A report from a flu expert says that this year’s vaccine is not matching two of the three flu viruses now infecting the public. The CDC released this report on this year’s vaccine.
Every year, the CDC flu experts make an educated guess about the varieties of flu that are likely to circulate among the U.S. population and then formulate the vaccine based on the top two or three virus candidates. This year the viruses pulled the old switcheroo.
The CDC still points out that the vaccination will still be effective enough to decrease the severity of a patient’s case of the flu. This will be true even for the non-selected strains of viruses. A milder case of the flu can be the difference between life and death for patients at risk.
The vaccine isn’t the only line of defense. Practicing good hand washing technique and general flu prevention hygiene will also help prevent the spread of the disease. There are some reports as well that a small percentage (4.5%) of the virus strains are resistant to Tamiflu.
The anti-viral drug Relenza seems to still be effective even in cases with strains resistant to Tamiflu.
I don’t know about you but I was pretty amazed by how easily I broke a sweat the first time I played with my kids Wii. It’s been a lot of fun and led to a more than a few sore muscles.
So I wasn’t surprised by this story on the popularity of the Nintendo Wii with rehab facilities. They are using the game system to work with CVA patients, orthopedic patients, and soldiers wounded in combat.
The primary advantage mentioned in the article: No boredom! Instead of the series of boring, repetitive lifting and range of motion exercises, patients can now play games with the same movements and range included in the game play.
Physical and occupational therapists see the benefit in the eagerness of their patients to return to the game to defeat their opponents or reach a higher score. Instead of having to urge and convince patients to work harder, these therapists are having to urge and convince them to stop.
The lesson here for all medical professionals is to think outside of the box and use new technology in new ways to reach the old goals.
Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley announced the State provision of $3.4 million to aid the University of Maryland Nursing school in their efforts to increase the instructor pool and expand the instructional facilities as well as increasing the number of students in Masters and Doctoral programs. The amount budgeted falls short of the amount recommended by a Nurse Staffing commission report that was released in November.
O’Malley cited current state budget short falls as a reason for not meeting the recommended figure. That recommendation came from a committee formed from both hospitals and educational institutions in the state. Their report projects a shortfall of 10,000 nurses in the state within ten years if major steps aren’t taken.
Every state is facing similar shortages in the future. What are the rest of the jurisdictions doing to surmount the obstacles that lie ahead in the nurse staffing and education arena? Let us know here at the Nursing Show at comments@nursingshow.com.
A newly released study of 2.8 million babies born between 1995 and 2000 ties some newborn risks including low birth weight and mortality to having a father younger than age 20.
The interesting part of this study is that it focuses on the father and not the mother. The study allowed for women in peak child bearing years between 20 and 30 in order to remove the associated risk factors for teen mothers. Most of the fathers were in their 20s or 30s but 28,000 of them were younger than age 20.
It was this younger age group that seemed to comprise a surprising number of higher risk newborns when compared to the others. The researchers don’t look at overall socio-economic group or other outside factors but they do say that this may indicate that there is a biological impact based on the father’s youth as well as with the mother.
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I got this press release in from NLN (National League for Nursing) that reports on a new think tank convened on the topic of diversity in nursing education. What do you think about this initiative?
I wonder if it will focus too much on creating diversity at the expense of getting more educators in the schools at all.
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New York, NY (PRWEB) February 4, 2008 — Decrying a lack of diversity in the nation’s nurse educator workforce, the National League for Nursing has taken the lead in working to change this reality in all types of nursing programs. This high-priority NLN initiative, which grew out of the League’s 2007-2010 Strategic Plan, is projected to evolve over the coming decade. It began with an invitation to influential nurse educators, practicing nurses and professionals in health care and higher education to join a new NLN-led Think Tank on Expanding Diversity in the Nurse Educator Workforce.
Providing the rationale and context for the NLN’s decision to spearhead the think tank, NLN CEO Beverly Malone, RN, PhD, FAAN asserted, “Among NLN’s stated core values is the understanding that a culture of diversity moves beyond simple tolerance to embracing and celebrating the richness of each individual, recognizing that while diversity can be about individual differences, it also encompasses institutional and system-wide behavior patterns.”
Recommendations from the initial meeting include the use of several existing NLN initiatives to build diversity including the Centers of Excellence in Nursing Education Program, NLN awards, and the “Reflection and Dialogue” series. The think tank also discussed:
Identifying two priority issues the NLN must address in order to expand diversity in the nurse educator workforce
Identifying significant concepts and recommendations to be included in an NLN position statement on “Expanding Diversity in the Nurse Educator Workforce” that will engage the nursing education community in dialog and encourage the development of diversity building initiatives within all types of nursing education programs
Identifying potential authors for and concepts to be addressed in a new NLN book or other publication, to be titled Expanding Diversity in the Nurse Educator Workforce
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A report in the journal Diabetes Care looks at the effects of caffeine consumption on patients with diabetes. I found the article on this here.
It looks at more evidence on just how powerful a drug caffeine can be. Researchers tested a small group of people over 72 hours with a continuous blood sugar monitoring device implanted subcutaneously.
After giving the subjects a dose of caffeine equal to four cups of coffee, they watched blood sugar levels throughout the day. An average increase in blood sugar of 8 percent was noted with peak increases noted just after meals.
Authors caution that they have no explanation for how caffeine directly affects blood sugar but wonder if it may have something to do with increased adrenaline release or perhaps a chemical inhibitory effect on glucose uptake by the body’s cells.
I found this article recently that looked at the effects of medication review by geriatric specialists on the overall health of elderly patients. While this seems to be a no-brainer, elderly patients are more at risk for suffering combined effects of multiple medications as well as changes in the way they metabolize drugs out of their systems.
With an increased focus on patient safety on all of our minds, monitoring elderly patients to ensure they are not receiving too much of one medication or a dangerous combination of multiple meds falls to the entire care team. I’ve reported in the past about studies on nursing home falls and how reducing some medications had a positive effect.
The study in the article above concluded that 26% of patients were either given inappropriate prescriptions or too high a dose of a necessary med. It reviewed the care of 850,000 U.S. veterans cared for in VA facilities in 1999 and 2000. Interestingly, the 3% of the studied patients who were cared for by a geriatric specialist had a greatly decreased risk of similar medication errors.
It makes sense that the elderly need specialized care in a similar way that children need pediatric specialists. With decreased organ function across their body system, the elderly react differently to disease, medication, and injury. We know this and yet we don’t necessarily change our oversight to account for those differences. They are often treated under the same guidelines used for a healthy 40 year-old.
A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine looked at the number of heart attacks following both coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) and the placement of drug coated stents.
The study found that people were more likely to suffer a follow up heart attack following stent placement than with the more invasive surgical option. The bypass of two or three coronary arteries offered a 30% or 20% better incidence of recurrence of myocardial infarction when compared to the placement of drug coated stents.
While there still may be some candidates with a better risk profile for stent placement, most patients may do better with the more invasive surgical option.
A report from a flu expert says that this year’s vaccine is not matching two of the three flu viruses now infecting the public. The CDC released this report on this year’s vaccine.
