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Books > Medicine
This volume investigates the history and nature of pain in Greek
culture under the Roman Empire (50-250 CE). Traditional accounts of
pain in this society have focused either on philosophical or
medical theories of pain or on Christian notions of 'suffering';
fascination with the pained body has often been assumed to be a
characteristic of Christian society, rather than Imperial culture
in general. This book employs tools from contemporary cultural and
literary theory to examine the treatment of pain in a range of
central cultural discourses from the first three centuries of the
Empire, including medicine, religious writing, novelistic
literature, and rhetorical ekphrasis. It argues instead that pain
was approached from an holistic perspective: rather than treating
pain as a narrowly defined physiological perception, it was
conceived as a type of embodied experience in which ideas about the
body's physiology, the representation and articulation of its
perceptions, as well as the emotional and cognitive impact of pain
were all important facets of what it meant to be in pain. By
bringing this conception to light, scholars are able to redefine
our understanding of the social and emotional fabric of Imperial
society and help to reposition its relationship with the emergence
of Christian society in late antiquity.
Joseph W. Williams examines the changing healing practices of
pentecostals in the United States over the past 100 years, from the
early believers, who rejected mainstream medicine and overtly
spiritualized disease, to the later generations of pentecostals and
their charismatic successors, who dramatically altered the healing
paradigms they inherited. Williams shows that over the course of
the twentieth century, pentecostal denunciations of the medical
profession often gave way to ''natural'' healing methods associated
with scientific medicine, natural substances, and even psychology.
By 2000, figures such as the pentecostal preacher T. D. Jakes
appeared on the Dr. Phil Show, other healers marketed their books
at mainstream retailers such as Wal-Mart, and some developed
lucrative nutritional products that sold online and in health food
stores across the nation. Exploring the interconnections,
resonances, and continued points of tension between adherents and
some of their fiercest rivals, Spirit Cure chronicling adherents'
embrace of competitors' healing practices and illuminates
pentecostals' dramatic transition from a despised minority to major
players in the world of American evangelicalism and mainstream
American culture.
Provides the complete knowledge about the history to be asked in
the long cases for examinations and points out all the examination
aspects. Contains more than 50 diagrams and illustrated
photographs, which make the readers to understand easily. It
includes a lot of tables and boxes with important points needed for
the examination time. The book being handy makes it easier for the
readers to carry it to the wards and outpatient departments.
Thoroughly revised and updated with latest points from various
journals and textbooks.
Migraine treatment improved considerably with the advent of the
'triptans' in the 1990s. While the drugs used previously for
headache treatment had efficacy, some compounds had bothersome side
effects and their overuse could lead to severe complications. In
the early days of the triptans, it was widely presumed that
migraine was no longer a treatment problem. However, it has
gradually been recognized that a significant proportion of patients
are not responsive to triptans or do not tolerate them. It is now
clear that, even with effective treatment, patients with frequent
migraine attacks are not treated well exclusively with acute
medications. This is partly because patients are still bothered by
the attacks and partly because frequent intake of acute medication
may result in medication-overuse headache. These problems have led
to a renewed interest in preventive migraine drugs.
Part of the Frontiers in Headache Research series, this book
summarizes the several promising new avenues for the development of
future drugs for the treatment of migraine, including
cortical-spreading depression inhibition, nitric oxide synthase
inhibition and calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) receptor
antagonism, as well as other potential targets. The book presents
frontline knowledge of these evolving modalities as far as it is
available in the public domain. It is hoped that readers and their
patients will find it exciting to learn about all the novel
possibilities, and also that the impressive research advances in
migraine will lead to increased funding, not only of migraine but
also of other types of headache.
This volume examines recent developments in the use of intelligent
materials and systems for drug delivery. Controlled release
technology is moving from being a simple carrier of active agents
to becoming a powerful and flexible method that permits subtle
modulation of the delivery profile based on the needs of the
biological host. The chapters collected here cover recent advances
in materials with responsive properties, novel concepts in
controlled release technology, new applications, and
microanalytical techniques for rapid and accurate measurements of
small samples.
Accurate clinical observations are fundamental to competent and
safe healthcare practice. The Biological Basis of Clinical
Observations gives readers the understanding needed to perform
clinical observations accurately, make accurate judgements about
the patient's condition and make accurate decisions concerning
patient care. This useful textbook integrates clear explanations of
the techniques involved in making clinical observations, alongside
the biological knowledge which gives them meaning. For each topic,
it explains the pathological basis for variations in observed
results, focusing on relevant anatomy and physiology, genetics and
pharmacology, and the basic principles of care. In addition to new
chapters on blood tests and pregnancy, the text has been updated
throughout. It now incorporates increased coverage of paediatrics,
movement and the musculo-skeletal system, the lymphatic system,
pregnancy, diabetes, homeostasis and infection, among other areas.
Topics discussed include: temperature cardiovascular observations
respiratory observations urinary and bowel observations
neurological observations nutrition fluid balance skin drug side
effects, interactions and allergies. The Biological Basis of
Clinical Observations is a unique text which integrates
explanations of essential procedures with the biological knowledge
that underpins practice. It is essential reading for all nursing
and health students preparing for clinical practice.
In this new book, noted geneticist and veteran OUP author, Moyra
Smith, will present a comprehensive critical review of the
translation of genetic and genomic research into health care. Dr.
Smith's motivation for writing is driven by the gap that exists
between the rather amazing discoveries in medical genetics and
genomics at basic science levels and the translation of these
advances into evidence-based clinical practice. She will examine
experimental and observational research and translation to disease
management in single gene disorders, specific genetic syndromes,
and complex genetic diseases. She will also examine information
technology in genetic medicine, sociocultural factors that impact
provision of medical care, and medical education issues with regard
to translational genetics in order to help prepare a work force
that is better able to utilize evidence-based medicine and to
accommodate the rapid changes in genetic and genomic health care.
Despite extensive physiological, biochemical, and structural
studies, the mechanisms of muscle contraction operating in living
muscle fibres are still not clearly understood. This book aims to
describe and assess various experimental methods currently used in
the field of muscle research. For
each method discussed, there is a comprehensive description of its
advantages, problems, and limitations. Each chapter also contains a
summary of the central results to have been obtained using each
method. Comprehensively written by experts in their respective
fields, this book will be of interest
to all investigators in muscle physiology.
This book is a thoughtful, informative, and practical guide for
anyone involved in caring for the seriously and chronically ill or
dying. The connection between spirituality and medicine has been
receiving a lot of attention in both the scientific and lay presses
recently, but research and
anecdotal evidence all indicate that spirituality is central to the
care of the chronically ill and dying. It is therefore critical
that healthcare providers who interact with seriously ill patients
know how to address their spiritual needs.
This book presents current thinking on how spiritual care can be
integrated into traditional caregiving. Part one discusses aspects
of spirituality, such as presence, ethics, and relationships. Part
two delves into a number of specific religious and theological
traditions. Part three offers
practical applications and tools, including storytelling,
psychotherapy, dance, music, and the arts. Part four focuses on
patients' stories and reflections. The book concludes with
appendices that have sample advance directives for Protestant,
Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim patients.
Volume editor Christina Puchalski is the director of the George
Washington Institute of Spirituality and Health. She is also an
associate professor of medicine at the George Washington University
Medical Center and an active practicing physician and medical
educator. Dr. Puchalski is nationally and
internationally recognized as a pioneer in the integration of
spirituality and healthcare. Chapters are authored by an impressive
group of medical and religious experts, and patients' stories also
appear throughout, offering real-world examples. The book features
a foreword by theDalai
Lama.
Our ability to map and intervene in the structure of the human
brain is proceeding at a very quick rate. Advances in psychiatry,
neurology, and neurosurgery have given us fresh insights into the
neurobiological basis of human thought and behavior. Technologies
like MRI and PET scans can detect early signs of psychiatric
disorders before they manifest symptoms. Electrical and magnetic
stimulation of the brain can non-invasively relieve symptoms of
obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression and other conditions
resistant to treatment, while implanting neuro-electrodes can help
patients with Parkinsons and other motor control-related diseases.
New drugs can help regenerate neuronal connections otherwise
disrupted by schizophrenia and similar diseases.
All these procedures and drugs alter the neural correlates of our
mind and raise fascinating and important ethical questions about
their benefits and harms. They are, in a sense, among the most
profound bioethical questions we face, since these techniques can
touch on the deepest aspects of the human mind: free will; personal
identity; the self; and the soul. This is the first single-author
book on what has come to be known as neuroethics. Walter Glannon
uses a philosophical framework that is fully informed by cutting
edge neuroscience as well as contemporary legal cases such as Terri
Schiavo, to offer readers an introduction to this fascinating
topic. He starts by describing the state of the art in
neuroscientific research and treatment, and gives the reader an
up-to-date picture of the brain. Glannon then looks at the ethical
implications of various kinds of treatments, such as: whether or
not brain imaging will end up changing our viewson free will and
moral responsibility; whether patients should always be told that
they are at future risk for neurological diseases; if erasing
unconscious emotional memories implicated in depression can go too
far; if forcing behavior-modifying drugs or surgery on violent
offenders can ever be justified; the implications of drugs that
enhance cognitive abilities; and how to define brain death and the
criteria for the withdrawal of life-support. While not exhaustive,
Glannons work addresses a wide range of fascinating issues and his
pathbreaking work should appeal to philosophers, psychiatrists,
neurologists, neurosurgeons, radiologists, psychologists, and
bioethicists.
After her diagnosis of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), health
journalist Patricia Prijatel did what any reporter would do: start
investigating the disease, how it occurs, and how it's treated.
While she learned that important research was emerging, she found a
noticeable lack of resources on the disease, which affects 70,000
women a year and differs from hormone-positive breast cancer in
important ways, including prognosis and treatment options. Hormone
negative breast cancer disproportionately affects younger women and
African-American women - and it can be more dangerous than other
types of breast cancer. But there are many reasons to be hopeful,
as Prijatel learned. Through her blog, Positives About Negative,
she has met hundreds of women who have told her their stories and
shared their fears, confusion, and frustration. After her recovery,
she began writing this book to provide the first dedicated resource
for women diagnosed with TNBC. Surviving Triple Negative Breast
Cancer delivers research-based information on the biology of TNBC;
the role of genetics, family history, and race; how to navigate
treatment options; and a plethora of strategies to reduce the risk
of recurrence, including diet and lifestyle changes. In clear,
approachable language, Prijatel provides an accessible guide to
understanding a pathology report and a vast array of scientific
studies. Woven throughout the book are stories of women who have
faced TNBC. These are mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters who
went through a variety of medical treatments and then got on with
life - one competes in triathlons, two had babies after being
treated with chemo, one got remarried in her 50s, and one just
celebrated the 30th birthday of the son she was nursing when she
was diagnosed. With honesty and humor, Prijatel's inspiring story
shows the heart of a survivor. Her message is that TNBC is a
disease to take seriously, with proper and occasionally aggressive
treatment, but it is not automatically a killer. Most women
diagnosed with the disease do survive. Surviving Triple Negative
Breast Cancer is a roadmap for women who want to be empowered
through their treatment and recovery.
Vision and the Visual System offers students, teachers, and
researchers a rigorous, yet accessible account of how the brain
analyzes the visual scene. Schiller and Tehovnik describe key
aspects of visual perception while explaining the relationship
between eye movements and the neural structures in the brain, which
play a central role in how we process visual information. The book
discusses various brain areas involved in processing information,
focusing on the evolutionary origins and mechanics behind the
several parallel pathways that compose the visual system. Later
chapters explain how the nervous system processes the perception of
color, motion, depth, and patterns. A variety of illusions are on
display in Chapter 14, where the authors provide detailed
explanations that deconstruct how the visual system operates to
create them. The volume concludes with a discussion of recent
attempts to build visual prosthetic devices for blind individuals,
of which there are more than 40 million in the world. Vision and
the Visual System is based on Professor Schiller's more than 40
years of experience teaching vision courses at MIT, and is tailored
especially for college undergraduates and graduate students
interested in visual perception and the operations of the visual
system.
A musician's life is filled with many stressful situations: passing
auditions, rehearsing and performing with difficult partners,
sitting for long hours in uncomfortable chairs, going on stage to
face audiences large and small, who may or may not be receptive to
the performance they are presented. And yet many musicians are able
to surmount these looming obstacles with grace and balance, to find
satisfaction and artistry in their music and build productive and
lasting careers. Indirect Procedures will guide you around these
obstacles and along that path to becoming a balanced and successful
musician. Based on the work of Frederick Matthias Alexander, this
book is a thorough and practical approach to the issues of
musicians' health and wellbeing. Author Pedro de Alcantara
introduces concepts and exercises for musicians to let go of
excessive tensions, stay focused, and direct their energies as they
handle the challenges of practicing, rehearsing, and performing.
Complemented by an extensive, easy-to-use companion website, and
working alongside Integrated Practice, this new edition of Indirect
Procedures is an invaluable and essential resource for today's
musicians to learn to sing, play, and conduct with less effort and
stronger results.
This book brings together current thought on several aspects of the
use of pesticides in and around homes, schools and workplaces. The
book addresses several parts of the process, from the discovery and
development of new active ingredients, their formulation, use,
longevity, environmental fate and human exposure.
Research is finding a way to measure the problem. This seminal
2-volume book contains hundreds of the most useful measurement
tools for use in clinical practice and in research. All measures
are critiqued by the editors, who provide guidance on how to select
and score them and the actual measures are wholly reproduced. This
second volume, focusing on measures for use with adults, whose
conditions of concerns are not focused on family relationships or
couple relationships, includes an introduction to the basic
principles of measurement, an overview of different types of
measures, and an overview of the Rapid Assessment Inventories
included herein. Volume II also contains descriptions and reviews
of each instrument, as well as information on how they were
selected and how to administer and score them. This book is
designed as the definitive reference volume on assessment measures
for both practice and research in clinical mental health. This
fifth edition of Corcoran and Fischer's Measures for Clinical
Practice and Research is updated with a new preface, new scales,
and updated information for existing instruments, expanding and
cementing its utility for members of all the helping professions,
including psychology, social work, psychiatry, counseling, nursing,
and medicine. Alone or as a set, these classic compendiums are
powerful tools that clinicians and researchers alike will find an
invaluable addition to - or update of - their libraries.
Tobacco: Science, Policy and Public Health Second Edition
comprehensively covers the science and policy issues relevant to
one of the major public health disasters of modern times. It pulls
together the aetiology and burden of the myriad of tobacco-related
diseases with the successes and failures of tobacco control
policies. The book looks at lessons learnt to help set health
policy for reducing the burden of tobacco-related diseases. It also
deals with the international public health policy issues which bear
on control of the problem of tobacco use and which vary between
continents.
New chapters in this second edition include: Market manipulation:
How the tobacco industry recruits and retains smokers; In Their Own
Words: An Epoch of Deceit and Deception; Manipulating Product
Design to Reinforce Tobacco Addiction; and a new section of the
text devoted to 'Tobacco around the world'.
The editors are an international group distinguished in the field
of tobacco-related diseases, epidemiology, and tobacco control. The
contributors are world experts drawn from the various clinical
fields. This major reference text gives a unique overview of one of
the major public health problems in both the developed and
developing world.
According to popular belief, technical skill is far more important
for surgeons than thoughtful deliberation. Nothing could be further
from the truth. Although surgeons must sometimes make decisions
rapidly on the basis of incomplete evidence and must respond to
unexpected catastrophes in the operating room rapidly, those events
are intermittent - most of the time surgeons deliberate on
diagnostic problems and thoughtfully manage postoperative care,
which is often intellectually challenging. The relationship of
surgeons with their patients is, in a real sense, far more intimate
and trusting than that of any other professional, a claim that is
supported by the fact that patients surrender their bodies to their
surgeons in a state of total helplessness and vulnerability when
they undergo anesthesia. Because of that responsibility, no other
professional group has a greater sense of dedication to the welfare
of their patients than surgeons. Surgical culture is deeply steeped
in ethics, and surgeons confront and resolve ethical dilemmas as
much or more than most other professionals, although they often may
not recognize the situations they resolve are problems in ethics -
they are just part of the daily routine. This book is a compendium
of articles from the recent surgical literature that address
ethical issues chosen by surgeons because they are controversial
and pertinent to the practice of surgery. The reader will not find
a great deal of sophisticated dissection of fine philosophical
distinctions in these discussions of ethical conflicts and
controversies in surgery. Instead, they will discover differing
viewpoints from thoughtful essayists, mostly surgeons, whose feet
are firmly in contact with the ground and who have extensive
experience in the real world of surgery, medicine, and law.
Although asbestos was once considered a miracle mineral, today even
the word itself has ominous implications for all strata of our
society. Incorporated in the past into over 3000 different
industrial and consumer products, as well as in building materials
and military equipment, opportunities for exposure continue to be
ever present in our environment. Of all of us who are potentially
exposed, blue collar workers are at greatest risk.
Countless thousands of workers and servicemen in a wide variety of
trades were disabled or have died consequent to the health effects
of asbestos, and many more can be expected to be affected in years
to come. Litigation continues, and financial awards in the billions
have bankrupt many Fortune 500 companies and numerous smaller
companies.
While one might implicate our forefathers in this widespread,
relentless medical catastrophe, it has been only in recent decades
that science has appreciated the complexities of the problem and
the long latencies before the asbestos-associated diseases appear
clinically. After all these years, prevention remains the hallmark
of disease control, as modern treatments remain, to a large extent,
futile.
Brown-Sequard: An Improbable Genius Who Transformed Medicine traces
the strange career of an eccentric, restless, widely admired,
nineteenth-century physician-scientist who eventually came to be
scorned by antivivisectionists for his work on animals, by
churchgoers who believed that he encouraged licentious behavior,
and by other scientists for his unorthodox views and for claims
that, in fact, he never made. An improbable genius whose colorful
life was characterized by dramatic reversals of fortune, he was a
founder-physician of England's premier neurological hospital and
held important professorships in America and France.
Brown-Sequard identified the sensory pathways in the spinal cord
and emphasized functional processes in the integrative actions of
the nervous system, thereby anticipating modern concepts of how the
brain operates. He also discovered the function of the nerves that
supply the blood vessels and thereby control their caliber, and the
associated reflexes that adjust the circulation to bodily needs. He
was the first to show that the adrenal glands are essential to life
and suggested that other organs have internal secretions. He
injected himself with ground-up animal testicles, claiming an
invigorating effect, and this approach led to the development of
modern hormone replacement therapy.
Charles-Edouard Brown-Sequard was reportedly "one of the greatest
discover of facts that the world has ever seen." It has also been
suggested that "if his reasoning power had equaled his power of
observation he might have done for physiology what Newton did for
physics." In fact, scientific advances in the years since his death
have provided increasing support for many of his once-ridiculed
beliefs."
Of the approximately 38,500 deaths by suicide in the U.S. annually,
about two percent - between 750 and 800 - are murder-suicides. The
horror of the murder-suicide looms large in the public
consciousness-they are reported in the media with more frequently
and far more sensationalism than most suicides, and yet very little
research has been conducted on this grave form of violence. In The
Perversion of Virtue, suicide researcher Thomas Joiner explores the
nature of murder-suicide and offers a unique new theory to explain
this nearly unexplainable act: that 'true' murder-suicides always
involve the wrongheaded invocation of one of four interpersonal
virtues: mercy, justice, duty, and glory. The parent who murders
his child and then himself seeks to 'save' his child from a
fatherless life of hardship; the wife who murders her husband and
then herself seeks to right the wrongs he committed against her,
and so on. Rather than distorting these four virtues beyond
recognition, murder-suicide involves the gross misperception of
when and how these virtues should be applied. Drawing on case
studies from the media as well as from scholarly literature, Joiner
meticulously examines, deconstructs, and finally rebuilds our
understanding of murder-suicide in such a way as to bring tragic
reason to what may seem an unfathomable act of violence. Along the
way he also dispels some of the most enduring myths of suicide -
for instance, that suicide is usually an impulsive act (it is
almost always premeditated), or that alcohol or drugs are involved
in most suicides (usually they are not). Sure to be controversial,
this book seeks to make sense of one of the most
difficult-to-comprehend types of violence in modern society,
shedding new light that will ultimately lead to better
understanding and even prevention.
This book provides a concise guide to learning the art of
refraction and its principles applicable to retinoscopy. It also
provides a well-signposted pathway to success in the Royal College
of Ophthalmologists' Refraction Certificate Examination.
For all its costs, flaws, and inequities, American health care is
fundamentally rooted in a belief that treatment should be based on
solid scientific research. To this end, between 2003 and 2010,
three different federal laws were enacted, the most recent being
the Affordable Care Act of 2010, that mandated new federal
investments in a type of clinical research called comparative
effectiveness research (CER) - research into what works best in
medical care. Comparative Effectiveness Research: Evidence,
Medicine, and Policy provides the first complete account of how -
and why - the federal government decided to make CER an important
feature of health reform. Despite earlier legislative uptake of
policy proposals on CER, support for federal mandates took dramatic
twists and turns, with eventual compromises forged amid failing
bipartisan alliances, special interests, and mobilized public
opinion. Based on exhaustive research and first-hand interviews,
the authors examine where CER fits in the production of scientific
evidence about the benefits and harms of treatments for human
diseases and conditions. Their work offers sobering confirmation
that contemporary American medical care falls, not surprisingly,
well short of the evidence-based ideal. Comparative Effectiveness
Research demonstrates that dealing constructively with the vast
uncertainties inherent to medical care requires policies to make
the generation of high-quality evidence an inseparable part of
routine health care.
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