March 5th, 2011 by John Mandrola, M.D. in Opinion, Research
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It’s hard to believe that turbulence could be a good thing for the heart. Consider how the word turbulent is defined: “Characterized by conflict, disorder, or confusion; not controlled or calm.” Those traits don’t sound very heart-healthy. But when it comes to heart rhythm, it turns out that a turbulent response — to a premature beat — is better than a blunted one. The more turbulent the better.
No, you haven’t missed anything, and turbulence isn’t another of my typos. Until [recently], heart rate turbulence was an obscure phenomenon buried in the bowels of heart rhythm journals.
What Is Heart Rate Turbulence (HRT)?
When you listen to the heart of a young physically-fit patient, you are struck not just by the slowness of the heartbeat, but also by the variability of the rhythm. It isn’t perfectly regular, nor is it chaotic like atrial fibrillation (AF). Doctors describe this — in typical medical speak — as regularly irregular: The heart rate increases as the patient inhales and slows as he or she exhales. This variability occurs as a result of the heart’s responsiveness to its environment. The more robustly and quickly the heart responds, the healthier it is.
HRT seeks to measure how quickly and vigorously the heart rate reacts in response to a single premature beat from the ventricle — a premature ventricular contraction (PVC). Normally after a PVC, the heart rate speeds for a few beats, and then slows back to baseline over the next 10 beats. The healthy heart responds with a more intense rise in heart rate and a quicker return to baseline. Using simple measurements of heart rate from a standard 24-hour electrocardiogram (ECG) monitor, a propriety software program averages many of these responses and comes up with a measurement of turbulence onset and turbulence slope. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr John M*
March 3rd, 2011 by StevenWilkinsMPH in Opinion, True Stories
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We hear about stories like this all time: An elderly person falls and breaks something — a hip, a wrist, or an arm. Soon what once was a healthy, independent senior begins an inexorable downhill slide. Such is the case of my 89-year-old mother who recently fell and broke her wrist.
Turns out that 30 percent of people age 65 and older fall each year. Predictably, seniors with the following risk factors are more prone to falls:
- Using sedatives
- Cognitive impairment
- Problems walking
- Urinary tract infection
- Eye problems
- Balance issues
Similarly, when a person does fall, a cascading series of predictable clinical events occurs. It even has a name: “Post-fall syndrome.” This syndrome is characterized by things like fear of falling again, increased immobility, loss of muscle and control, lack of sleep, nutritional deficits, and so on. Seniors susceptible to falls also have higher rates of hospitalization and institutionalization.
What strikes me about falls among the elderly is that they are seemingly predictable events. And once a fall does occur, the consequences seem pretty predictable as well — enter post-fall syndrome. So if falls and their consequences are so predictable, why aren’t primary care physicians more proactive in terms of:
- Preventing falls?
- Treating post-fall syndrome?
In the case of my mother, her primary care physician and orthopedist were both very diligent at treating her episodic needs (i.e. her pain and broken bones). But little attention, if any, was given to assessing her long-term needs, such as nutrition, inability to do anything with her left hand (she’s left-handed), sensitivity to new medications (she never took drugs because they make her loopy), gait analysis, and depression counseling. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Mind The Gap*
September 29th, 2010 by Berci in Better Health Network, News, Research
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Forbes magazine came up with a few lists describing what will happen in the next 10 years in different areas. Medicine is one of these:
We asked our staff and contributors to forecast some of the noteworthy events of the next 10 years, a vision of the coming decade sketched from real data, projections and facts whenever possible — though we’ve injected a dose of rigorous science fiction to fill the gaps.
- 2012: Super-Tuberculosis
- 2013: DNA Sequencing Pays
- 2014: Big Pharma Implodes
- 2015: First autism drug
- 2016: First fatherless child using synthetic sperm
- 2017: U.S. life expectancy declines for first time in a century. Doctors blame 55% obesity rate.
- 2020: FDA approves autonomous robot surgery to remove tumors.
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*