Your wellbeing
All about Food/Healing and health
Food, healing and sustaining health
A good diet is essential to proper mending. By Merrilyn Banks
As we all know, Nutrition plays an essential role in wound healing. Individuals with poor nutritional status or malnutrition are more likely to develop pressure injuries and have more severe pressure injuries. They are also more prone to infections and heal more slowly. Nutrition needs to be a core part of wound management and it will, most likely, be cost-effective. Malnutrition Many studies in Australia and worldwide show that malnutrition occurs in about 30 per cent of acute-care patients and up to 50 per cent of residents in aged-care facilities. Chronic wounds, which increase nutritional requirements…
Through her research, Dr Banks has highlighted the importance of nutrition in the management of hospital and aged care patients. She was instrumental in the establishment of Queensland Health’s Malnutrition Prevention Program from 2010-2012. She has been a trailblazer in improving the quality of food services for hospital and aged care patients, being instrumental in the establishment of a Statewide Food Services Policy and Planning Unit and leading the development of food service policy and standards for Queensland healthcare facilities.
Read more about this interesting topic: http://www.aushsi.org.au/projects/evaluation-of-an-innovative-interdisciplinary-post-hospital-nutrition-outreach-service-for-older-medical-patients
Further learning, Your wellbeing
Death’s ethical dimensions
Death’s ethical dimensions and issues
Traditionally, before we entered the modern era of nursing, a large portion of people chose to die at home – with intimate care provided by family members at their bedside. Today however, a growing number of people die at hospital. Approximately 54 per cent of the people who die each year do so in an acute care hospital, and this figure is only set to rise with the growth in the ageing population. Nurses will take the place traditionally seen to by family members – not only responsible for providing care to the dying, but also possibly playing the most critical role in making sure the person…
Read more: http://www.caresearch.com.au/caresearch/tabid/1214/Default.aspx
Your wellbeing
The stigma and confidentiality issues surrounding nurses and mental health problems
Erasing stigma
Australia needs to address the stigma and confidentiality issues surrounding nurses that suffer from mental health problems. This is what the newly appointed University of NSW workplace health researcher Dr Sam Harvey has pointed out. He is going to be based at UNSW’s School of Psychology and the affiliated Black Dog Institute and is the first dedicated workplace mental health research post at an Australian University.
Dr Harvey is an expert in mental health issues faced by nurses and medical staff. he was trained in Adelaide and has returned after a decade in the UK, where he established clinics at two major London Hospitals to treat medical staff suffering mental health problems. He also said that often the mundane aspect of the job which caused the most stress, magnified the unwillingness on the part of most medical professionals to seek help. When you ask a health professional “what it is what causes the most stress” , it’s often not that providing health care to the sick or nursing the needy or dealing with the sick causes the most stress, but whether they feel in control over the day-by-day actions or self development or whether they feel a valued team member. These are things which you can find in every profession. He also has found that medical professionals were at a higher risk of mental health problems and of developing a more serious form of depression or bipolar disorders and drug abuse because they do not ask for help on time. There is great anxiety among this group of professionals to seek help for these problems and see themselves as a patient or been seen as a patient by other health professionals.
Harvey’s solution to this problem is to break down some of the barriers, and to let people seek help, and make sure that when they do, it can be done in an appropriate and confidential way. Harvey will begin his 5 year research program by concentrating first on mental health issues experienced by ambulance officers, firefighters and police officers in New South Wales, before hoping to generalize this across the broader workforce.
please click on link to read more: http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/blog/mental-health-professionals-stigma
Your wellbeing
Nurses and lawyers, do they need them?
When Does a Nurse Need a Lawyer?
Protecting you License from the Nurse Police:
Many nurses only think about the Board of Nursing when they are undergoing the process of obtaining their license or when they are renewing the license. However, the Board is involved with more than just the licensing of nurses.
While most nurses worry and plan around avoiding lawsuits, they give little thought to which actions or omissions might attract the Board’s attention. Even though lawsuits affect a nurse’s wallet, the bigger concern is the impact the Board can have on a nurse’s ability to practice nursing.
Your Nursing License
When most nurses think about relinquishing their nursing license, they assume that it will be due to a voluntary action like retirement, maybe a large inheritance or maybe even winning lottery millions!But, few nurses expect to have to give up their ability to earn money as a nurse because the Board revokes their license or forces the nurse to surrender the license. Even if the Board chooses not to revoke a license, they can still impose restrictions on the nurse’s license that can adversely affect a nurses employment.
This article was copied from: “Nursetogether” Author Taralynn R. MacKay, RN, JD, is a partner in the Austin, Texas law firm of McDonald, most of this article is apllicable for Australia.
read more: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/760437
Your wellbeing
All about blood pressure
Please click on the following links to learn more about blood pressure and how to measure it correctly.
How to measure the blood pressure
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6saTO8_o2g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWti317qb_w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCLHbwBBvFc
Order you blood pressure equipment now; https://www.thestethoscopeshop.com.au/B.P.-Equipment/View-all-products.html
Blood pressure set available in Blue/Mauve/Purple/Blue/Black (*limited stock in some colour)
Your wellbeing
High blood pressure and baldness
Interesting: High blood pressure and baldness
We thought that this information is a great thing for nursing to share among each other and with patients:
Say we only have one body so everything is connected, i.e. what happens in one part of the body must have effects in other parts. But the medical profession and pharmaceutical industry would prefer us to believe each part of a condition is separate.
That way, they can justify the costs of treating each part separately and sell us targeted drugs. This is one of the things making research so interesting because, from time to time, a set of results appears that might simplify treatments down to one from many. Obviously, the for-profit doctors hope we do not notice. Anyway, let’s start with a piece of information everyone knows. No matter how caused, hypertension or high blood pressure is directly linked to diabetes and cardiovascular disease. It’s one of the red flag symptoms that suggests urgent preventative treatment to prolong an active life and delay the threatened early death.
Published in 2000, a study analyzed the health records of 22,000 male doctors over a period of eleven years. Men who had a central balding patch were 24% more likely to have a heart attack. If the crown was completely bald, the risk rose to 36%. Continuing the trend, research finished in 2007 looked in detail at 250 men aged between 35 and 65. They screened out the influences of high cholesterol levels, smoking, age, etc. and found there was a strong association between high blood pressure and male pattern baldness. In fact, anyone showing a pressure greater than 120 over 80 was twice as likely to start losing hair as the man with a normal blood pressure.
At present, this is only observational data. A link or correlation is shown but it’s not yet proved. So what can be drawn from these studies? One of the known causes of high blood pressure is changes in the level of hormones. Increases in testosterone and adrenaline can stimulate an increase in pressure. By coincidence, changes in the level of testosterone can also affect hair loss. It’s one of the more likely causes of male pattern baldness. So it’s not unreasonable to assume hair loss is a first symptom of increasing blood pressure and, in time, possible heart disease. Right now, there’s no cause for alarm. Researchers have simply noticed the coincidence. But, if you do detect early hair loss, you might find your way down to your primary care physician to ask for an exam including blood pressure and heart monitoring. If there’s also high blood pressure, you can begin treatment for that. There are no serious interactions between the two sets of drugs. But, and here’s the interesting point, it’s possible that only treating the blood pressure might stop the hair loss. If hair was lost at a high rate by men with a pressure of 120 over 80, reducing the pressure will potentially slow hair loss. If that’s the case, you might treat both conditions for the price of only one drug. While we wait for more research, you should follow your doctor’s directions on the drugs to take and their dosage.
Keep an eye on your Bloodpressure:
https://www.thestethoscopeshop.com.au/B.P.-Equipment/View-all-products.html
