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Epilepsy Increases Psychiatric Risk in Children

New evidence has pointed out that the antipsychotic drugs used in elderly patients may come with their own risks and dangers.

A research carried out at Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Boston revealed that the routinely prescribed drugs for psychosis were as dangerous as the newer ones. More than 10,900 people were surveyed across nursing homes in British Columbia over a span of ten years before coming to this conclusion. People surveyed under this category were those who had received an antipsychotic drug within 90 days of getting admitted in a hospital.

Antipsychotics could be deleterious

Earlier, it was thought that overuse of newer psychotropic drugs could be harmful to the elderly. But now, according to the above survey, conventional psychotropic drugs such as antidepressants and benzodiazepines had a greater risk of fractures of femurs and even death. The incidence of cardiac failure and pneumonia remained unchanged in both the drug groups. Earlier, diazepam or alprozolam were considered to be extremely safe in older patients and were even believed to reduce the stress levels.

The elderly patients can suffer from nervous disorders and dementia, which require proper medication and psychotherapy. The danger lies in that, most of them also suffer from some or the other form of chronic disease, such as hypertension, diabetes and osteoporosis. Some of the antipsychotic drugs have been found to worsen the existing disease, leading to heart failure or bone fractures, at the slightest provocation. It is now advisable to club counseling along with a light regimen of psychotropic drugs to alleviate the alarming side effects of antipsychotic drugs.

Antipsychotic drugs therefore, need to be carefully administered in the elderly patients, lest they result in irreversible side effects and complications.

Under the provisions of Defense Base Act, compensation benefits are available to civilian employees working on US military bases outside United States. An employee working on such critical assignment may suffer injuries that might be of permanent nature. The injuries are categorized into scheduled and unscheduled injuries.

Scheduled injuries

Under the provisions of section 908, the following injuries come under the ambit of scheduled injuries:

Loss of body parts including arm, leg, hand, foot. eye, thumb, toe and loss of hearing. Each of the body part loss is entitled to varied compensation rates with 312 week compensation for arm loss. For other body parts loss the compensation is as under:

Leg loss: 288 weeks’, hand loss: 244 weeks’, foot loss: 205 weeks’, eye loss: 166 weeks’, loss of hearing: 200 weeks’.

The number of weeks for which the compensation is to be awarded is judged on the basis of injury.

A person who has any of the above listed injury is entitled to compensation claims under scheduled injury category.

Calculating the disability rate

For example, a solider gets hit in the arm. In such case, the doctor judges the impairment limit to be 65%. Since a person hit in the arm is entitled to 312 weeks’ compensation, so this will come to be 312 weeks into 65% = 202.8 weeks.

If we assume that the average weekly wage is $1,123 and the compensation rate is $749, the final rate paid will come up to 202.8 into $749 = $151,947.

Concussion finds its origin in the Latin word concutera, referring to a violent shaking. Concussion is the most common traumatic brain injury. Concussion has been ranked in the following three categories by American Academy of Neurology Guidelines based on its severity:

Grade 1: No loss of consciousness is reported in this category.

Grade 2: The symptoms last for more than 15 minutes, though the person does not suffer from loss of consciousness.

Grade 3: Loss of consciousness is reported in this category.

Concussion symptoms: 

A person suffering from traumatic brain injury suffers from the following symptoms:

Headache, dizziness, vomiting, nausea, loss of consciousness and display of emotions that do not match their personality.

Therapies for Concussion

The general symptoms of Concussion do not require any treatment and go away naturally. Only about one percent of the cases require surgery. A person suffering from traumatic brain injury is advised rest and is required to keep away from alcohol and drugs. Ibuprofen can be taken in case headache persists.

The symptoms of concussion generally go away completely within three weeks. However, in certain cases reoccurrence of symptoms is noticed. This may lead to conditions as dementia Pugilistica.

Hindrance in early recovery

Though the usual recovery time in traumatic brain injury is three weeks, the recovery period might extend owing to multiple factors as clinical depression, increased period of amnesia and poor health.

A research study published in 2009 indicated that people suffering from concussion exhibit a decline in their physical and mental performances.

Canadian researchers view the term concussion as a misnomer considering the severity of the medical condition. This needs to be done to bring increased awareness among general people and make them aware of the treatment required.

Concussion needs to be viewed with seriousness as any laxity on part of the patient might lead to serious consequences and even result in death in some instances.

Smoking pot affects your mental health

The United Nations is launching a Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies and Development in Kuala Lumpur. Craig Barrett, Chairman of Intel Corporation Board chairs this Alliance. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan approved the alliance as a largest provider of information and communication technologies for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. These goals are: 1. Get rid of extreme hunger and poverty 2. Achieving universal primary education 3. Promoting gender equality and empowerment of women 4. Reducing child mortality 5. Improving maternal health 6. Fighting HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other disease 7. Ensuring environmental sustainability 8. Developing a global partnership for development This Barrett will lead the way in advancing the objectives of the World Summit on the Information Society and promoting a universal and inclusive information society. Intel is planning to spend approx $1 billion to promote World Ahead program. The another technology, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific opened the UN’s first Information and Communications Technology for Development and Training. Via : Information Week

MedStar Health, the largest healthcare system in the Washington, has selected Roadpost to provide Iridium Satellite emergency backup communications for its personnel and facilities. Roadpost is supplying the Iridium hardware and monthly services, which includes 9 multi-channel fixed terminal and 96 mobile handsets. These fixed terminals would be installed at MedStar’s hospitals to provide four independent channels for incoming and outgoing satellite calls. This is interface between the buildings’ private branch exchange switching systems. MedStar also utilizes Iridium systems on its fleet of four medical transport helicopters to provide automated tracking and voice communications. Via: Yahoo!

Microsoft Corp. announced the winners of the Microsoft Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences Innovation Awards 2006 at Philadelphia. This award is given to Pharmaceutical and life sciences industry in contributing in following fields: a) Areas of sales and marketing b) Manufacturing and supply chain, c) Clinical development The award is announced at the annual meeting of the Drug Information Association (DIA) in Philadelphia. It is given to the companies who demonstrated the best solution by the use Microsoft-based solutions. The participants of this award belong to following field: 1. Biotechnology 2. Diagnostics 3. Medical equipment and devices 4. Pharmaceuticals 5. Animal health 6. Nutritional products 7. Consumer health products The winners of these awardees are listed below: a) Sales and Marketing: GlaxoSmithKline is one of the largest pharmaceutical and healthcare companies in Mississauga, Ontario. GSK’s solution utilizes a Tablet PC, powered by Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, and Proscape Technologies Inc.’s software. Using a Proscape’s software, a sales representative can easily and effectively convey the key products. b) Manufacturing and Supply Chain: There are two compaies which has got this award, names are given below: 1. ALTANA Pharma AG is the pharmaceutical division of ALTANA AG, which has its headquarters in Konstanz, Germany. This company is creating a high quality for patient’s modern jobs for highly qualified employees and a good return for shareholders. ALTANA Pharma AG implemented Wassermann AG’s wayRTS solution, a 64-bit application using Windows Server 2003, Visual Studio 2005, Visual SourceSafe and the 2003 Microsoft Office system in 2005. It implemented for the operational planning and scheduling of its largest supply chain across three production sites and eight sales units. The resulting quality improvement leads to a significantly reduced error rate. 2. Pfizer Inc., New York. Pfizer Inc is the largest pharmaceutical company, employing more than 115,000 people. This company is dedicated for the health of people and animals. Pfizer’s solution, Catalyst, utilizes several Microsoft technologies, including .NET, BizTalk Server, SQL Server and SharePoint Portal Server. Catalysts also allows the industry workers to design, schedule and analyze pharmaceutical manufacturing processes using a graphical user interface in a fraction of the time required by existing electronic and manual systems. c) Clinical Development: PRA International, Reston is one of the largest global clinical research organizations who have more than 2400 employees working in North America, Europe, South America, Africa, Australia and Asia. By the help of DataLabs, Inc., PRA International rolled out FlexDMS powered by DataLabs Clinical, using Microsoft Active Directory, Internet Information Services 6.0, and Microsoft Cluster Server technologies. FlexDMS is a single data management system which combines the functionality of paper data entry with the flexibility of electronic data capture into one, easy-to-use electronic clinical data management platform. PRA operates FlexDMS on a common global platform that integrates the company’s data management facilities in Lenexa, Kan.; Victoria, British Columbia; Swansea, Wales; and a new facility in Pune, India Via: VERIVOX

A conference in Sofia is making a deal for the electronic health system in Bulgaria. The conference is organized by following organizations: 1. Health ministry 2. The State Agency of Information Technology and Communications 3. The Bulgarian Electronic Health System The topic of the conference is to establish a thriving e-health system for hospital information systems and connectivity. Via: Novinite

The two newspapers, the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times published the articles on issues related to Health care technology. The summary of the articles is given below: Elder care: The Wall Street Journal made a research, how big companies like Intel, Philips Electronics and Accenture have started developing the products on health care. The companies are trying to connect patients with outside world. They are making the product, which is remotely monitor and helps the patients to live more in their homes. According to article, these products reduce the cost of health care. Electronic health records: The Los Angeles Times examined about the efforts made by Central government for encouraging the use of Electronic Health Record. The EHRs help the patients to safe their personal medical information. John Halamka, chief information officer for Harvard Medical School, I would be worried if there were a centralized database in the basement of the White House that could be hacked, but we’re not building that. Via: Kaisernetwork