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More Surgery Considerations - Dr. Geoffrey Spencer from London, England wrote an article for Polio Outreach of Washington reporting that special considerations are needed for polio survivors. Patients with significant paralysis from polio have reduced muscle mass, thus having reduced blood supply. This necessitates replacement of blood lost during surgery, which may be accomplished through blood donors or donation of the patient’s own blood a few weeks before surgery. He also mentions that most patients with polio replace lost muscle with fat, which contains a smaller proportion of water than muscle fiber, so water loss needs to be monitored closely. Did you know? The inventor of the first teddy bear was a polio survivor. Margarete Steiff designed the first bear, which was ordered by a New York store. Theodore Roosevelt was President at the time, and people had just seen a picture of him holding a bear cub. The name “Teddy” was attached to the Steiff bears. When Margarete Steiff died in 1909, her company was exporting hundreds of thousand of bears, and now these earlier bears are quite collectible. Antibiotic pitfalls—Last year, the Food and Drug Administration initiated rules requiring antibiotic labels list statements about proper use to help avoid drug-resistant bacterial strains. Many significant bacterial infections are becoming resistant to at least one antibiotic that had been effective previously. Here are three main ways that bacteria become resistant: Overuse of antibiotics - physicians may prescribe antibiotics when you have a viral infection, for which antibiotics do not help; Misuse of antibiotics – by not taking the antibiotics as prescribed, all the bacteria are not killed and may develop resistance to future antibiotic use; Overuse of anti-bacterial products – using soaps and other products with antibacterial chemicals can lead to resistant bacteria (note: such products may be necessary to protect an ill person with weakened immune systems). |
Bits’n Pieces
news you can use
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Spring 2006 |
