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Many adults do not understand health information. Nearly half of all American adults 90 million have difficulty understanding and using health information, and there is a higher rate of hospitalization and use of emergency services among patients with such limited health literacy, states a new report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM).
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Recent studies in intensive care units1 (ICU) have found that critical care specialists often try to base decisions about withdrawal of advanced life support measures based on their perception of the patients wishes and the likelihood of survival in the ICU. But making accurate decisions about a patients wishes in such situations often requires clinicians to communicate effectively with surrogate decision makers members of the patients family or others empowered to make decisions should the person become incapacitated.
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced a qualified health claim for reduced risk of coronary heart disease on conventional foods that contain the omega-3 fatty acids eiscosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid.
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In contrast to arterial thrombo-embolic ischemic stroke, cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) is unique in its clinical presentation and treatment algorithm. As reported by Ferro and associates on behalf of the multicenter international ISCVT study, venous stroke, typically treated with heparin, has a good outcome in the vast majority of cases.
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Non-pharmacologic treatment options for patients of epilepsy include resective epilepsy surgery, vagal nerve stimulation, the ketogenic diet, and experimental protocols. Of these, epilepsy surgery offers the greatest chance of curing the patients epilepsy. To achieve this degree of success, it is critical to localize the epileptogenic zone as accurately as possible. Pataraia et al estimates that MEG provides additional localizing information in 40% of their patients.
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Men and women with restless legs syndrome (RLS), aged 18-79 years, were included in this randomized, 12-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled study conducted at 43 centers in 10 European countries, designed to assess the efficacy of ropinirole, a dopamine agonist, in the treatment of RLS. Ropinirole significantly improved IRLSSG score at 12 weeks compared to placebo, with benefit evident even at week 1.
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This report described the results of a double-blind, placebo-controlled study of flupirtine maleate (FLU), a triaminopyridine compound in patients with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). The patients with flupirtine showed significantly less deterioration in the dementia tests than the patients treated with placebo.
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If a nurse applied for a hard-to-fill night shift at your organization who had left a previous facility under suspicion of murdering several patients, do you think shed be hired? Would it be possible for a technician to intentionally harm patients at your hospital over a period of years, with absolutely no action taken?
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They may not grab many headlines, but grievance policies and procedures are, nonetheless, a critical component of a thorough, effective quality improvement effort.
