General Medical Advices

Archive for 2009

It is a skin disease characterized by loss of pigment (color) from areas of skin, resulting in irregular white patches that feel like normal skin.

Causes, incidence and risk factors

It appears that vitiligo is an acquired disease and can occur at any age. There is an increasing proportion of this condition in some families.

The cause of vitiligo, but it is thought that autoimmunity could be a factor. This condition is associated with three systemic diseases:

* Pernicious Anemia
* Hypothyroidism
* Addison’s Disease

The disease affects about 1% of the population of the United States.

Symptoms

Vitiligo is more noticeable in darker skinned people because of the contrast of white patches against dark skin

There is a sudden or gradual appearance of flat areas of normal-feeling skin with complete pigment loss. Lesions appear as flat areas with no pigment and darker edge, as margins are sharply defined but irregular.

Frequently affected areas are the face, elbows, knees, hands, feet and genitals.

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Definition

Chickenpox is a highly contagious viral disease caused by a virus belonging to the family of herpes viruses, varicella-zoster. Preferentially affecting children, it is usually benign but can sometimes cause complications, especially when it occurs in adulthood. Contracted during pregnancy, the disease poses a risk to the embryo or fetus. Chickenpox is more serious for people whose immunity is deficient (eg, those with AIDS).

A person who contracted chickenpox is immune because the infection permanently protects against the disease. People who have had chickenpox in childhood are at risk of contracting it in adulthood. However, the disease may be more serious from adolescence.

The chickenpox virus can also cause shingles. Chickenpox is the first manifestation of infection with varicella-zoster virus, which is called primary infection. After recovery, the virus remains sleeping in the ganglia near the spinal cord. Under certain circumstances it may be reactivated and start to multiply. It then travels along the nerves emerging from one or more nodes, causing severe pain and a rash on the skin. This is known as shingles.

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The eye infections are common. While some are benign, such as conjunctivitis, but others may cause complications. But ophthalmologists now have many drugs to tackle these diseases.

Conjunctivitis

Conjunctivitis is a very trivial disease, which is an infection of the transparent membrane, the conjunctiva, which covers the inside of the eyelids and covers part of the eyeball. It is usually caused by a virus (adenovirus) or bacteria (staphylococcus, streptococcus, pneumococcus, Haemophilus). But there are also allergic conjunctivitis.

Conjunctivitis is suspected when:

* The eye becomes red and causes a sensation of itching;
* And that secretions more or less the thick cover which can make opening difficult morning awakening.
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The controlled disposal of the uppermost layer of skin has become the most widely used to remove fine wrinkles, age spots and other slight imperfections and to get a better skin quality in any season. This exfoliation of dead cells in the epidermis skin gives way to a renewed, more beautiful, more smooth and homogeneous is achieved through various techniques of peeling. Another technique, laser resurfacing, also manages to stimulate production of collagen and elastin spectacular aesthetic results. We tell you what they are.

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He may be the Benin mostly muscular torticollis is nonetheless very painful and disabling. Rest and analgesics are the only remedies to soften the symptoms disappear in a few days.

What’s this?

The muscular torticollis is, as its name suggests, a contraction of certain muscles of the neck, which prevents the head from moving properly. Most of the time, the sterno-mastoid Cleidocranial is at stake. The victim wakes up in the morning with his head stuck in an awkward position, unable to move.
Anyone can be affected by a stiff neck, but it occurs most often between 30 and 60. Women are half as affected as men.

What are the causes?

They are many:

• In most cases, torticollis is caused by a bad position during sleep. This explains why the symptoms usually occur at sunrise.

• One false move, a sudden or forced movement of the neck may also trigger the field contracture which lasted several days.

• A violent trauma such as a car accident is sometimes the case.

• A draft extended on the neck may also be sufficient to trigger the symptoms.

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The elderly are particularly vulnerable to drug side effects. To prevent accidents, it is necessary to limit the length of orders and to observe certain precautions.

Rheumatism, hypertension, sleep disorders, diabetes, osteoporosis, pain … with age, prescription longer. They will sometimes involve up to half a dozen treatments, if not more at risk to cause accidents toxic. Nearly half the drugs are consumed in France by people over 60 years.

In return, 10% of hospitalizations of elderly people are linked, at least in part, to a medical accident.

Bodies Underperforming

Several factors make the elderly more susceptible to the risk of medication errors, that is to say the side effects of treatment.

* The liver and kidney, the two bodies to ensure the degradation and elimination of drugs are less effective with age. Consequently, the chemical molecules remain longer in the blood and tissues before being eliminated and may accumulate over the catch. Doses well tolerated by young people can cause toxic effects in older people.
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Heart failure: what is it?

Heart failure is a serious health problem that occurs when the heart can no longer pump enough blood to meet the oxygen requirements of the body. Gradually, people who are living out of breath and tire more easily.

It usually occurs in individuals whose health is weakened for several years by cardiac or respiratory disorders, or hypertension.

Heart failure is more frequent than before. This is one consequence of successful treatment against heart disease. There is however no reliable statistics on its prevalence. This is a major cause of mortality among the elderly. Indeed, the survival rate five years after diagnosis is about 50% 1.
Causes

Heart failure occurs when the heart has much more force to expel blood into the arteries, or that it fills less blood because it has stiffened. Each contraction of the heart is therefore less effective. The blood takes longer to pass through the arteries and tends to stagnate in the veins. Because of this congestion of blood in the veins it is called heart failure “congestive”.

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The size of a walnut, the prostate is a gland in the male reproductive system located below the bladder, in front of the rectum. The prostate secretes nutrients and semen thinners.

As it surrounds the urethra (the canal from the bladder), a tumor in the prostate can interfere with urination. To function, prostate needs of sex hormones, androgens, which are produced in the testes, especially, and by the adrenal glands. Some prostate cancers are stimulated by these hormones.

In North America, cancer of the prostate is the most common cancer in men. According to autopsy studies, one third of men aged under 80 had traces of cancer prostate39. In the 80 years or more, this proportion rises to two thirds. However, most men in whom it detects prostate cancer die of other causes.

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Today, thanks to advances in science, the population has aged, so the number of people with involutional osteoporosis has also increased. Within this population could be considered two groups: the first people with a clinical disability have clearly not in their activities and in the second group, much reduced, for example those with vertebral compression, or other pathologies they cause extensive disability (all of the first group are at risk of being the second).

As we said that the global trend is the increase in the average age of population, it is necessary that persons who work with these individuals know very well what the risk factors of disease, the implications of nutritional programs and therapeutic measures taken into account.
Also taken into account genetic and environmental factors in the development of osteopenia in adults.

Physical activity is essential among therapeutic measures given the positive correlation between muscle mass and bone mass. As all rehabilitation is a very important weapon in preventing bone disorders or treat osteoporosis, alleviating symptoms once established.

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The skin cancers are becoming more frequent. Worse, the incidence of melanoma, the form of skin cancer the rarest but most severe double every 10 years for people with white skin!

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Preventing cancer peauPourquoi this alarming progression? Because, unlike the previous centuries, where it is carefully protected from the sun, we expose ourselves too much solar radiation since the 1930s. However, the ultraviolet UVA and UVB present in sunlight is harmful to the skin.

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