Mobile Digital Health

~ by Josh Libroan

Sonography is a popular new form of diagnosis because of its safe, non-invasive procedure. Borrowed from bats, sonagraphy utilizes the technology of sonar, which bounces sound waves off of objects to create dynamic pictures of them. Sonographers send and receive sound waves through a transducer, a thick baton that they run over the patient’s skin to sense what is underneath. Sonography is used to take a look at the heart, liver, kidneys, bloodstream, and most famously, unborn babies. It can be used to diagnose and treat heart disease, heart attack, and vascular disease that can lead to stroke. It is also used to guide probes and needles in surgery.

When you need a sonogram for diagnostic purposes, you don’t want to wait all day for it. That’s why Mobile DH provides rapid sonography service at your bedside, for hemologists, cardiologists, internists and other medical specialists, as well as homecare patients, nursing homes, and assisted living facilities.

By Donna Lampa

The American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology released a joint statement urging research to be done to determine the link between sleep apnea and heart disease, following increasing evidence of just such a connection, as well as the widespread prevalence of sleep apnea and rising levels of obesity in the United States, especially among young people. Obesity is a major cause of sleep apnea

“We feel it is important to alert the cardiovascular community to the implications of this emerging area of research. It is possible that diagnosing and treating sleep apnea may prove to be an important opportunity to advance our efforts at preventing and treating heart disease,” said Dr. Virend K. Somers, a professor of medicine and cardiovascular diseases at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

“We need to more clearly define the cause and effect relationship between sleep apnea and cardiovascular diseases and risk factors,” he noted. “There is evidence that sleep apnea may be a cause of some cases of high blood pressure, but for other cardiovascular conditions, the evidence is largely circumstantial

~ by Damion Drilla

Dementia isn’t all about aging, studies show. Health in mid-life can have a marked effect on cognitive ability later on.

A British study of 10,308 people, mostly men, followed the subjects from roughly the ages of 35-55 (the study started in 1985) to about 60-75 years (the study ended in 2004).

Coronary heart disease in midlife was found to be linked to lower cognition in later years. In men, heart disease was linked to lower reason, vocabulary, and MMSE scores. In women, it corresponded additionally to lower phonemic and semantic fluency.

The longer the heart disease – meaning, the earlier it was contracted – the greater the drop in cognitive ability over the years. This suggests that heart disease creates an ongoing condition that continuously deteriorates mental function until dementia kicks in.

Medicare had proposed stopping coverage for CT scans used to diagnose heart disease, but after receiving complaints from many Medical Societies including the American College of Cardiology and the American College of Radiology, they reversed their decision.

According to the American College of Cardiology and the American College of Radiology  – the “policy would have a profoundly negative impact on Medicare beneficiaries by limiting needed access to this technology for clinically appropriate indications.”

High-tech scans are one of the fastest growing areas of health-care spending, and The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service is determined to cuts costs. But for now, the agency will let the Regional Medicare carriers make their  own decisions on this and they usually tend to cover the test.

Medicare paid for an estimated 70,000 of the heart scans in 2006, at a cost of $40 million to $50 million.

The scans can serve a purpose similar to conventional angiography, in which X-ray images of the coronary vessels heart are enhanced with a dye injected by a catheter. A set of guidelines, created by several medical societies, recommends using the scans only on certain patients who have some evidence of heart disease, such as those with chest pain and a hard-to-evaluate stress test.

Since CT scans are less invasive than angiography, there is some concern that they might be used for screening patients who don’t show symptoms of disea

EKG – Electrocardiogram. Blame the ‘k’ on the Germans who coined the word first.

An EKG is an electrical test used to diagnose many heart conditions.

It’s a noninvasive test in which the patient lies flat on a table and has several electrodes attached to his or her extremities and chest. A bit of gel is applied to ensure complete surface contact between the electrodes and the body.

The heart pumps because of electrical pulses that originate in the sinoatrial node and travel through the heart, contracting it. The electrodes can sense the pulse. The different electrodes are placed in different locations around the heart to sense electrical activity in different sections of the heart.

The EKG produces a graph of the patient’s heart rhythm, which can be compared to a normal heart rhythm to detect weaknesses and abnormalities. It can measure heart rate, the orientation of the heart in the chest, sense if the heart muscle is thickening, sense damage to the heart, find evidence of impaired bloodflow to the heart, or sense abnormal electrical activity. Inflammation of the heart, irregular blood electrolytes, heart murmurs, and any adverse effects from heart or lung illnesses are others of the many conditions the EKG can diagnose. Any of the above could lead to cardiovascular illness, heart disease, or hypertension.

The EKG can sense if a heart attack has occurred, or if one is likely to occur, making it an essential diagnostic tool for those at risk of heart problems.

While EKG is rarely a time-critical test, scheduling and administering one is often a hassle, especially for care facilities such as nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and old age homes. For cardiologists, for whom a private facility is not an option, often have to wait an inconvenient amount of time to find out if their prognosis was correct.

Mobile DH changes that by bringing the EKG to the patient’s bedside or the doctor’s office. Instead of going through the paperwork and red tape to transport the patient to an EKG facility, just give Mobile DH a ring and have the EKG (ECG) brought to you.

~ by Cher Giovani

The study wasn’t about dementia: it was about blood pressure. A British group researching hypertension in the elderly followed a group of participants aged 80 and over to record the effects of drug therapy treatment for hypertension on the patients. Among the many variables measured was cognitive impairment.

The 3,336 subjects were randomly assigned to receive or not receive drug therapy for hypertension. At the beginning, they were all screened to have similar medical records, including no diagnosis of dementia.

The study found that treatment definitely reduced incidence of stroke, heart failure, and death. There were also 263 cases of dementia, including vascular dementia, Alzheimer’s, and ordinary cognitive decline. Treatment showed a small, but definite increase in cognitive decline among the untreated subjects.

Further study would be necessary to see if treating hypertension directly affects dementia, or if the reduced decline is tied to the form of treatment itself; the greatest reduction in dementia was found with the use of calcium channel blockers.

Not to be confused with an ECG, which is an electrocardiogram and quite different. An echocardiogram is actually a neat piece of technology borrowed from our good neighbors the bats.

Sonar was developed for use detecting submarines during World War Two. Like bats, navy servicemen would fire waves of ultrasound – sound too high for the human ear to hear – ahead of them and wait to see what bounced back.

Every time sound hits something, some of the waves pass through, while others bounce back. By collecting and measuring the bounced-back waves, sonar machinery can piece together a picture of what lies underwater.

In the modern hospital, instead of soldiers in uniform, trained sonographers use a wand-like transducer to send and receive sound waves. By holding the transducer near the heart, they can form a detailed picture of its movement and activity. A cardiologist will read the results and prescribe treatment.