Another new segment for Nursing Show TV recorded from Blogworld Expo. This time around, Doctor Anonymous helped me out with the microphone and interviewing Bongi – a trauma surgeon from South Africa who has a very interesting blog on common injuries seen in his country.
Visit his blog at http://other-things-amanzi.blogspot.com
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Do you host a medically oriented blog or podcast? We would like you to consider joining us next year at Blogworld Expo and add your ideas to the discussion on medical blogging, ethics, and have fun with the rest of us! Contact me here at Comments@NursingShow.com for more information about how to connect with other medical bloggers.
Filed under RN on the side, nursing show tv by on Oct 25th, 2009. Comment. 
Over at this week’s MedicCast podcast for EMS providers, we take a look as some of the special considerations in the treatment of geriatric patients. First, a look at geriatric trauma considerations and why special care is needed to ensure that the elderly trauma patient is taken to the most appropriate facility just like younger patients. A recent study by the State of Maryland found that geriatric trauma patients were not being taken to trauma centers as much as younger patients with similar injuries.
The show also includes a look at polypharmacy and how it affects the geriatric population. Polypharmacy is the presence of at least 5 to 7 prescribed medications for a patient. Each additional med increases the risk for adverse drug interactions, compounded side effects and endangers the patient. Encourage patients to review their medications at least annually with their physicians.
Any person may experience problems with polypharmacy, but an elderly person will have more issues due to decreased metabolism, reduced renal and hepatic function, and slowed GI clearance and absorption.
Visit the MedicCast Episode show notes pages here.
Filed under geriatrics for nurses, nursing education, nursing medication review by on Aug 27th, 2008. Comment.
In a recent article on military amputees and their experiences with phantom limb pains, an unusual treatment cropped up — Mirror Therapy!
Phantom pain is caused by mismatched signals to the brain from the affected limb. The motor and pain neural pathways are still there down to the point of amputation. It is believed that the mismatch between the visual signals that the limb isn’t there anymore, bumps up against the remaining nerves that are still acting as if the limb is still receiving and and sending signals to them. These conflicting signals result in pain felt in a limb that is no longer there.
Looking for a solution, an army neurologist turned to a older study that looked at the use of mirrors to fool the visual cortex into thinking the limb was still present. Many were skeptical, but after dealing with pain that was unresponsive to pain killers, most were willing to give it a try and signed up for the clinical trials set up by the military. The results were pretty amazing.
90 percent of the patients using the mirror therapy had a reduction in pain and within a few months, most had significantly reduced their narcotics load. Read the article for more information. It’s cool stuff!
I’m hoping my fellow science podcaster, Ginger Campbell over at the Brain Science Podcast picks up on this one. I’d like to hear her take on it.
Filed under RN on the side, nursing medication review by on Apr 3rd, 2008. Comment.
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