/doctor-shortage-fuels-nurse-practitioners.html

How Do You Know if You Have Manic-Depression?

Nancy was doing very well until about two years ago when Phil, her boyfriend of 9 years, broke-up with her. It was a difficult moment for her especially after she learned that Phil eventually married her cousin. Since then, Nancy had deteriorated. One evening, she was involved in a motor vehicular accident because she was driving fast and recklessly in a quiet suburban neighborhood.

During interrogation, the cops noted that Nancy was talking rapidly and nobody could interrupt her. Also, she was making jokes and laughing so loud. She further indicated to them that she was on her way to meet the President and his top officials about her invention that could cure the oil crunch. She eventually ended up in the emergency room where she was diagnosed and treated for bipolar disorder after intensive evaluation.

Bipolar disorder or manic-depression is manifested by highs and lows. When a patient like Nancy is on the manic side, there is a persistent feeling of euphoria or irritability associated with lack of need for sleep, excessive energy, agitation, fast and loud speech, increase in goal-directed activities such as spending sprees and establishing businesses with no appropriate plan, and hypersexuality.

Patients with this disorder develop poor judgment and impulsivity. They become irritable and can lash out easily even if not provoked. Some patients have delusions of grandeur. When this happens, patients think that they have special powers, talents, and influence.

When not manic, patients either feel normal or depressed. Depression in bipolar disorder has the same manifestation as major depression that consists of feelings of sadness associated with neurovegetative signs and symptoms such as inability to sleep, eat, and concentrate. Energy level is also impaired. In addition, patients experience a feeling of hopelessness, worthlessness, and helplessness. Suicidal ideation may ensue.

New Anti-Psychotic Drugs work better than Old

A new study has shown that people diagnosed with their first episode of schizophrenia fare much better when treated with newer anti-psychotic drugs than with traditional medications. The double bind study was conducted in China by American and Chinese scientists. It is the first study to directly compare treatment with clozapine (Clozaril), an 'atypical' anti-psychotic medication, with chlorpromazine (Thorazine) in people who had an episode of schizophrenia for the first time.

200 patients diagnosed with first-episode schizophrenia were randomized to receive one drug or the other. Neither they nor the scientists knew who received which drug until all the data had been collected. The findings strongly suggest that clozapine works better than chlorpromazine in early schizophrenia.

The findings of this study were presented December 11, 2000 to the 39th Annual Meeting of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. Jeffrey A. Lieberman, M.D. of the University of North Carolina summarized the study this way: "We found that clozapine acts faster and produced fewer patients who drop out or stop treatment because of side effects. This is the first time a study's ever been done comparing the prototype of this new class of drugs with the old group in a large sample of patients."

Clozapine is the second most widely used medication for schizophrenia in China, but its use is restricted in the United States. The FDA approved clozapine as a 2nd- or 3rd-line of treatment for people who were unresponsive to other medications because early studies showed it suppressed the immune system's white cells in one percent of people who took it for more than six weeks . The authors conducted the study in China where these restrictions do not exist.

Based on the study's results Lieberman sees a wider role for the newer medications. "We think using these new drugs as first-line medications increases the likelihood of recovering from the illness and reduces the likelihood of a second episode when they remain in treatment. Patients who are at the beginning of their illness are extremely sensitive to treatment. That sensitivity makes them very responsive to the therapeutic effects of anti-psychotic drugs. They respond to all treatment including the newer and better treatments. However, they're also more sensitive to side effects and this can become a real problem in terms of their willingness to continue their medication and the likelihood of them stopping."

In a footnote, the study also found that patients in the study whose blood tests showed signs of exposure to the parasite toxoplasmosis had a poor response to treatment. Toxoplasmosis is a parasite borne by cats and some other domestic animals. Lieberman speculated on this result: "There's a theory that an infectious agent, a parasite or some other microorganism, can cause schizophrenia - and toxoplasmosis has an affinity for the nervous system, where it can lie dormant for a long time in its migration to the brain." Lieberman suggested that schizophrenic patients in a population with a high risk for toxoplasmosis should be given standard anti-psychotic medication along with one of the drugs typically used against the parasite.

Clozapine was the very first of the new 'atypical antipsychotic' medications. Other medications in this class seem to have some of the benefits without the infrequent dangerous side-effect. This study suggests that physicians should at least consider a medication in this class for patients newly diagnosed with schizophrenia. Is there still a role for older anti-psychotics? Maybe - but their role continues to shrink.

DUNKIN DO NUTS

I just left a Dunkin Donuts, and once again I am disappointed with my coffee. I am not a "coffeaholic," but I do consume Dunkin Donuts coffee about 1-3 times per week. When I am on the road traveling, I visit many different Dunkin Donuts locations. I have discovered that my coffee tastes drastically different from one franchise to another.

In addition, the coffee often tastes different depending on which Dunkin Donuts employee is serving it. These employees sometimes seem to be poorly trained. This doesn't happen when I go to Starbucks or any other coffee-oriented store. I can line up 10 coffees from 10 different Starbucks locations, and they will all taste the same.

I can see inconsistencies happening like this in a local restaurant. If they have 2 different chefs working, sometimes the food tastes slightly different, but most of the time it tastes pretty much the same. But for a franchise company this is totally unacceptable. There should be systems in place to keep all of the products looking and tasting the same. When you buy a franchise you should be buying into a proven system.

DISTURBIA- Disturbing truth!

just can't deny that this video is the best music video I've ever seen about psychiatric conditions..

Super Charge Your Brain

Have you ever felt exasperated when you bumped into someone at the store but absolutely couldn't remember their name? Sure, it happens to all of us.

Despite being the strongest computer on the planet, our brains do lapse. It's hard to blame them really. As humans, we spend much of or existence stuffing our brains with stuff.

No matter how powerful our brains are, they need recuperation time to be kept in shape. Think of it as a tune up for your brain. Skipping brain maintenance is as silly as the person wandering the parking garage because they forgot where they parked. Is that you? Are you that person? If so, fear not; we are all that person at some point.

Now I am not a brain surgeon and I am not going to suggest you do anything surgical or dangerous. I am however an astute student of human behavior so I always look for simple ways to super charge my brain.

Here are some things you can begin doing as soon as today to begin the great brain tune up:

Eat Almonds
Almond is believed to improve memory. If a combination of almond oil and milk is taken together before going to bed or after getting up at morning, it strengthens our memory power. Almond milk is prepared by crushing the almonds without the outer cover and adding water and sugar to it.

Drink Apple Juice
Research from the University of Massachusetts Lowell (UML) indicates that apple juice increases the production of the essential neurotransmitter acetylcholine in the brain, resulting in an increased memory power.

Sleep well
Research indicates that the long-term memory is consolidated during sleep by replaying the images of the experiences of the day. These repeated playbacks program the subconscious mind to store these images and other related information.

Enjoy simple Pleasures
Stress drains our brainpower. A stress-ridden mind consumes much of our memory resources to leave us with a feeble mind. Make a habit to engage yourself in few simple pleasures everyday to dissolve stress from your mind. Some of these simple pleasures are good for your mind, body and soul.

Exercise your mind
Just as physical exercise is essential for a strong body, mental exercise is equally essential for a sharp and agile mind. Have you noticed that children have far superior brainpower than an adult does? Children have playful minds. A playful mind exhibits superior memory power. Engage in some of the activities that require your mind to remain active and playful.


Practice Yoga or Meditation
Yoga or Meditation relives stress. Stress is a known memory buster. With less stress, lower blood pressure, slower respiration, slower metabolism, and released muscle tension follows. All of these factors contribute significantly towards increases in our brainpower.

Reduce Sugar intake
Sugar is a non-food. It’s a form of carbohydrate that offers illusionary energy, only to cause a downhill slump once the initial burst has been worn off. Excess intake of sugar results in neurotic symptoms. Excess sugar is known to cause claustrophobia, memory loss and other neurotic disorders. Eat food without adding sugar. Stay away from sweet drinks or excess consumption of caffeine with sugar.

Eat whole wheat
The whole wheat germs contain lecithin. Lecithin helps ease the problem of the hardening of the arteries, which often impairs brain functioning.

Eat a light meal at night
A heavy meal at night causes tossing and turning and a prolonged emotional stress while at sleep. It’s wise to eat heavy meal during the day when our body is in motion to consume the heavy in-take. Eating a light meal with some fruits allows us to sleep well. A good night sleep strengthens our brainpower.

Develop imagination
Greeks mastered the principle of imagination and association to memorize everything. This technique requires one to develop a vivid and colorful imagination that can be linked to a known object. If you involve all your senses - touching, feeling, smelling, hearing and seeing in the imagination process, you can remember greater details of the event.

Control your temper
Bleached food, excess of starch or excess of white bread can lead to nerve grating effect. This results in a violent and some time depressive behavior. Eat fresh vegetables. Drink lots of water and meditate or practice yoga to relieve these toxic emotions of temper and stressful mood swings.

Take Vitamin B-complex
Vitamin B-complex strengthens memory power. Eat food and vegetables high in Vitamin B-complex. Stay away from the starch food or white bread, which depletes the Vitamin B-complex necessary for a healthy mind.

I don't believe these are that tough. If you find yourself increasing stumped, give a couple of these a try.

What Cause Schizo?

There is no known single cause of schizophrenia. Many diseases, such as heart disease, result from interplay of genetic, behavioral, and other factors; and this may be the case for schizophrenia as well.

Is Schizophrenia Inherited?
It has long been known that schizophrenia runs in families. People who have a close relative with schizophrenia are more likely to develop the disorder than are people who have no relatives with the illness. For example, an identical twin of a person with schizophrenia a has the highest risk – 40 to 50 percent – of developing the illness. A child whose parent has schizophrenia has about a 10 percent chance. By comparison, the risk of schizophrenia in the general population is about 1 percent.

Scientists are studying genetic factors in schizophrenia. It appears likely that multiple genes are involved in creating a predisposition to develop the disorder. In addition, factors such as prenatal difficulties like intrauterine starvation or viral infections, perinatal complications, and various nonspecific stressors, seem to influence the development of schizophrenia. However, it is not yet understood how the genetic predisposition is transmitted, and it cannot yet be accurately predicted whether a given person will or will not develop the disorder.

Several regions of the human genome are being investigated to identify genes that may confer susceptibility for schizophrenia. The strongest evidence to date leads to chromosomes 13 and 6 but remains unconfirmed. Identification of specific genes involved in the development of schizophrenia will provide important clues into what goes wrong in the brain to produce and sustain the illness and will guide the development of new and better treatments. To learn more about the genetic basis for schizophrenia, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has established a Schizophrenia Genetics Initiative that is gathering data from a large number of families of people with the illness.

Is Schizophrenia Associated With A Chemical Defect In The Brain?
Basic knowledge about brain chemistry and its link to schizophrenia is expanding rapidly. Neurotransmitters, substances that allow communication between nerve cells, have long been thought to be involved in the development of schizophrenia. It is likely, although not yet certain, that the disorder is associated with some imbalance of the complex, interrelated chemical systems of the brain, perhaps involving the neurotransmitters dopamine and glutamate. This area of research is promising.

Is Schizophrenia Caused By A Physical Abnormality In The Brain?
There have been dramatic advances in neuroimaging technology that permit scientists to study brain structure and function in living individuals. Many studies of people with schizophrenia have found abnormalities in brain structure (for example, enlargement of the fluid-filled cavities, called the ventricles, in the interior of the brain, and decreased size of certain brain regions) or function (for example, decreased metabolic activity in certain brain regions). It should be emphasized that these abnormalities are quite subtle and are not characteristic of all people with schizophrenia, nor do they occur only in individuals with this illness. Microscopic studies of brain tissue after death have also shown small changes in distribution or number of brain cells in people with schizophrenia. It appears that many (but probably not all) of these changes are present before an individual becomes ill, and schizophrenia may be, in part, a disorder in development of the brain.

Developmental neurobiologists funded by the NIMH have found that schizophrenia may be a developmental disorder resulting when neurons form inappropriate connections during fetal development. These errors may lie dormant until puberty, when changes in the brain that occur normally during this critical stage of maturation interact adversely with the faulty connections. This research has spurred efforts to identify prenatal factors that may have some bearing on the apparent developmental abnormality.

In other studies, investigators using brain-imaging techniques have found evidence of early biochemical changes that may precede the onset of disease symptoms, prompting examination of the neural circuits that are most likely to be involved in producing those symptoms. Meanwhile, scientists working at the molecular level are exploring the genetic basis for abnormalities in brain development and in the neurotransmitter systems regulating brain function.

Source: National Institutes of Mental Health articles and brochures on Schizophrenia

Histrionic: Love ME

Histrionic personality disorder (HPD) is a personality disorder characterized by a pattern of excessive emotionality and attention-seeking, as well as an excessive need for approval and inappropriate seductiveness, usually beginning in early adulthood.

The essential feature of histrionic personality disorder is an excessive pattern of emotionality and attention-seeking behavior. These individuals are energetic, dramatic, enthusiastic, and flirtatious. They may be improperly sexually provocative, articulate strong emotions with an impressionistic style, and be effortlessly influenced by others.