Category Archives: Health Tips
How to Recover From a Sports Related Knee Injury Using Cold Therapy
There are many causes of sports related knee injuries. Poor training, inadequate warm-up, lack of conditioning can all contribute to injuries.
Here are a few tips to a quick recovery.
Sometimes a knee injury can just heal on its own by just resting it, but sometimes it takes months and endless physical therapy. If you have suffered a knee injury that does not require medical treatment, like a sprain, strain, muscle pull, or tear, getting immediate medical treatment can prevent future complications and help the injured knee heal faster.
If you think you have suffered a serious knee injury, make sure to seek out the opinion of a medical professional.
There is a very well know recovery method known as: RICE.
- REST – Rest is extremely important to protect the injured muscle, tendon, ligament or other tissue from further injury. If you are injured, stop the physical activity and protect the injured part from further damage. Try and avoid putting weight on the injured area. Resting the injured area is important to promote healing.
- ICE – When you are icing your injury, the most effective and convenient method is by using a cold therapy machine. This is an extremely effective way to direct cold to the injured tissue. Traditional ice packs only provide a “Static” form of cold therapy, meaning there is no flow or movement. Cold therapy unit provides a dynamic, or constant flow of cold therapy, allowing for better heat transfer. The most efficient heat transfer happens between the greatest differences of temperatures and when you have a high rate of cold water flow over the injured area. Dynamic cold therapy, provides a more consistent therapeutic temperature, thus accelerating the healing process and reducing pain, swelling, and the need for pain control medications. Ice machine for knee provides short-term pain relief and also limits swelling by reducing blood flow to the injured area. A good rule is to apply cold compresses for 15 minutes and then leave them off long enough for the skin to re-warm.
- COMPRESSION – Compression helps reduce swelling, which can delay healing. You can also get pain relief from compression. Wrapping an ACE bandage around to injury is a simple way to obtain the benefits of compression therapy.
- ELEVATION – Elevating your injury helps control swelling. It’s the most effective when the injured area is raised above the level of your heart. For example, if you injure a knee, lay down with your leg propped on one or two pillows.
After 48 hours RICE therapy, stop compression and try to move the injured area. If, your symptoms are not better, seek further medical advice.
Four Benefits of a Cold Therapy Machine for Hip Replacement Recovery
Cold therapy is extremely useful in speeding up recovery post any orthopedic surgery. Now, hip replacement surgery is one of the major operations involving vital bones that affect mobility. Patients recovering from this surgery can benefit from an extra measure to aid their recovery.
One of the most useful measures is to administer cold therapy in the hip area to ensure the speedy healing of surgical wounds. The best way to deliver it is through a cold therapy machine.
Cold Therapy for Hip Replacement Recovery
Hip replacement surgery is usually the last option to correct a painful hip joint that makes everyday living difficult. It involves the removal of painful hip joint sections and replacing them with artificial parts constructed with metal or other materials.
For successful outcomes of surgeries, it is also crucial to practice good post-operative care as recommended by your doctor. Along with mild exercises, cold therapy is also often included in the recovery program of orthopedic surgery patients.
Cold therapy is the use of freezing temperatures to speed up recovery post orthopedic surgeries or injuries. The cold is applied over the surgical wounds to help reduce the inflammation and the pain. Due to the effect of the cold temperature, the nerve communication stops in the area of application. It then leads to a temporary loss of blood supply to the same site. Without a blood supply, the swelling is not sustainable. As the swelling goes down, the pain begins to lessen as well.
Traditionally, cold therapy has been administered with ice packs. However, for benefiting fully from this holistic remedy, it is better to use a cold therapy machine to deliver it.
Benefits of Using a Cold Therapy Machine for Hip Replacement Recovery
There are four benefits of using a cold therapy machine to aid recovery of patients after hip replacement surgery.
1. It helps safely deliver cold therapy
Using a cold therapy machine is the best way to deliver cold therapy in a safe manner post a surgery. With machines, you don’t need to worry about water dripping on your surgical wounds. When you use ice packs, it is always a possibility that water from melting bags can get inside the surgical wound and increase your chances of contracting the post-operative infection. Using a machine ensures that there are no post-operative complications due to infections contracted due to cold therapy.
If you use cold therapy machines from brands like IsoComforter, you can benefit from extra safety features such as the ridges in the healing pad to prevent injuries from freezing temperatures. IsoComforter machines are designed using the patented Iso Tube technology for delivering cold therapy efficiently and safely.
2. It helps the patients to administer cold therapy in the most comfortable way
Using a cold therapy machine is comfortable and convenient. It enables patients to continue to use cold therapy consistently. Consistency is paramount when it comes to benefiting from cold therapy. Unless it is convenient to administer therapy, few patients are likely to continue with it. For example, holding an ice pack over the hip multiple times a day (for 15-20 minutes at a time) cannot be comfortable for anyone.
It is also effortless to use a cold therapy machine. You need to simply fill the tank with water, wrap the healing pad around the hip, and switch on the machine. IsoComforter machines do not even require refilling the tank with water very often.
3. It helps with speedy recovery
Consistent delivery of cold therapy helps with speedy recovery of patients post their hip replacement surgery. When the pain is reduced sooner than expected, patients can also begin their physical therapy at the earliest. With physical therapy, patients can begin to regain mobility in their hip joint without any delays.
4. It helps patients be less reliant on pain medicines
With pain management in a natural way and help with speedy recovery, use of cold therapy machines help patients not rely on medicines for relief. Pain medicines can cause dependency in patients and lead to other health problems.
Find the Best Primary Care Service for Your Better Health
Primary care is one of the cornerstones in a good and well equipped healthcare system focused on bettering life and health of people. The importance of effective primary care in our life tremendous, but obviously choosing or being exposed to best health service is crucial. Quality health care focused on improving health and simultaneously reducing disparities is a too important aspect to look for in primary health services. On a broader perspective, primary care not only contribute to make our health better, but it also empowers people to fight environmental effects on health and other disparities and poor living condition that take serious toll on health. Let us begin with an analysis of the terms primary care and primary health care.
Primary care and primary healthcare in concept refer to two different things. Primary care principally refers to medication services undertaken by physicians and health professionals to treat individual patients. In that respect it can be characterized typically as person specific care. On the other hand, primary healthcare refers to a much broader concept comprising individual specific care and medication and preventive healthcare as well as the medication process for a large population. For our present discussion on the importance of finding the best primary care in Fair Oaks, Chicago, New Jersey or anywhere else in the United States, we would limit our discussion to the person specific medication and treatment.
The role of primary care in the overall healthcare delivery system is enormous. It serves as the quintessential building blocks to better the standard healthcare practice for the population. In a healthcare system the excellence of primary care will directly result in less health complexities and a decreased amount of diseased population requiring secondary or chronic care. Ever since the introduction of this term within the annals of events in healthcare sector, it garnered widespread focus from all practitioners and health policy makers.
Primary care mainly focuses on various levels of services including prevention, diagnosis and therapeutic treatment, health education, health counseling and minor surgeries. Though all of these types of care services come under the jurisdiction of primary care, there can be specialist services for different care niches. For instance, a specialist medical counselor is also remitting one type of care by counseling the patients and preventive care specialist may undertake a sensitizing health campaign to prevent outburst of certain diseases and epidemics and their gross practicing field is primary care. A quality primary care facility will have all of these care and practice niches under its command. Experience of health professionals, clinicians and practicing physicians is critical for the standard of excellence in primary care.
Understanding the importance of primary care in elevating health standard and overall healthcare excellence is well appreciated by all and sundry. There are whole ranges of multiple evidences showing how primary care promotes health and works in alleviating illness. Most important of all, primary care effectively distributes the healthcare benefits to all sections of the population and society. From the healthcare practitioners perspective primary care also reduces the needs for attending specialty care for a large population.
Primary care refers to medical care remitted at the frontline of healthcare system. It can be given by the diagnostic professional, doctors, family physicians, clinicians, pediatricians, physician assistants, or nurse practitioners in their varying level of capacities. Primary care (http://www.ehow.com/how_2054319_find-primary-care-doctor.html) involves the following core attributes.
• The patient through primary care service first get exposed to healthcare for his or her undiagnosed health problems.
• Primary care is comprehensive and person specific in nature making the patient feel more private care atmosphere.
• Primary care coordinates across different health services like pathological units, surgical units, medical emergencies, chronic care management, etc.
The essential role of primary care practitioners is to ensure that patients as per his health problem get diagnosed at the earliest and get proper therapeutic care. Primary care practitioners by their experience and expertise on various health problems and required medical service and attention takes a decision whether the patient would be needing hospitalization and close supervision or medication in the comfort of his residence. In more ways than one primary care plays the role of shield to prevent a patient from entering critical health condition and thereby elevate the health standard of population. In many countries elevated standard of primary care actually helped to optimize healthcare standard and elevate life expectancy to several notches.
Consulting an Ophthalmologist about Vision Problems
As per studies of American Academy of Ophthalmology, approximately 26 million Americans over 40’s are reported to have cataracts and other age-related eye problems while it further estimates this number is likely to hit 40 million by 2020. Another survey convened by American Optometric Association shows that around 22% of preschool children and 24% adolescents having correctable vision errors including nearsightedness and farsightedness do not have updated prescribed spectacles, which can help them correcting their eyesight.
Considering the ever-increasing number of people with low vision, blindness, or age-related eye disorders like cataract, diabetic retinopathy, macular de-generation or glaucoma and also, corrective vision issues among children, people are required to be serious to obtain consultancy of ophthalmologist in Colorado Springs and cataract Surgery in Colorado Springs, CO. While kids cannot effectively express the issue related to their incorrect eyesight that adversely affect their academic performance, AAO experts recommend parents as well as teaching staff to have a special attention on this issue.
Whether to Meet an Ophthalmologist or Optometrists
If you’re one of those who commonly make mistake in differentiating an ophthalmologist and optometrist, the two distinct eye care professionals, then please understand that
Services Offered by Ophthalmologists
Backed by medical school background, 3-4 years residency practices and fellowship, ophthalmologists are considered as total eye care physicians. The services you can expect from ophthalmologist in Colorado Springs and cataract surgery in Colorado Springs, CO include methodical eye health screening, evaluation, diagnose and management of eye disorders and conditions such as glaucoma, cataracts, trauma, droopy eyelids, crossed eyes and eyesight disorders caused by diabetes. There specialty areas involve analysis of visual pathways of the core areas of eyes and their functioning with brain. They are licensed to offer eye victims with necessary surgical sessions including plastic surgery and eye care management.
Services Offered by Optometrists
On the contrary, optometrists are required to complete 4 years professional courses that help them become doctor of optometry (OD) degree. Their area of practices mainly focused on vision care, eye exam and prescribing eyeglasses or contacts. They are not approved to take care of your cataract surgery, which should be noted carefully. When it comes to evaluation and treatment like farsightedness, nearsightedness, astigmatism, they are the right professionals to contact. They can check and prescribe you fitting eyeglasses or suggest on contact lenses.
When to Consult Ophthalmologist
• Since almost all eye diseases occur in people over their 40’s, you are always at higher risk especially if anyone of your family members suffer from high blood pressure, diabetes or related eye diseases. Never overlook the necessity of having your health checked by general physician while have consultancy of an ophthalmologist to ensure your eye-health condition.
• Even though you take necessary medicines being a victim of diabetes and high blood pressure, obviously meet your ophthalmologist who can offer you great advices to avoid potential eye problems. Untreated and disorderly diabetes or hypertension is a leading cause of diabetic retinopathy, eye stroke, and macular degeneration.
• Do you feel that your eyesight has started troublemaking in your daily activities, occupational work or in course of driving the car at night? If yes, how meager the issue is, do not delay to consult your eye doctor immediately. To name a few of these trouble signals include hazy vision, double vision, difficulty seeing, night blindness, nearsightedness or farsightedness.
• If you experience symptoms such as frequent flashes of lighting, eye swelling, floaters, eye sore or red eyes, get in touch with ophthalmologist in Colorado Springs, immediately for necessary treatment.
The Outcome
In the consultancy session, Ophthalmologists evaluate the condition of your eye health through assessment of your medical background, family eye-health history, personal interviewing, and physical checkups. The ophthalmologist in Colorado Springs operate in state-of-the-art procedure rooms and are equipped with varieties of new generation medical devices, apparatus, and tools to conduct the checkup session effectively. They suggest you on wholesome dietary plans and healthy way of living that nourishes your eye health.