If you have watched any news over the past week you know there is a listeria outbreak from contaminated cantaloupes that has been traced to Jensen Farms in Colorado. The CDC has confirmed 72 illnesses, including 13 deaths linked to the melons and three other deaths may be involved. By now most of the cantaloupes should be gone as they usually last only a couple of weeks. The recalled cantaloupes were shipped between July 29 and Sept 10.
Listeriosis is a serious infection caused by eating food contaminated with the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes. It causes fever, muscle aching and sometimes diarrhea. It feels like a bad flu with headache, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance and in severe cases, convulsions. As with many infections; babies, pregnant women, people with weakened immune systems and older adults are more likely to have severe illness. There are about Read more »
As we discussed in the first of this two part series, mobile devices are already entering the world of the surgeon. Currently, it is mostly downloadable apps that promise to help surgeons with the informational portions of their tasks, such as tracking the cases they have done, e.g. Surgichart or helping in the consent process, e.g. Surgery Risk
While apps that are dedicated to the technical aspects of surgery, such as the excellent AO Surgery Reference, are becoming available, in the future we will see the iPad (or its brethren) actually in the operating room. Why ? Because the iPad has many characteristics that make it a great an advanced surgical instrument.
First is its small size. Every modern operating room has stacks of electronic equipment hanging from the ceiling or in large cabinets for patient monitoring and controlling in-field devices. Since the iPad already supports a bevy of standard wireless communication protocols, many of these large boxes’ functions could likely be off-loaded to an iPad with clever engineering. One immediate advantage would be that Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at iMedicalApps*
At one time or another, almost everyone experiences a ringing in their ears. It’s common after sitting through a loud concert or an exuberant football game, or after taking aspirin or an antibiotic for a while. But as many as 50 million Americans have chronic tinnitus (pronounced tih-NITE-us or TIN-ih-tus)—a constant ringing, whistling, buzzing, chirping, hissing, humming, roaring, or even shrieking. (If you don’t have tinnitus, you can get an idea of what people with the condition hear at the American Tinnitus Association’s Web site.)
Chronic tinnitus can be caused by a variety of things, from impacted ear wax to medications that damage nerves in the ear, middle ear infection, and even aging. Damage to hair cells in the ear’s cochlea (see the illustration below) are suspected as a common pathway for these causes. As I write in the September issue of the Harvard Women’s Health Watch, chronic tinnitus can also be a symptom of Ménière’s disease, a disorder of the balance mechanism in the inner ear. (You can read the full article here.)
Managing tinnitus
When chronic tinnitus is caused by a definable problem, like Read more »
Until recently, I hadn’t given much thought to what it actually means to have 20/20 vision. Like most people, I assumed that 20/20 vision was just a synonym for “perfect” eyesight. But when I recently spoke with optometrist Graham Erickson, a sports vision specialist, I realized that there is an entire medical field devoted to optimizing vision for athletes – so that they can see better than 20/20, perhaps even 20/8! In fact, 20/20 vision just means that you can see an object 20 feet away as well as the “average” person.
In my interview with Dr. Erickson, I learned that some professional baseball players have vision that is two times better than average, allowing them to judge pitches further away by seeing how the baseball’s stitches and seams turn in mid-air. This kind of vision is not necessarily something that you’re born with – it can come with training and good vision-correcting lenses. There are exercises that professional do to improve their contrast sensitivity, peripheral visual acuity, and reaction times. And we regular folks (weekend warriors, kids, and aspiring athletes) can also “pump up our peepers” with exercises that we can do at home. Please listen in to the full Healthy Vision segment to find out how to do these exercises:
I also learned that different athletes (such as basketball players, archers, and offensive linemen) have unique visual demands, and they train for those demands quite differently. While a basketball player may focus on improving his “court vision” (dividing his attention between guarding “his man” and being aware of what’s going on in the periphery), an archer may rely almost exclusively on her central vision,
while an offensive lineman may need to split his attention between central near vision (controlling his man) and peripheral vision to pick up shifts by the defense. Since it’s estimated that 80% of the information we take in (while playing sports) comes from our eyes, even slightly blurry vision can dramatically affect performance.
Even though there is a lot that athletes can do to improve their visual skills, very few competitive athletes get annual comprehensive eye exams. In my latest Healthy Vision episode, NBA star Tyreke Evans* offered a call-to-action to his peers regarding regular check ups, and World-Champion female sprinter Allyson Felix spoke to me about the role that good vision has had in her success.
Sacramento Kings' Tyreke Evans
In summary, I learned from Dr. Erickson and Allyson Felix, that eye fitness is a critical part of competitive sports, but unfortunately something we often don’t think about. There are new training programs that help to develop peripheral vision skills that may reduce the risk of being blind sided in football or hockey games, and can therefore reduce concussion risk. Athletes should seek out an eye care professional who specializes in sports vision in order to optimize their visual potential. The American Optometric Association’s Sports Vision Section offers a doctor locator to help patients find sports vision experts in their area. Please check out the website here (or their Facebook page) for more information.
*You can find out more about Tyreke Evans and the importance of eye exams at facebook.com/vspvisioncare.
-Val Jones, M.D. is a paid consultant for Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc.-
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If you have watched any news over the past week you know there is a listeria outbreak from contaminated cantaloupes that has been traced to Jensen Farms in Colorado. The CDC has confirmed 72 illnesses, including 13 deaths linked to the melons and three other deaths may be involved. By now most of the cantaloupes should be gone as they usually last only a couple of weeks. The recalled cantaloupes were shipped between July 29 and Sept 10.
