Bone Health and Osteoporosis
Osteoporosis is a growing global problem worldwide. After the age of 50, bones become weak and fragile especially in case of women. Fractures affect both men and women with age. Strong bones are essential for overall good health. Good nutrition helps in keeping the bones stronger and healthier.
Although, there are hardly any symptoms of detecting osteoporosis at an early stage. Some earlier signs might include receding gums, weak nails, and weakened grip strength. Without a proper treatment, osteoporosis may worsen leading to the higher risk of fractures. Some common causes of osteoporosis are mentioned below:
- Physical inactivity
- Smoking
- Low body weight
- Certain medications
- Hereditary
- Being female and an older adult
- Poor nutrition
- Menopause in case of women
There are many factors which play an important role in keeping the bones healthy. Some of them are as follows:
Bone contains 99% of body calcium and therefore we need to consume foods high in calcium to keep it healthy.
- Vitamin D is needed to absorb calcium and build bones.
- Enough Protein intake is essential to maintain a healthy bone.
- Other nutrients include zinc, Vitamin K, and magnesium.
- Weight-bearing exercises such as climbing stairs, push-ups etc. should be included in the everyday routine.
- Smoking should be stopped.
Apart from these, there are some natural ways to treat bone disease but should be strictly followed under your doctor’s supervision. Some people do get good results with natural treatments.
Osteoporosis can have serious effects. As already mentioned, fractures can be really painful and take a long time to heal leading to other complications. For instance, a hip fracture requires staying in bed for a longer period with other risks involved like pneumonia, blood clots, and other infections.
BMD (Bone Mineral Density) is a type of scan to diagnose the disease. It is done by using a type of X-ray known as a dual-energy x-ray(DEXA) and bone densitometry. DEXA scan includes two devises – a central device which is a hospital-based scan measuring hip and spine bone and a peripheral device which is a mobile machine measuring wrist, heel and finger bone. ILS Hospitals being a multi-specialty hospital provides the treatment for Osteoporosis.
World Osteoporosis Day takes place on 20th October, organized by International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) every year. This concept is launched by the United Kingdom’s National Osteoporosis Society in the year 1996. The main aim of this campaign is to spread awareness on bone health. This annual campaign is dedicated to raising awareness of the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of osteoporosis and metabolic bone disease.
Expecting Diabetes During the Diwali? Follow These Guidelines
Diwali is around the clock and needless to say, the festival of light is not limited to the lights itself. It involves lots of sweet desserts, crackers, and gifts as well. However, several individuals end up having the excessive level of sugar in their blood and seek diabetes treatment for it. So, that you don’t end up spending your time in the hospital bed, instead of having fun, we provide several guidelines for the same.
1. Limit the consumption of sweet dishes
Diwali is a festival of lots of sweets and snack. Avoiding their temptation is not a solution, It is always recommended to limit the numbers you eat in this duration. In case, you are making sweets at home or ordering from a shop, go for a smaller size of Ladoos and other sweets to reduce the portion size of each serving.
2. Go for baked snacks instead of deep fried ones
Not every dessert can be baked, for the ones that can be done, must be. Baking served the purpose of deep frying as well, without adding the excess amount of oil on the plate. It is particularly healthy for people with blood sugar and can be considered as a diabetes treatment.
3. Go for healthier substitute
Substituting sugar with healthy herbs on the food platter is a big ‘no’ for any individual, especially during the Diwali time. Thus, try to substitute heavy, sugary ingredients with healthier substitutions. For example, using toned milk in place of full creamed, honey or applesauce in place of honey.
4. Stay away from sweets with silver coating
Though these fancy decoration, looks very appetizing, they are extremely unhealthy. Though it would not directly affect the blood sugar level in the blood, it surely enters the bloodstream due to over-consumption and then can cause severe complications.
Indians are genetically more susceptible to diabetes as compared to other people across the globe. That is why we need more attentive diabetes treatment. Thus, it is important to take every necessary action to ensure that diabetes stays away from us, particularly during festive season like Diwali, when people tend to go for a richer diet.
Though avoiding calorie and sugar-loaded sweets and other snacks, completely is not a feasible solution for the most of the people, adhering to few guidelines would certainly help a lot.
History of Anesthesia
If you have ever undergone a surgical procedure in a hospital or clinic, you must have been remembering administrating a pre-calculated dosage of anesthesia, either local or general. And soon, you lose every sensation and after you regain consciousness, you find that the surgical; procedure is long over. Without the anesthesia, almost every surgical procedure would be impossible to carry out, particularly in these days.
But have you ever wondered how surgical procedures were carried out before the time when anesthesia was formulated? After all, the history of surgery goes long back in time. Let’s understand how the anesthesia came to existence.
Anesthesia performs three major functions, it enables the patient to feel any pain during the surgery, it enables the body to keep performing the vital actions, such as heartbeat, respiration etc and simultaneously, it disables the body to carry out any movements, let it be voluntary, or reflex.
In the earliest stages of surgical procedures, the patient was given a dosage of alcohol, opium or cannabis, as they used to minimize the sensation, mainly the pain. But unlike, toady’s procedure, they were not up to the mark. With time acupuncture needle was substituted in place of oral anesthesia. Gradually came the time when carotid compression is used to achieve unconsciousness before surgery.
It was Sir Christopher Wren and Robert Boyle, who pioneered intravenous anesthesia.
Then came an era of hypnosurgery, in which the patient is hypnotized by a professional hypnologist before the procedure begins. This procedure was pioneered by Dr. Jules Cloquet, who carried out a hypnosurgery on women for breast surgery. Supposedly, the patient under hypnosis experience tingling like sensation instead of pain, throughout the procedure. Despite the question of its viability, several notable cases have been witnessed, which was done as hypnosurgery. However, this procedure depends on the willpower of each patient and thus, does not work well for every individual and cannot be counted as a reliable anesthetic substitute.
William Morton is a notable name who initiated the use of ether as anesthesia for surgery and created a revolutionary history. With the advancement of research and development, several new anesthetic substances were formulated from time to time, each surpassing the benefits over the previous ones. Depending upon the type of surgery, either local or general anesthesia is administrated.
In the present scenario, most anesthesia is intravenous and having an anesthesiologist or anesthetist is extremely crucial in any major surgery. Without their supervision and administration of anesthesia, the surgical procedure cannot initiate. During the operation, the anesthesiologist makes sure the patient’s body keep performing all the three crucial actions, as mentioned above.
In this, World Anesthesia Day, we at ILS Hospitals, pay our tributes to each and every one who worked hard immensely to invent the anesthesia, and made the surgical procedures, a rather comforting and bearable procedure.
A Brief Introduction of Arthritis
Arthritis is a medical term that can be used to denote any illness or disorder that incur on the joints. The Greek origin of the term literally means inflammation of joints (artho means joint and itis means inflammation). It is mainly characterized by stiffness, numbness, pain, redness, swelling, immobility in the affected joints. Occasionally, it also offers some nearby internal or external organs. Several orthopedic clinics across India provides care and treatment for the same.
Major kinds of Arthritis
There are more than 100 types of joint pain disorders that come under the umbrella term arthritis. Rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis are the two most common types. The prior is an autoimmune disorder which affects predominantly the feets and hands. The latter one is mostly acquired with age and affects the knees, fingers, and hips. Their common types of arthritis include lupus, gout, and septic arthritis etc.
Treatment of Arthritis
To treat a minor arthritic ailment, the weakened joint is exposed to heat and ice pack alternatively. Mild medication with paracetamol and ibuprofen is used for temporary relief, but joint replacement is often the ultimate solution to address a case with severe bone decay and pain. Moreover, several times, a person experience joint pain as they gradually begin to gain body weight. It is an obvious side effect of obesity as the joint begin to endure excessive weight and pressure of excessive weight. In such cases, exercise and weight loss can help with the condition, significantly.
Symptoms of Arthritis
As already mentioned, there are over 100 types of arthritis, so the exact symptoms depend upon the particular type of consideration. However, there are few common symptoms of the same, which are as follows-
- Muscle stiffness or pain
- Difficult to move the hand or feet to full extent
- Fatigue and tiredness
- Tenderness and stiffness
- Inflammation and pain on joints
- Loss of flexibility
- Weakness of muscle
Effect of Arthritis on Daily Life
Most of the arthritis is not a life-threatening illness and gives the patient an immense time to address it. But after living with a prolonged period with an arthritis disorder influences the quality of life up to a large extent.
Thus on this World Arthritis Day, we encourage every individual to make sure to seek treatment for a persistent join pain without delaying for it to become more complex.
Small Guide to Mental Disorder – Depression and Anxiety
We can pursue a healthy and happy life not only by being physically fit but mentally as well. When we are free of depression, stress, and anxiety we live more happily. Our mind reacts differently to different courses of the event and as per which, our feeling fluctuates. People with depression and anxiety are likely to be the victim of many other physical and mental hazards of which they might not be conscious of. Physical issues such as heart disease, ulcers, colitis etc.
It was discovered that a severe mental health could be as menacing as cancer, which is strenuous to treat. To spread this information across the globe, an initiative, known as World Mental Health Day was taken by the WHO which was first celebrated in 1992 at the initiative of the World Federation for Mental Health.
It was found to create awareness of how important is our mental health just as our physical health. When it comes to mental health the most common problem we find is depression and anxiety, which has decoyed almost all the normal people into its clutch. Here, you are going to discover why mental health is a thing of concern. The following point listed will give light to the above context:
Mental health strengthens and supports our ability to:
- Healthy Relationships: Relationship only not only with your spouse but all also with your parents, siblings, friends, and people around you. A peaceful and happy mind always think and look forward to positive vibes. An unhappy person will feel it difficult to connect with people around him/her.
- Right Choices: When we have a healthy mood we make our decision with our full consciousness and don’t make any wrong judgment over anything. Hence, any decision taken in an unhealthy mood can bring us more trouble.
- Well-being: An unhealthy mind also leads to many physical issues. Although different people show different reactions such as severe depression may result in either in weight loss or gain, reduces hunger, and sometimes panic attacks. Therefore, a mentally fit person will be distant from these issues.
- Acceptance: A mentally fit person will accept the natural ups and downs of a physical body and as well as the fluctuating situation which life threw us in.
- Leads Addiction: Depression and anxiety can also lead a man to get addicted to smoking, drinking, drugs etc. which will further result in increasing physical health hazards.
- Workplace: A bad mental health can also have a bad impact at our workplace. An irritated and exhausted temper can create conflict among members or might make a presentation inefficient.
.
Different types of mental disorders?
Depression and anxiety are the most common disorder found in almost every individual at some part of life. Now let us have a look at the other different types of mental disorders. They are given below:
- Mood disorders (such as depression and bipolar disorder)
- Psychotic disorders (such as schizophrenia)
- Eating disorders
- Trauma-related disorders (such as post-traumatic stress disorder)
- Substance abuse disorders
Tips to overcome depression and anxiety
The remedial measures may differ from person to person as every individual has their level of satisfaction. The remedies to fight depression is given below:
- Meditation
- Travel to your favorite place
- Limit your time on social media
- Set goals
- Listen to music
- Dance like an insane
- Eat healthy
- Workout regularly
- Give importance to people who deserve them and not who you want to
- Eat chocolate or have cappuccino
- Be an active volunteer
- Spend time with loved once
- Share your feeling or write it down
- Watch movies
- Live scheduled life
- Take adequate sleep
Therefore, these tips might help you get rid of depression may not at an instance but will bring changes to your current situations. Although if you have tried almost all the above-mentioned remedies but still can’t help yourself, well, then it is suggested to get yourself checked by a Psychiatrists. It is proofed that a person who has been seen from a doctor tend to visit the doctor less than those who never did. Consult a Psychiatrist for more information.
A Brief Introduction of Breast Cancer
After attaining puberty, a women’s breast develops fat, lobules, connective tissues and glands to produce milk for breastfeeding. After the onset of cancer, the cells keep multiplying uncontrollably and starts spreading after a certain point of time, to its nearby tissues as well. Breast cancer is the most common kind of cancer among women.
Men can be affected by breast cancer as well, though the count is very little as compared to that of women. Several times, the genetics plays an important role towards its prevalence, but many times, the culprit is the sedentary lifestyle. It can be addressed with chemotherapy, radiation therapy or surgical approach.
Types of breast cancer
There are mainly two kinds of breast cancer. Invasive and non-invasive breast cancer. In the prior case, the cancer cell breaks out from the inside of ducts and thus the risk of its spread remains significantly high. The latter condition is the opposite and is termed when the cells remain at the origin of the outbreak. If it is left untreated, over a period of time, it develops into invasive cancer anyways.
Symptoms of breast cancer
The primary symptom of a breast cancer is characterized by the developing either a thick tissue or a lump in the breast or armpit. Secondary symptoms comprise of one or more of the following-
- Pain in the breast or in an armpit, which does correlate with the monthly cycle.
- An inverted or sunken nipple.
- Redness of the breast skin
- Discharge blood or other fluid from the nipple
- Rash on the nipple, or around it
- Change of size or shape of breast irrelevant to the monthly cycle
- Scaling or flaking of the nipple or the breast skin
.
Initiative on this world Breast cancer awareness month
On this breast cancer awareness month, we, at ILS Hospitals encourage every woman to step up and seek breast examination at least once annually, to keep the risks of breast cancer at bay. We also, motivate every adult women to learn and practice self-breast examination every three to six month and keep an eye on any growth on the breast or under the armpit. Women with either a personal medical history or family history of previous lumps or cancer are requested to be-be extremely cautious regarding the same. Going for a mammogram is often recommended by a gynaecologist.
Several of the lumps of the breast are not cancerous. However, in case of any doubt, it is best to get it checked by a physician as soon as possible.
How ILS Hospitals Contributes Towards Elder’s Health and Well Being
As Gary Snyder has rightly said, “In Western Civilization, our elders are books.” but definitely this does not hold true for every generation in every corner of the world. Unfortunately, not every elder gets adequate medical attention. In fact, finding a well-qualified geriatric specialist is often a tiresome job, if you don’t know where to look for. To address the gap between the elderly medical complication and their reliable treatment, ILS Hospitals are taking a unique initiative.
ILS hospitals are offering ILS Sparsh and ‘Care of Senior Citizen’ health package for the elderly people of our nation. Let’s explore them both in details, how these package and initiative improves the overall health of the elderly people.
ILS Sparsh
Not every elder lives with their family of children and grandchildren. Thus, getting to a hospital often becomes a challenging task in itself. Thus the initiative ‘ILS Sparsh’ is a big relief, as it collects the samples for screening at the doorsteps itself along with delivering the report and routine check-ups by a physician.
It offers the following special services for its patients.
– 15% Discount on all OPD Investigations
– 10% Discount on health check-up packages
– 10% Discount on IP services excluding medicines, consumables and doctor’s fees.
– Physician visit at home for general check-up and consultation, once in 2 months
– Blood Sugar (fasting), blood pressure & weight check-up at home, every month
– Sample collection & report delivery at doorstep, once in every month
– Free ambulance service, if hospitalized in ILS Hospitals
– Priority for admission to the cardholders
Care of Senior Citizen
This health check-up package is fabricated by keeping the needs of an elder in mind. These screenings include-
- Complete Haemogram with ESR
- Total Cholesterol
- Random Blood Sugar
- Pap Smear / PSA (Women/Men)
- Serum Creatinine
- Urea
- ECG
- Echocardiography Screening
- Chest X-Ray PA View
- USG Whole Abdomen screening
- Eye Screening
- Dental Screening
The package also comprises of a consultation from a Physician. Thus, it ensures that the patient and their family gets a full disclosure of the screenings and their interception on their life. In case, a particular aspect needs special attention, the doctor can investigate further.
On the occasion of World Elderly Day, ILS Hospitals encourages every individual to take care of the elderly people in their home and get them every medical attention they need.
What Is Low Birth Weight And Its Main Causes
After a full term of pregnancy, a baby is born with body weight ranging between 2500 to 4200 grams in order to live a normal functional life. However, very often some of these babies are born with exceptionally lesser weight than medically considered as ideal. These babies need critical care and are often kept at special care units of maternity hospitals.
As per World Health Organization, babies having a body weight of 2499 grams or less are considered as low birth weight. This is further subdivided into very low birth weight (having less than 1500 gram) and extremely low birth weight (having less than 1000 grams).
Having a low birth weight puts the baby subjected to developing a wide number of medical complications, both in short term and in long term.
Causes of low birth weight
The low birth weight is either caused due to preterm birth or due to being small for the gestational or environmental factor of the prenatal growth and development.
Preterm birth
The gestational period ideally consists of 37 weeks and any pregnancy than matures before this duration is considered as preterm birth. Being born before the ideal time than the baby is supposed to, results in making the baby susceptible to multiple medical issues and being born with a low birth weight is one of them.
Being small for gestational age
As already mentioned, the gestational duration does play an important role. However, some babies born with low birth weight even with a full term. This happens when the baby is doing full term but is underdeveloped with respect to his or her age. It is often a result of some or the other medical or genetic condition. As any malnourished individual would perform less and will be less immunized, the rules apply same for an infant only to a bigger proportion.
Environmental factors
Several factors such as a young age of mother, previous low birth weight babies, multiple pregnancies, poor nutrition, substance abuse and malnourished prenatal stage etc contribute towards negatively affecting the birth weight of the baby. It also includes exposure to smoke, pollutant air, water, lead and other toxic substances as well.
As already mentioned, the babies having a low birth weight is highly likely to suffer immense adverse health conditions. Thus, every family having an expectant mother is advised to take proper care of the mother and the child in every aspect to ensure a safe pregnancy and healthy child. In case of any doubt, it is always wise to approach a maternity hospital as soon as possible.
History, Evolution, And Importance Of Stethoscope In Medical World
The very first thing that everyone visualizes about a doctor is undoubtedly the stethoscope. A stethoscope is a medical device with a disk-like resonator, which is placed on the chest and a set of ear piece to enable hearing of the same. It is used to trace the auscultation, which is the technique of listening to the internal sounds produced inside the body.
Doctors of almost every domain in the hospitals carry a stethoscope for primary evaluation of the patients approaching the facility for check-up and treatment. But earlier what happened when the stethoscope was yet to be invented? Let’s understand in brief, how medical evaluations were carried out along with the birth of the first stethoscope.
Before the discovery of stethoscope, the doctors used the technique of simultaneous percussion and auscultation. For the same doctors used to put their ear directly on the chest of the patient. Though the procedure remained effective for a considerable amount of time, it was awkward for both the doctors and patients, when a lady patients were involved and the obvious fact that the number of female doctors in the world could have been counted on fingers.
The same problem was faced by the French physician Rene Laennec as well, in the year 1816, when he was to treat an overweight young lady, suffering from some type of cardiac and respiratory problem. To avoid embarrassment, he rolled up a few sheet lying around in a tube like structure and placed it over the heart of the patient and listened from the other open end.
To his surprise, this method yielded an excellent result and he began administering the same for all his patients. Also being a musician, he himself invented an improved structure, the monaural model with only one ear piece.
In the year 1819, he made the findings public and with time the model was improved as more and more physicians began to understand its importance. In the year 1851 came the first ever bi-aural stethoscope.
The ones we see these days are similar to the ones manufactured around the early 1930s, with a few changes in the aspect of material and the resonator etc. Gradually, the stethoscope was used alongside the sphygmomanometer to obtain the blood pressure as well. Nowadays some stethoscope also comes with a recording device to keep a record of the same for the future evaluation.
It is the first and foremost pathological device for diagnosis. We pay our tribute to the great minds that invented and improvised this useful medical device, which is literally the icon of medical science in the world.
The Major Types Of Cosmetic Surgery In The Twentieth Century
The history of medical surgery dates back as early as 500 BC, though the exact timeline is a matter of debate. So, several people believe cosmetic surgery to be extremely recent.
However, it is very far from the actual fact. Multiple records prove that the domain of plastic and cosmetic surgery has existed in the world since a long time.
However, with the time, it has improved a lot. Presently, in India, it is one of the most frequent elective surgical procedures and cosmetic surgery is solving several aesthetic issues with the surgical approach.
Here we present the list of the most prevalent plastic and cosmetic surgery procedures in Kolkata-
- Rhinoplasty- Most commonly known as the nose job. It changes the appearance of the nose.
- Rhytidectomy- It is a Facelift procedure that tightens the jowls and neck.
- Facial Implants- It tightens the facial features and makes the cheek or chin look more prominent.
- Blepharoplasty- It is the procedure to tightening the eyelid.
- Breast Reconstruction- Rebuilds the breast after diseases like cancer
- Changing Breast size and appearance– Enhances or reducing the size of the breast
- Mastopexy- Tightens the skin of the breast to improve the contour
- Gynecomastia- Resection reduces the size of large breasts in men and improves chest contour.
- Liposuction- It removes extra fat from the fat zones such as hips, thighs, buttocks, belly etc
- Abdominoplasty- It is more commonly known as tummy tuck. It removes extra fat and thereafter tightens the skin.
- Mini-Abdominoplasty- A similar surgery like the previous one. It removes the lower abdominal pouching
- Skin resurfacing- Smoothes the skin with the help of laser, or other similar techniques
- Hair transplantation- Treats pattern baldness of both male and female.
- Arm lift- It tightens the skin layer of the upper arm and fixes any lose skin bags
- Otoplasty- Ear pin back. It brings the ears closer to the head
- Scar revision surgery- Improves the appearance of scars
A plastic or cosmetic surgery is the surgical approach that helps to alter the contour and appearance of the body and improvise the physical attributes. As a result, the self-esteem and mental image changes as well and overall, it helps the individual to lead a more confident life ahead.