Senior Care Partners

Archive for October, 2010

The American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) has made several modifications to existing trends under its Vision 2020 strategy. For instance, one of the tenets of Vision 2020 is autonomous practice. Private practice physical therapists are encouraged, as opposed to corporate culture. The APTA Board has said that autonomous practice is applicable to all physical therapists cutting across practice setting or business arrangement.

Autonomous practice means that a physical therapist has the right to independent and professional judgment within the scope of her practice and in the patient’s best interest. This has advantages and disadvantages. The therapist has to take responsibility and accept the risks for all aspects of physical therapy patient management. He / she has to work alongside other health care providers to provide value-added services offered to their clients.

As a profession, the therapist is committed to using the best available scientific evidence for client management. All applicable legal and regulatory requirements in this context need to be followed. APTA has issued guidelines specific to the physical therapy trends related to telehealth. Telehealth refers to the ‘use of electronic communication to provide and deliver a host of health-related information and health care services, including, but not limited to, physical therapy-related information and services over large and small distances’.

In this definition, electronic communication includes text messaging, e-mailing, faxing, using such devices as cell phones, fax machines, and the Internet. Services provided via telehealth must fulfil minimum standards of professional health care as prescribed by APTA. The patient should be as safe as she would have been if the physical therapist had been there to advise her in person.

APTA plans to post resources on their website for members to understand the various aspects of telehealth for physical therapy. Women’s heath has been voted as a focus area by the APTA Board. These trends have major implications on setting up specialty physical therapy clinics for women.

The APTA Board has made it a responsibility for the profession to maintain patient records to support that she practices physical therapy. The data should be collected in such a way that it can be collectively analyzed when required. Each of these goals will definitely impact businesses in making them more evidence-based. Each of these trends will help to make the profession more independent and autonomous.

Following injury or surgery, a primary concern is effective healing of the wound(s). Restoring natural regeneration of healthy skin cell membranes is important to alleviate scarring or to help heal and repair damage from rashes, burns or cuts.

Wounds, per se can come from a variety of occurrences – elective procedures such as plastic surgery (liposuction, breast implants and augmentation, etc.), repairative or emergency surgery (hip replacements, abdominal repairs), or from everyday burns and cuts. Even for disease-induced cases such as diabetes, psoriasis or dermatitis, repairing tender or inflamed skin and promoting scar-free growth is key to healing wounds.

Key Factors to Quick Healing

The fastest way to clear and fade scars or to reduce inflammation is to maintain moisture. Follow physicians orders to avoid infection or to prematurely use skin care products. But, dryness and poor hydration reduces skin elasticity, flexibility and leads to tightening and tearing of sub-surface tissue. We recommend products with Emu Oil to treat scars, stretch marks, burns and rashes. Used with proven active ingredients, Emu Oil quickly heals damaged tissue and is often recommend during pregnancy to prevent stretch marks.

Emu Oil is a transdermal moisturizer. It penetrates to the dermis and subcutaneous layers to hydrate and moisturize. It is a natural anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory that helps kill bacteria and infection while reducing irritation, itch, and redness. It is used commonly to treat burns and is effective for post-treatment of sores and rashes.

The second issue that must be addressed is improved elastin fiber and collagen production. Scarring is generally caused by tearing and ripping of tissue. Improving elasticity with Hyaluronic Acid or Argireline helps promote cellular renewal. Other active ingredients such as Aloe, Alpha Lipoic Acid, Vitamin E, or Matrixyl help soothe and “refresh” the wound while increasing the healing process.

Effective wound healing begins with ensuring lack of post-trauma infection and the use of the most effective products formulated to help heal and repair damaged skin. Emu Oil, Emu Oil products and those designed to treat scars and inflammation will accelerate the healing process and help give you smooth, blemish-free skin.

Contrary to what many women think, menopause is actually a long period, and it may or may not include any symptoms. The only solid symptom of menopause is periods that are irregular and that eventually stop. Actually, you can only name the date of your menopause in retrospect, since menopause is defined as your last menstrual cycle, and you have to have been period-free for a year before you can say when menopause was. However, most women do experience some symptoms during perimenopause, so it’s good to know the pre menopause symptoms so that you can prepare yourself early.

At first, some of your symptoms may seem related to PMS, since one of the main symptoms of early menopause can be mood swings. Women who are in perimenopause – which is the time period when the body’s estrogen levels are dropping and menstrual cycles are becoming irregular – may also experience symptoms like hot flashes, lack of mental clarity, sleep troubles, headaches, and racing hearts. You may also experience breast tenderness, decreased sex drive, and vaginal dryness.

Luckily, most women don’t experience all of these menopause symptoms – or at least not all at once. Different women will begin menopause differently, depending largely on their lifestyle choices and genetic predispositions. In general, it’s thought that women who had severer PMS symptoms will have severer menopause symptoms, though this doesn’t always hold true.

When you do start experiencing some symptoms of menopause, chances are likely that you may experience some mixed emotions. Menopause is a natural part of life, but it can also be a difficult thing for women to deal with because it is a distinct sign of aging and because it marks the end of your childbearing years. However, instead of fighting this completely natural process, you can work with your body to make things easier. The sooner you start making healthy lifestyle changes that will improve your experience of menopause, the better.

Some Changes to Make for Pre Menopausal Relief

Although some doctors will recommend hormonal replacement therapy for severe menopause symptoms, this approach has been shown to have many negative side effects, including an increased risk of cancer. Instead of taking this approach, which actually attempts to reverse some of the natural hormonal changes of menopause by supplementing hormones that the body is no longer producing, you can make some lifestyle changes to make your transition through menopause a graceful one.

One of the main things that you can do to help yourself during pre menopause is to eat right. You should be getting plenty of fruits and vegetables. Focus on incorporating different colored plant foods into your daily diet, since this will give you a wider variety of vitamins and minerals. Also, getting plenty of protein, fiber, calcium, and iron can help alleviate some symptoms. To eat right and maintain a healthy weight, which is also important, try to eat several small meals each day and include complex carbohydrates and protein in every meal.

Getting enough sleep and exercise is also important to pre menopausal women. You may feel more tired than normal during pre menopause, which is natural. Getting seven to eight hours of sleep each night will help, as will exercising on a daily basis. If you have trouble getting enough sleep because you’re experiencing insomnia, consider using a natural herbal supplement like chamomile or valerian to help you get to sleep at night.

Taking these simple, healthy steps as soon as you feel menopause symptoms coming on will help you ensure that you get through menopause with as little fuss and bother as possible. Instead of using a dangerous clinical treatment to ease your symptoms, dealing with them in a healthy, proactive way will leave you feeling healthier and more confident through this natural phase in your life.

The treatment for migraines and other menopause symptoms is not the same in every part of the world. Different cultures have different medicine practices and beliefs. However, it is interesting to note that the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), acupuncture, is becoming a popular therapeutic method in Western culture to treat a variety of psychological and physical conditions including menopause.

TCM views menopause as the time in a woman’s life when her body shuts down her natural monthly reproductive cycle because she can no longer reproduce. However, it is believed that her body stops menses to conserve her qi (body life energy), so as she ages she can retain all of her resources.

Unlike women in western culture, for most women in the East, menopause is rather uneventful. It is thought the reasons for this is because Western women lead a more fast-paced, stress-ridden lifestyle, and tend to consume poorer diets. Thus, as a result, women in Western culture tend to experience far more intense menopausal symptoms than their sisters in the East.

Despite the real causes of menopausal symptoms, the fact remains that Traditional Chinese Medicine does not consider menopause to be a syndrome. The thought is that women suffering through menopause have a variety of qi problems such as constrained liver qi and kidney yin deficiency. In other words, their qi is imbalanced and is wreaking havoc on their mind and body.

Thus, the goal of TCM is to uniquely treat each woman based on her specific symptoms. This means that different techniques aside from acupuncture may also be suggested, such as Chinese herbs, lifestyle or dietary changes and exercises – all of which are used to help restore balance to the body.

How does acupuncture work? Acupuncture is based on the belief that there are approximately 2000 acupuncture points (trigger points) throughout the body. These trigger points are linked to one another via a group of 20 different meridians (pathways). Meridians are responsible for conducting qi between the surface of the body and the internal organs. Qi has a specific affect on each point it passes through. When qi properly flows throughout the meridians and all its points, it maintains a healthy balance in the mind and body.

During an acupuncture treatment for menopause, an acupuncture therapist will help a woman bring balance back to her body by focusing treatment on the trigger points related to her symptoms. Only some trigger points are used, and will vary depending on the symptoms. Thus, every menopausal woman is treated individually based on her problem.

Acupuncture is administered through the use of tiny, solid needles that are inserted into the targeted trigger points. The purpose of the needles is to help stimulate the meridians to encourage qi production. This might mean needles could be inserted into the shoulders, arms, legs or even the feet. If inserted properly, needles shouldn’t cause pain or bleeding; however, their may be slight discomfort or a tingling or numbing sensation which fades fast. Treatment is often very relaxing, and sessions usually last for 30 minutes.

Does acupuncture benefit menopause? Yes. Research has found that most women who participated in different acupuncture studies found relief from menopausal symptoms including:

o Hot flashes

o Insomnia

o Stress

o Anxiety

o Vaginal dryness

If you are interested in using acupuncture for alternative or complimentary treatment to ease menopause symptoms, it is imperative that you visit a qualified and experienced acupuncture therapist, in order to realistically determine if this method is an effective treatment option for you.

Remember, no two women are treated the same, and acupuncture therapy is often long term, ongoing treatment.

If you love working closely with all sorts of people and have been thinking about a career in the health care field, you might want to consider becoming a physical therapy assistant. This is a professional position requiring an associate degree and, in some states, a license. It is a growing field with good prospects for employment.

A physical therapy assistant works under the direction of a physical therapist to assist patients in their treatment. The patients fall into every age group and are there because of muscle, joint, bone or nerve injuries or impairment. It is the physical therapists job to relieve pain, reduce disability, and restore mobility, among other things. Many of the patients have suffered traumatic injuries; others are simply seeking relief from a “bad back.”

Many of the tasks assigned to physical therapy assistants require physical strength. For example, an assistant is often called on to help lift a patient or move equipment around, so strength should be a consideration when weighing the possibility of entering this field. On any given day an assistant can perform a variety of tasks, including applying hot or cold packs, helping a patient learn and correctly perform exercises, giving massages and paraffin baths, and doing ultrasounds. Another important function of the assistant is to help patients learn to use crutches, wheelchairs, braces, and prosthetic limbs.

A physical therapy assistant [http://www.ashworthuniversity.edu/programs/healthcare/pa/] comes in close contact with many people, and has the rewarding job of helping them attain better health and mobility. It is an excellent career choice. If your current circumstances are not what you would like, or if you are just starting out in life and have not found a direction, an online school is a great place to get educated. Classes are easy to afford, and coursework can be fit into anyone’s schedule, no matter how busy, because there are no deadlines to meet. A physical therapy career is just one of dozens of educational opportunities online. It is a great way to make a fresh start!

The immune system is a mysterious mechanism. Like a pitbull, the immune system will guard against foreign attackers mercilessly to protect its home, and yet, it can also turn on its master, attacking it ferociously all the same. Doctors aren’t exactly sure what causes the autoimmune disease called systemic lupus, but they suspect it’s a murky concoction of factors.

Inherited genes, UV light, hormones, viruses and drugs may all contribute to the condition. Some of the most recent Lupus Foundation research suggests that a key enzyme fails to eliminate cellular debris, which can happen as a result of a gene mutation.

So, you ask, what are the symptoms and signs of systemic lupus? In 5-10% of the patients with systemic lupus erythematosus, they develop red, bordered, non-itchy skin rashes on the face and scalp. This form of lupus is called “discoid lupus” and while painless, can cause permanent hair loss and scarring.

Half the patients with systemic lupus have a red “butterfly rash” across the bridge of their nose and experience extreme sensitivity to sunlight. Most patients experience arthritis in their hands, wrists and feet.

More serious inflammation of organs occurs in the brain, liver, and kidneys. White blood cells and blood clotting factors also can be decreased in SLE, thereby increasing the risk of infection and bleeding. Inflamed muscles, blood vessels, lungs, kidneys and other body parts can cause internal injuries resulting in chest pain, fluid retention, high blood pressure, kidney failure, loss of appetite, seizures, comas, personality changes, fatigue, fever, numbness, hair loss and Raynaud’s phenomenon (lack of blood supply and pain in the fingers and toes). The symptoms vary, depending on which part of the body is affected and the severity of the condition, of course.

Doctors can diagnose systemic lupus using eleven criteria established by the American Rheumatism Association. If a patient has four or more symptoms, then a diagnosis is strongly urged. Symptoms of systemic lupus erythematosus are: malar (butterfly rash over the cheeks), discoid skin rash (patchy redness), photosensitivity (reaction to sunlight), mucus membrane ulcers (in the mouth, nose or throat), arthritis (swollen, tender joints), pleuritis/pericarditis (inflammation of the lungs/heart tissue), kidney abnormalities (excessive urine protein or cellular casts), brain irritation (seizures or psychosis), blood count abnormalities (low red or white blood cells), immunologic disorder (anti-DNA or abnormal activity) and antinuclear antibody (presence of ANA antibody). Blood tests, blood chemistry tests, body fluid tests and tissue biopsies can help uncover symptoms of lupus as well.

Treatment for systemic lupus is determined on an individual basis, depending on symptoms and inflammation levels. Patients with mild symptoms may not need treatment at all, but those with more serious symptoms may try medications that suppress the body’s immune system or decreases inflammation.

Many patients report difficulty sleeping, which can lead to depression, lethargy, random eating patterns and diminished coping abilities. Therefore, sleep aids are an important complementary treatment. Most recently, the 2007 national Rheumatology meeting said that an omega-3 fish oil supplement may decrease heart risks and diminish disease activity.