South African X-ray Machine Steals Show in ‘Grey’s Anatomy’

It showed on the telly last night.

The Lodox produces the lowest levels of radiation of any other X-ray machine, and is used in 11 hospital trauma units across the country, mostly at government hospitals.

While other machines might take 20 minutes to X-ray a critically injured patient, the Lodox takes only seconds.

The machine was invented by the De Beers mining company in the 1990s to scan hundreds of miners at the ends of their shifts to see if they had swallowed diamonds.

In last night’s episode, Dr Owen Hunt (Kevin McKidd) presents the machine to his staff…

Rest here.

 

Belief in God Improves the Outcome in Treatment for Psychiatric Illness

According to a Harvard study:

Belief in God significantly improves the outcome of those receiving short-term treatment for psychiatric illness, a recent study conducted by the Harvard Medical School researchers has concluded.

In the study, published in the current issue of Journal of Affective Disorders, Dr. David Rosmarin, a clinician at McLean Hospital and instructor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, examined individuals at the hospital’s Behavioral Health Partial Hospital programme to investigate the relationship between patients’ level of belief in God, expectations for treatment and actual treatment outcomes.

“Our work suggests that people with a moderate to high level of belief in a higher power do significantly better in short-term psychiatric treatment than those without, regardless of their religious affiliation. Belief was associated with not only improved psychological wellbeing, but decreases in depression and intention to self-harm,” Dr. Rosmarin reported.

The study looked at 159 patients, recruited over a one-year period. Each participant was asked to gauge their belief in God as well as their expectations for treatment outcome and emotion regulation, each on a five-point scale. Levels of depression, wellbeing, and self-harm were assessed at the beginning and end of their treatment program.

Of the patients sampled, more than 30 per cent claimed no specific religious affiliation yet still saw the same benefits in treatment if their belief in a higher power was rated as moderately or very high. Patients with “no” or only “slight” belief in God were twice as likely not to respond to treatment than patients with higher levels of belief.

The study concludes: “… belief in God is associated with improved treatment outcomes in psychiatric care. More centrally, our results suggest that belief in the credibility of psychiatric treatment and increased expectations to gain from treatment might be mechanisms by which belief in God can impact treatment outcomes.”

Dr. Rosmarin commented, “Given the prevalence of religious belief in the United States — over 90 per cent of the population — these findings are important in that they highlight the clinical implications of spiritual life.”

 

What Killed Herod the Great?

In the Montreal Gazette:

Jerusalem — If hockey is Canada’s national sport, archeology is Israel’s.  Wherever one walks, one treads on history; wherever one drives, one travels  through history. Whenever one talks — well, consider for example a recent phone  call I made to my daughter arranging to pick her up: “I’ll take the Valley of  the Cross (the reference is obvious), go up Gaza St. (the ancient route from  Jerusalem to the coast) and meet you just outside the Western Wall (the only  remainder of Jerusalem’s Holy Temple).” If I go hiking near our house, which  directly faces the Judean Hills (where John the Baptist hid out in his day),  each of my footsteps crunches on pottery shards strewn about rocky terraces  built more than 2,000 years ago by the Children of Israel (my forefathers).

When I learned a few years ago that the famous archeologist Ehud Netzer was  leading a tour of Herodium, the site where he had located the grave of Herod the  Great, I jumped at the chance. The outing was sponsored by a jewel of an  institution, the Bible Lands Museum (sponsored in large part by Canadian  philanthropy and itself worth a visit, either in person or via its website,  blmj.org).

Herod the Great — as opposed to other Herods less grand — was a sort of  Jewish king who ruled Palestine under the umbrella of the Roman Empire from 37  BCE until his gruesome death (more on that later) in 4 CE. Among other things,  he was known for grandiose and extensive building; he made his kingdom a place  of wonder for, and even tourism from, the reaches of the Roman Empire. In  addition to Herodium, Herod erected magnificent buildings in Caesarea and  Masada, among others, and was responsible for renovating and refurbishing the  great temple in Jerusalem.

Herodium, a few kilometres southwest of Jerusalem, was one of the king’s  grandest building projects, serving as summer palace, monument and district  administrative capital. As our guide explained, “Think of Herodium’s  relationship to Jerusalem as Versailles’s to Paris.” As evidence of how  important it was to Herod, this complex was the only one of his many impressive  sites that he named after himself.

Above all, this was Herod’s self-chosen place of burial. Why there? As Prof.  Netzer recounted, at one point Herod, his family and his armed retainers had to  escape Jerusalem during a brief siege of the city by the Parthians, the Roman  enemy of the month. During this tactical retreat, Herod’s mother was almost  killed when her carriage crashed. But she survived, and Herod vowed he would  make the spot his place of burial. And so he did.

For the past 100 years, archeologists have worked at Herodium, but no one had  located Herod’s grave until just a few years ago, when Netzer, a trained  architect, experienced archeologist and professor at the Hebrew University of  Jerusalem, announced that he had discovered the mausoleum halfway up the slope  of the cone-shaped site. Why are most archeologists so certain that this was  indeed the site of the tomb and that Herod was actually buried there? Well, one  can read all about it from the pen of Flavius Josephus, a contemporary  historian.

The grand mausoleum is still being excavated and is not yet open to the  public — unless you happen to be accompanied by the archeologist who discovered  it. (Sadly, in 2010, a few months after our tour, Netzer died as a result of a  fall suffered at his beloved site.) As I took in the place, I couldn’t help but  wonder what illness Herod died from. In the case of most ancient personages, we  haven’t got a clue. But here, once again, Josephus steps into the breach.  Quoting more contemporary sources (Herod had died several decades before  Josephus wrote his own account), he describes the king’s symptoms:

“He had a fever, though not a raging fever, an intolerable itching of the  whole skin, continuous pains in the intestines, tumours of the feet as in  dropsy, inflammation of the abdomen and gangrene of the privy parts.” He also  suffered, according to Josephus, from “limb convulsions, asthma and foul  breath.”

The doctors of the day were, not surprisingly, flummoxed by this combination  of symptoms. They used the contemporary therapeutic armamentarium, including  immersing the patient in a bath of hot oil. But Herod received no relief, and  the bath burned his eyes.

The clinically curious of today can turn to the more modern Historical  Clinicopathological Conference put on by the University of Maryland, which  brings experts together periodically to examine the death of a famous personage,  and which recently tackled Herod’s case. The combination of symptoms was a  challenging one, especially the presence of gangrene of the genitalia — something one does not see every day. The scientists used a clever bit of  clinical reasoning and came to a tentative conclusion: chronic kidney failure of  unknown cause complicated by the rare (thank God) Fournier’s gangrene of the  testicles. There are other candidates, of course, such as syphilis or other  sexually transmitted diseases, but the kidney diagnosis seemed to fit the  symptoms best.

Unfortunately for us and for medical history, Prof. Netzer found no human  remains in the mausoleum, probably because it had been ransacked by Jewish  rebels during the revolt against the Romans about 70 years after Herod died. So  we’ll never know the true cause of his death — but the speculation is  fascinating.

 

Monstrous

In the country that used to be England, the weak are now to be murdered by thirst at the behest of bean counters.  Coming soon to a post-Christian state near you.

Source:  Mark Shea

 

4,000 Years of Medicine

HT:  Sancte Pater

 

How We Die

The New England Journal of Medicine looks through 200 years of back issues to understand how we die differently:

The first thing to notice here is how much our mortality rate has dropped over the course of a century, largely due to big reductions in infectious diseases like tuberculosis and influenza.

The way we talk about medical conditions has changed, too..

Read on here.

 

Totally Drug-resistant Tuberculosis

Not multi-drug-resistant (MDR) TB, but TOTALLY drug resistant:

The PD Hinduja hospital detected four people with total drug resistant (TDR) tuberculosis (TB), the first such cases in the country till November last year. In the last two months, eight others have been detected with TDR-TB…

Till November 2011, the hospital got four TB patients resistant to all first-line (Isoniazid, Rifampicin, Ethambutol, Pyrazinamide and Streptomycin) and second-line (Ofloxacin, Moxifloxacin, Kanamycin, Amikacin, Capreomycin, Para-aminosalicylic acid and Ethionamide) drugs.

“After thoroughly checking their prescriptions, we found that three of them had received erratic and unsupervised second-line drugs. They were often given in incorrect doses by multiple private practitioners to cure their multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB,” Dr Udwadia said. “The mortality rate of MDR, XDR and TDR-TB is 30%, 60% and 100% respectively.”

Further details about these cases in India here (and probably elsewhere).

Very worrying indeed.

Source

 

Mysterious Disease Hits Uganda

The Africa Report:

As Ugandans celebrated Christmas and New Year, most people in the northern parts of the country were seeking answers about a mysterious disease that has mainly affected children.

The head nodding disease which mostly attacks children aged between five and 15 has killed over 50 children in the last three months alone.

“The major symptom of the disease is the continuous nodding of the head” said community officer Jacob Okello.

“Over 2400 children in the districts of northern Uganda are suffering from the disease.

“Some of the victims faint after several minutes from the continuous head nodding”.

There are fears that the little known disease might escalate into an outbreak amid admissions by authorities that they have no knowledge of the ailment.

“The nodding disease which is at times called the nodding syndrome is a little known disease in Uganda,” said Gregory Obulu, a medical officer in northern Uganda.

“It is alleged that it even hit South Sudan in the 1980′s.”

According to Obulu, some health workers have associated the disease with epilepsy.

Joseph Wamala, an official at Uganda’s epidemic and surveillance department of the Ministry of Health said the nodding disease could be a new type of epilepsy.

He said it could be associated with a parasitic worm known as Onchocerca Volvulus, which is also known to cause river blindness.

“Studies are being carried out to get facts on that” Obulu said.

..

More here.

 

Going to Church Lowers your Blood Pressure

Attending services lowers blood pressure the more you go. The Daily Mail:

Going to church at Christmas may have been good for the soul, but scientists have discovered that it may also be good for the body.

Researchers found that attending services lowers blood pressure – and the more often you go the lower it becomes.

Previous studies in the U.S. suggested the link, but as 40 per cent of Americans regularly go to church its health benefits were treated as a coincidence. So the Norwegian researchers, who had just four per cent of churchgoers among their 120,000 participants, were surprised to see they too had lower blood pressure…

Torgeir Sorensen, from the School of Theology and Religious Psychology Centre at Sykehuset Innlandet said: ‘We found that the more often the participants went to church the lower their blood pressure…

Professor Jostein Holmen from the Faculty of Medicine at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and one of the authors of the study, said: ‘The research into lifestyle and health issues mainly comes from the United States, while information from Europe is very limited.

‘Earlier studies have shown a positive correlation between humour and good health, and participation in different cultural activities and good health.

‘It would appear that the data we have been recording about religious beliefs is actually relevant to your health.

‘The fact that churchgoers have lower blood pressure encourages us to continue to study this issue.

‘We’re just in the start-up phase of an exciting research area.’

You can read more on this positive news here.

Unless of course you’re an Anglican… Then there’s plenty to shoot your blood pressure straight through the roof…

 

The Role of Chaplains on Patient Medical Teams

Is the subject of an article in The Wall Street Journal:

As interest rises in the links between religion, spirituality and health, there is a new push to establish chaplaincy in the medical mainstream and apply more rigorous scientific research. The Association of Professional Chaplains, which certifies health-care chaplains, issued its first standards for practice in 2009, including the requirement that chaplains document their work in patient medical records and stay abreast of new research.

Medical schools are adding courses on spirituality and health, and training residents to consider patients’ spiritual needs. Some two-thirds of U.S. hospitals provide chaplaincy services; others rely on local clergy and lay volunteers.

Studies indicate as many as 40% of patients with serious illnesses like cancer struggle with spiritual concerns, which can harm emotional and physical well-being, says George Fitchett, research director in the Department of Religion, Health and Human Values at Rush University Medical Center Chicago.

Patients who have negative thoughts—say, questioning God’s care for them—are more likely to develop worse health outcomes than patients who show positive spiritual coping, such as turning to religion for solace.

Chaplains “are patients’ greatest advocates,” says Harold Koenig, director of Duke University’s Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health. They should work closely with other medical professionals, he says, and help them understand how spiritual beliefs influence patients’ treatment decisions and response.

Studies indicate that chaplain visits can result in less patient anxiety, shorter hospital stays and higher satisfaction. Still, a review in the Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy concludes that many studies haven’t been rigorous enough to test effectiveness and define the best practices of chaplains’ care.

“Every dimension of health care has to be accountable,” says Walter Smith, a Jesuit priest and president of the nonprofit Health Care Chaplaincy in New York, which conducted the review and provides chaplains to area hospitals.

“Creating a strong research foundation of what chaplains do in the clinical setting will mark the coming of age of health-care chaplaincy as a profession,” he says.

With a $3 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation—whose late founder was an investor interested in the intersection of scientific research and spirituality—the Health Care Chaplaincy will oversee six national research projects on professional chaplains’ role in health and palliative care, Dr. Smith says.

A study published online in July in the Journal of General Internal Medicine found that among 3,000 patients hospitalized over a three-year period at the University of Chicago Medical Center, 41% wanted a discussion of religious and spiritual concerns, yet only half of that group reported having one.

Patients who had a spiritual discussion reported being more satisfied with their overall care, whether or not they said they had desired it.

Patients may hesitate to ask for a chaplain’s services out of concern that chaplains will proselytize—even though in many cases they don’t use explicit theological language and “are there to be companionable and offer support,” says Wendy Cadge, associate professor at Brandeis University.

Doctors, she adds, may feel uncomfortable asking patients about spiritual needs, or that it is inappropriate to do so.

That’s where tools such as spiritual history-taking can help, says Christina Puchalski, director of the George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health, in Washington D.C., who developed a screening questionnaire.

Ann Berger, chief of pain and palliative care at the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md., says it is “an easy way to ask these questions of patients and teach spiritual assessment to health-care providers.” Chaplains visit referrals from such questionnaires and often make rounds to chat informally with patients.

At North Shore University Hospital, Ms. Hynes met Rev. Lile, a Health Care Chaplaincy employee, when the chaplain stopped by her room.

Ms. Hynes, a Catholic, had turned to her faith to help her cope with the 2008 death of her husband and the loss of her teaching job. After she was diagnosed with mantle cell lymphoma, a rare and often aggressive cancer, Rev. Lile helped Ms. Hynes face some of her fears, she recalls. “She gave me a beautiful prayer, and we sat and talked for an hour. She was so receptive and interested in what I was going through.”

The two spoke often during Ms. Hynes’s hospital stay, laughing over the notion that Rev. Lile, trained as a Lutheran minister, would be blessing Catholic holy water that Ms. Hynes’s son brought to the hospital for the stem-cell transplant.

After the transplant, Ms. Hynes wrote to Rev. Lile to express her thanks: “I feel so blessed to have your encouraging influence during this turning point in my life. . . . The beautiful prayer and blessing is a memory I will always carry with me.”

Read the rest here.