medicine

Home Treatments of the Croup in Children to Consider Along with Medication

When a child has the croup, the first instinct of a parent may be to consider medication. However, it can be several days before you get into the doctor. The medications used to treat it can be expensive, too. Even with insurance there are co-pays and in many instances the medications aren’t even covered under a given insurance plan. There are also side effects your child may have to deal with when they take these forms of medications.

You don’t have to just let your child suffer from the croup, though. There are numerous home treatments that you can try out. They are easy to implement, cost effective, and can give your child almost instant relief. When your child has croup, they have an inflammation that needs to be addressed. There is usually a type of virus responsible for it and the use of antibiotics won’t be helpful at all if this is the case.

You can create a steam room in your bathroom for your child. Turn on the shower and allow the hot water to run. Shut the door so that the bathroom will steam up. Hold your child in that room for about 15 minutes in an upright position. They may get a bit uncomfortable so you can take off articles of their clothing to cool them down.

The use of a humidifier in the room where your child sleeps is a good idea for croup. It will allow the dry air to have more moisture in it. A humidifier can be turned on and off or left on all night long if you like. You can use just plain water if you like or you can use medicine that is specifically for a humidifier. Always make sure it is a clean machine, though, so that you don’t spread bacteria through the air your child breathes.

Try to prop your child up so that they can breath easier while sleeping. The addition of an extra pillow under their head can make a huge difference. For a baby you may have to recline yourself in a chair and allow them to sleep upright against you to help with their breathing.

If the home treatments you try for croup don’t help your child to overcome it completely within 5 days, you need to see your doctor for medication. Let them know what you have done and they can offer a medication that will be helpful. Steroids are the common type of medication given to reduce the inflammation and swelling.You can use it in addition to the use of the various home treatments.

There are some “don’ts” when treating croup. Never stick your fingers into the mouth of your child to try to help their airway. This can be very dangerous to them. Don’t give them cough syrup as this won’t help with croup. If your child is struggling to breathe, then get immediate medical treatment for them.

http://www.healthychildren.org/English/health-issues/conditions/chest-lungs/pages/Croup.aspx

http://children.webmd.com/tc/croup-treatment-overview

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Posted in Patient Care

Why the use of Defensive Medicine is a Controversy

You can’t blame medical professionals for taking part in defensive medicine. If a patient should be misdiagnosed, there are often lawsuits. Doctors are so afraid of making mistakes due to malpractice suits that they often cover all the bases to an extreme. This often means that patients are being asked to complete more tests than they really need to.

Many people maintain that medical professionals should have enough training to properly diagnose health concerns without all of those tests. However, it is common that symptoms can be the result of many different underlying problems. That is where defensive medicine comes in. Doctors and hospitals have to be able to back up the fact that they did all they could to provide a very accurate diagnosis.

In fact, this practice is so common that 90% of doctors take part in defensive medicine. If you have to see the doctor but you don’t have insurance, you can ask them about which of the tests they are asking for are absolutely necessary. By doing so, you can help to reduce the overall cost of what you will have to pay out of pocket for your health care.

With the number of lawsuits against doctors increasing and payouts to those patients at high dollar amounts, insurance is expensive. Medical professionals are virtually backed into a corner where they have to take part in defensive medicine. If they aren’t doing so, they leave themselves wide open for damages if such cases are filed against them. They have worked too hard and too long to allow their practices to be compromised in this way.

The controversy comes from the fact that patients feel taken advantage of. They are poked and prodded and have to schedule many forms of testing to get a diagnosis from their doctor. Many people agree that laws need to be tighter surrounding lawsuits in the medical field. Only then will the use of defensive medicine begin to decrease and the cost to the patients reduced as well.

With health care costs continually on the rise, taking notice of the problem on all levels has created quite a stir. Studies indicate more than $60 billion is spent annually on defensive medicine. A great deal of that money is coming from government funded programs. Higher insurance premiums are also a result of so much being billed annually for excessive testing. For those that have to pay out of pocket, the struggle to come up with the money to pay off the bills for medical care is extremely difficult.

The bottom line is that medical professionals are not trying to bill you at every turn for all the tests they can make you take. Instead, they are doing a thorough job to make sure they don’t end up with problems later on. Most medical professionals take their position to help patients very seriously. The last thing they want is to see it compromised. As a result of this defensive medicine helps them to reduce errors and it protects them from lawsuits.

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Posted in Finances, Patient Care

Emergency Medicine: FAQs About Taking Aspirin for a Heart Attack or Stroke

The qualifications of those who recommend the use of aspirin as an emergency medicine during a heart attack are strong. The American Heart Association has endorsed the value of simple aspirin as a means of buying time during a heart attack. But if there is a chance of heart attack in a person’s medical profile or there is a family member who is at risk, it’s best to know more details about some aspects of how to use aspirin correctly in an emergency situation.

  1. When taking aspirin during a heart emergency, should it should be swallowed or chewed? The goal is to get the aspirin into the blood stream as quickly as possible. So chew the aspirin so it is absorbed quickly.
  2. Should someone with heart problems just start taking aspirin? It is wise for anyone to consult with their doctor before beginning a regimen of taking drugs. Even for a fairly mild and beneficial drug like aspirin, the patient’s doctor can advise whether routine aspirin use is advisable in light of other medications that may be part of his or her medical profile.
  3. Should aspirin be used as soon as the symptoms of a heart attack begins? Taking aspirin should not be the first thing one does when the symptoms of a heart attack begin to take place. The first thing to do is call 911 and get help from qualified personnel about what emergency medicine to take, if any. But it is smart to know where the aspirin is and to have it ready when you make the call. In that way, if the 911 operator advises you to take aspirin, you can get it into your system as quickly as possible.

If the emergency operator does not advise you to take aspirin right away, wait for the ambulance, as they will know when that is right for you. There will come a time as they work to save your life that aspirin could become part of that rescue. But leave that decision in the hands of qualified medical professionals who understand the dynamics of emergency medicine in light of your particular condition.

http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4456

http://www.health.harvard.edu/fhg/updates/update0505a.shtml

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Posted in Patient Care, Types of Pharmacy

Compound Medications

Anyone with experience in the pharmaceuticals industry will tell you that one size does not fit all when it comes to dispensing medications to fit various illnesses, ailments, conditions, and diseases. Furthermore, doctors will also tell you that symptoms present differently and illnesses progress differently from one individual patient to the next. As such, it is absolutely essential when studying pharmacy at college to acknowledge that medicine has to be tailored to suit the wants and needs of the individual. Failing to do so will not result in the best possible results at all times. This is why learning about compound medications is vital.

Compound medications are effectively those that are tailored to suit the individual’s requirements and specifications. As such, they are not medications and treatment programs that are out there on an as-is basis. They have to be mixed by a pharmacist in line with strict specifications and thus need to be 100% accurate at all times in order to have the optimal effect as well as preventing the potential harm that is possible should such compound medications be mixed inaccurately or carelessly. Similarly, the recommended dosages need to be completed accurately and to a high standard to safeguard the patient’s health.

As you can see, compound medications are a vital and yet potentially hazardous area of medicine and so all students at pharmacy school and practicing pharmacists need to ensure that they have extended fundamental and advanced knowledge regarding this particular area. Compound medications classes normally cover the basic mixing processes, the need for compound medications, the advantages, the potential disasters, and so much more. As you can see, these programs cannot be avoided and must be taken by all individuals looking to be the best possible pharmacist or pharmacy technician they can be. It is an essential area of medicine today and one that always needs to be right every time.

http://www.pcab.info/downloads/patient-education-0407.pdf

http://www.healthwayrx.com/

http://pharmacy.osu.edu/academics/pharmd/entrylevel.cfm

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Posted in Education, Uncategorized

FDA MedWatch – January 2010 Drug Safety Labeling Changes: 36 drugs with changes to Boxed Warning, Warnings, Contraindications, Precautions, Adverse Reactions‏

The MedWatch January 2010 Drug Safety Labeling Changes posting includes 36 drug products with safety labeling changes to the following sections: BOXED WARNING, CONTRAINDICATIONS, WARNINGS, PRECAUTIONS, ADVERSE REACTIONS, PATIENT PACKAGE INSERT, and MEDICATION GUIDE.

The following drugs had modifications to the BOXED WARNING, CONTRAINDICATIONS, and WARNINGS sections:

http://www.fda.gov/Safety/MedWatch/SafetyInformation/ucm200254.htm

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Posted in Pharmacy, Prescriptions

Hospital Of The Future

Anytime anyone reads an article that is titled “Hospital of the Future,” they assume that it will deal with advances in medicine that incorporate robots, the highest technology you could ever imagine, and much more in that similar vein. The name certainly implies that, but that is not necessarily the case. The hospital of the future should be about much more than technology. It should be about improving medical care and the way in which healthcare workers interact with their patients. It should be about healthcare efficiency and meeting the highest possible care standards out there. It should be about building the best possible hospital from the ground up.

 

The best medical care experts have met to discuss the hospital of the future in the past, most notably in 2006. That particular meeting was a Hospital of the Future Roundtable that was hosted by The Joint Committee and dealt with topics that may not necessarily be associated with the hospital of the future as we often think about it. For example, one of the topics discussed was the 78 million baby boomers that are heading into their senior years and put a strain on healthcare resources in the future, so how would the hospital of the future look as a result of that?

 

When we consider the hospital of the future, it is necessary to consider the problems faced today and how they will pose a challenge for hospitals in the coming years. We also need to consider how to adapt healthcare to meet rising international standards, such as eco-friendly values and globalization. There is also a need to put patients first, which has not necessarily happened in the past as a result of a shortage of staff, the demand placed on emergency services, and the rising costs of healthcare. The hospital of the future must be addressed because problems are most definitely appearing on the horizon. If we meet them head on now and determine the possibilities for the hospital of the future then it may help us to avoid issues that could degrade healthcare later on.

 

 

http://www.jointcommission.org/PublicPolicy/future.htm

 

http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/the-hospital-of-the-future/

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Posted in Hospital of the Future