Mobile Digital Health

Many patients who require pulmonary care for chronic breathing problems such Asthma, Bronchiectasis, Emphysema and Chronic Bronchitis, Pneumonia and Pulmonary Fibrosis as well as those who have undergone lung surgery are opting to be treated at home as opposed to languishing in a hospital or  nursing facility

“Many (clients) are sick people, but home is clearly what the majority of patients would prefer rather than going into a home,”says Dr. Benjamin Rossi, Medical Director of the Visiting Nurses Association’s Home Health Care program. “If you have a good organization, you can help people with quality of life and help manage their chronic disease so they can stay at their home.”

Advances in technology are making it easier for family members to manage the home care of their loved one. Mobile Digital Imaging is one area that can serve as a great asset to home care, helping to fill the gap between the hospital and home. Just one phone call brings a technician to the bedside of your mom or dad and  a full spectrum of test  can be done on the spot. X-rays, EKGs, Sonograms, and Echocardiograms are just some of what’s available and all imaging is done digitally so results aren’t long in coming. Radiologists on call 24/7 read and evaluate all tests immediately, so your physician can follow up with the appropriate treatment.

More and more people want their care provided at home so they can feel comfortable in their own bed. Now they can rest assured, knowing that when their doctor orders an x-ray  it doesnt require the hassle of a hospital trip. They can just stay put.

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.

By Stan Readley

It’s long been known that beta amyloid, a disruptive plaque substance, forms on the brain as Alzheimer’s disease progresses. What is not known is if the plaque causes the disease, or is caused by it. Particularly confusing: some people have beta amyloid in their brain and no Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Ganesh M. Shankar and Dr. Dennis J. Selkoe of Harvard Medical School led a study that collected beta amyloid samples from cadavers donated to science and injected them into the brains of mice. Surprisingly, not all the mice developed Alzheimers. Only the mice who received a particular strain of beta amyloid developed the neurological disease. The two-molecule, soluble beta-amyloid seems to clog the synapses and disrupt communication between sections of the brain.

The study seems to directly inculpate a single form of beta amyloid as the cause of Alzheimers. If further studies corroborate these findings, we could be on the way to discovering the cause and cure for the degenerative neurological disease.

So, how does EKG stand for electrocardiogram? Ask the Germans who coined the word Elektrokardiogramm. The human body is powered by electricity, and the heart is no exception. Electric pulses zap the heart and force it to contract, pumping blood through the ventricles and out to the blood vessels. The electric pattern will change if there is damage to the tissue or if something isn’t working correctly. An EKG (electrocardiogram) records the electric pattern of the heart. by comparing a patient’s heart electric pattern to a normal electric pattern, a cardiologist can diagnose what, if anything, is wrong with the patient’s heart, and what to do about it.

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.

contributed by Anne Lacey

Falls during rehab. Slips in the shower. Accidents on the stairs. They don’t happen often, but when they do happen, you want them cared for rapidly at on site.

The traditional care for suspected fractures – a trip to the x-ray via the emergency room – isn’t fast, efficient, or remotely painless. For the elderly or disabled, double the discomfort quotient. Even once the x-ray has been taken, there’s a delay while it develops and is read by a specialist. Only after hours and hours can they finally be treated by an orthopedist or surgeon.

Which is why long-term care, assisted living, and rehab facilities should consider a recent option: portable digital x-rays.

Portable – that means that instead of you going to the x-ray facility, the x-ray machine comes to your bedside. Yup – the back of a van. As soon as the accident happens you call the portable x-ray service and they send someone over. No need to move patients with limited mobility and who are in pain. Keep them comfortable and rested in bed while you wait.

Digital – that means no waiting for results. The x-ray is available immediately both for you and for the service’s experts back at the base. They’ll look at the x-ray in real time and give you their reading on the spot. Then the orthopedist can move in and begin treatment right away.

by Anne Lacey

The average age in rehabilitation facilities is dropping. Assisted living and nursing homes are among those with this trend, as they attract boomers looking for great rehab in the short term. These patients aren’t there for the social life – they want to get better, wave goodbye to their orthopedic surgeon, and get back out into the real world – fast.

But rehabilitation needs to be taken slow, and all too often, aggressive boomers re-injure themselves by exercising too hard too fast. Ironically, they end up right back at the orthopedist where they started. When this occurs, hours and hours can be wasted moving them to the hospital for emergency treatment and bringing them back. After half a day in the emergency room, the unhappy boomer is often downright annoyed.

That’s why mobile x-ray is preferred. The patient retires to his or her bed in comfort, while the portable x-ray machine zooms over immediately. Tests are performed at the bedside, and the patient can be treated by their orthopedic surgeon with immediate diagnosis. While the patient with the fracture may not be happy, at least they’ll be less unhappy.

by Anne Lacey

Post-menopausal women now have another option for treating osteoporosis. Formulated by Novartis, the once-a-year, intravenous infusion of zoledronic acid (Reclast) is given in a single, 15-minute period has previously been approved to treat Paget’s disease.

The approval is based on a three-year, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase-III trial of almost 8,000 women—in other words, highly accurate. The study found that those treated with the infusion had 70% fewer fractures of the vertebrae, 41% few hip fractures, and 25% fewer other fractures. These results are just as good as those obtained from weekly and monthly treatments. The study did find a higher rate of heart arrhythmia among those treated with this drug. Other side effects were flue-like symptoms, joint pain, musculoskeletal pain, fever, and headache, which can last up to two weeks after the infusion.

Because Reclast contains the same active ingredient as Zometa, the infusion should not be given to those being treated with the drug.

If you’d like to avoid getting intimate with your orthopedic surgeon, this is an option you should consider.

Contributed by Anne Lacey

The femur (hipbone) is the strongest and heaviest bone in the body.

Each year there are over 320,000 hospitalizations for hip fractures.

White, post-menopausal women have a one in seven chance of sustaining a hip injury during their lifetime.

The hip is the most powerful bone in the body, but with age, it becomes vulnerable. Osteoporosis in the bone can cause weakness and fracture. Protect your hip to prevent injury. Don’t see an orthopedic surgeon if you don’t have to.

Build those bones:

Women and the elderly are at particular risk for hip fractures, but there are some steps you can take to reduce your risk. Consume at least 1,000 milligrams of calcium daily to strengthen your bones, and supplement it with approximately 400 iu (international units) of Vitamin D, to aid in calcium absorption. Potassium and phosphorus reduce the absorption of bone calcium into the bloodstream, and prevent the loss of bone density. Dairy products, canned sardines and salmon, soy, and green leafy vegetables are rich in all these vitamins and minerals. Initial studies suggest that onions may reduce the bone breakdown process by as much as 20%.

Avoid bad habits:

Smoking and excessive alcohol intake have been linked to hip fractures. Caffeine reduces calcium absorption, as can excessive protein intake. Obesity puts extra strain on the bone, leading to fracture. Avoid all three. Modify your diet and begin an exercise regimen to slim down, if necessary.

Get moving:

Weight-bearing exercise is a powerful preventative of hip fracture. Walking, stair-climbing, dancing, tennis, and weight training are excellent ways to build bone mass. Swimming and exercises that don’t put weight on your hips are healthy, but have no effect on bone density. Begin with five to ten minutes of walking daily, and work up to a half hour.

Avoid a fall:

Make your home safe by removing obstacles that could cause you to trip and fall. Fasten down loose rugs. Run cords along the walls or under carpets. Keep halls and stairways well lit, and don’t leave objects on the stairs. Keep a slip-resistant rug next to the bathtub, put a rubber mat in the shower, and consider handrails around the bathroom.

Medical help:

Ask your doctor about drugs to prevent bone density loss. Also consider a hip protection device to absorb the impact, should you fall. Drugs for anxiety, depression, or insomnia can cause dizziness. Consult your physician or orthopedist if you are taking such a prescription.