Grupo Biblio Medical

Stroke survivors now turn to traditional Chinese cures combined with modern technology to speed up recovery and reclaim their lives. Chinese medical theory cites that excesses or deficiencies in food intake, work, exercise, emotions, and so on, can cause illness. More people are discovering just how effective modern alternative health and therapeutic treatment is in healing ailment raging from tension and fatigue to pain and serious illness like strokes.

Majority of stroke patients are left with some forms of permanent disability that interferes with normal daily activities, such as walking, speech, vision, understanding, reasoning and memory. To ease their condition there is various treatments and rehabilitation involves using a mirror. It is believed that if a person who has had a stroke watches how the unaffected side of his or her body moves, it can give visual clues to help the person move the affected side.

Traditional Chinese medicine which is acupuncture employs the additional use of a machine to stimulate the needles and, in effect, provide relief where needed. Acupuncture is one Chinese treatment, which has been intensively researched on, challenged and corroborated by western doctors. The journal of American Association of Anatomist indicated that acupuncture points correspond to areas where connective tissues are thickest and which contains many nerve endings. Far from being a fleeting trend, acupuncture has become an accepted health care practice. It involves science intersecting with nature.

Electrotherapy is among the services, which offers holistic and integrated approach based on the intrinsic flow- and – energy balance theory of health and healing. It has proven to be a very effective treatment, especially when administered within one year after a person suffers a stroke. It is able to help improve blood circulation, speech, and motor facilities. A stoke is a brain damage cause by lack of blood flow to a portion of the brain. It results in permanent damage to the brain tissue- and in many cases permanent disability for the patient. In addition to physical consequences like speech disability and paralysis, stroke survivors often deal with the psychological effects, like feeling depressed, angry and frustrated at their inability to perform tasks that, before the stroke were easy or automatic.
The person’s general ability to take part in a rehabilitation program after the stroke is important consideration when decisions are being made about rehabilitation. Rehabilitation begins as soon as possible after a person is admitted to the hospital

Introduction
Homeopathy is a safe, natural form of medicine, based on the practice of treating like with like. Homeopathy is derived from the Greek words homios, meaning like or similar, and italios, meaning suffering.

Homeopathy is concerned with treating the whole person rather than the illness alone. The homeopath will consider the patient as a whole, both physically and psychologically, taking into account the patient’s physical appearance, their likes, dislikes and their temperament. It is there fore a highly personalized form of treatment, so patients who apparently suffer from the same ill ness may be given advice for different medicines.

Homeopathy is a well established form of healing. Today many of the leading pharmaceutical companies are researching and mass-producing homeopathic medicines.

Homeopathic Medicines
Homeopathic medicines look very much like conventional medicines, are taken in the same way, but the way they work is entirely different.

The medicines are not synthetic and are derived from natural sources. Over 60% of homeopathic remedies are prepared from vegetable or plant materials. Other remedies are prepared from naturally occurring mineral substances, including metals, non-metallic substances, and mineral salts. Animal sources of homeopathic remedies include: Cuttlefish (the ink or juice provides sepia) and Honeybee.

Homeopathic medicines are prepared by obtaining the remedy in its most concentrated form, and then, through a long process of dilution, by preparing a medicine whose potency is sufficient to effect a treatment. The potency describes the measure of the dilution of the remedy and is denoted by the number which follows the name of the medicine itself. The higher the number, the greater the dilution (up to one part remedy to one trillion parts dilutant).

Homeopathic Medicines
Homeopathic medicines, commonly referred to as remedies, may come from the plant, mineral, or animal kingdom. Some common remedies include: arnica montana, from the Leopard’s bane plant; belladonna, from the deadly nightshade plant; calcarea, calcium carbonate from oyster shells; sepia, from cuttlefish ink; and the element, sulphur.

Homeopathic remedies today are produced using the same dilution principles as in Hahnemann’s day. In a common dilution of 1:100, one drop of the homeopathic substance is added to 99 drops of water and/or alcohol. The mixture is then potentized by a process called “succussion” - repeated tapping on a hard surface for a specific length of time. Remedies may be diluted up to 1000 times, leaving only an infinitesimal trace of the substance. Remedies are typically diluted 10, 100, or 1,000 times, which translate into potencies that are marked with the Roman numerals X, C, and M. Homeopathic remedies range from 6X as the lowest potency to 1M or more as the highest potency.

Remedies can be taken orally in pill, powder, or drop form, rubbed topically, or injected. There are usually no side effects from homeopathic treatments, but a patient can experience what is called a “healing aggravation,” a temporary accentuation of symptoms. This is seen as a positive sign that the remedy is working. Depending on the severity of the symptoms, a homeopath may choose an antidote, which produces the opposite effect of the remedy. The antidote may be another homeopathic remedy, or a strong substance, such as perfume, camphor, or coffee, which are known to block the effects of a remedy.

In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recognized homeopathic medicines as drugs since 1938, working with the Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia Convention to produce and update their reference book of homeopathic medicines. Over the years, the FDA has classified homeopathic medicines as either prescription or more commonly as non-prescription (over-the-counter), depending on their strength. In the United Kingdom, homeopathic medicine has been part of the National Health Service (NHS) since it began in 1948. There are currently 5 homeopathic hospitals in the NHS. Homeopathic medicines are available over-the-counter or by prescription.

Safety of Homeopathic Medicines
Because of the very, very small doses used in homeopathic treatment, the medicines are completely safe, non-addictive and have no unwanted side effects. The curative properties of the remedies are released even in extremely high dilution‹and render the medicine completely safe for the treatment of both children and babies.

Always consult a practitioner before buying homeopathic remedies, and make sure that they are kept safe and out of the reach of all children.

Where dosing instructions have been followed, no case of toxic action has ever been reported in association with homeopathic medicines.

Receiving Homeopathic Treatment
Homeopathic treatment is practiced by fully qualified Health Practitioners who understand the philosophy of homeopathic medicine’s well as patients’ emotional and daily situations.

While some homeopathic medicines are readily available in both regular pharmacies and health stores, you MUST consult your homeopathic practitioner before attempting treatment for any serious ailment or illness.

If you are currently on medication for a serious medical or psychological condition, you should NOT stop taking your medication in order to start homeopathic treatment. Your practitioner will advise you on the best course of treatment, often working with your internist or therapist.

Hip replacement is a medical procedure in which the hip joint is replaced by a synthetic implant. It is the most successful, cheapest and safest form of joint replacement surgery. The earliest recorded attempts at hip replacement, which were carried out in Germany, used ivory to replace the femoral head.
Use of artificial hips became more widespread in the 1930s; the artificial joints were made of steel or chrome. They were considered to be better than arthritis but had a number of drawbacks. The main problem was that the articulating surfaces could not be lubricated by the body, leading to wear and loosening and hence the need to replace the joint again (known as revision operations).

Attempts to use teflon produced joints that caused osteolysis and wore out within two years. Another significant problem was infection. Before the advent of antibiotics, surgery on the joints carried a high risk of infection. Even with antibiotic treatments, infection is still a cause for some revision operations. Such infections are not necessarily caused at surgery; they can also be the result of bacteria entering the bloodstream during dental treatment.

The modern artificial joint owes much to the work of John Charnley at the Manchester Royal Infirmary; his work in the field of tribology resulted in a design that completely replaced the other designs by the 1970s. Charnley’s design consisted of 3 parts – (1) a metal (originally Stainless Steel) femoral component, (2) an Ultra high molecular weight polyethylene acetabular component, both of which were fixed to the bone using (3) special bone cement. The replacement joint, which was known as the Low Friction Arthroplasty, was lubricated with synovial fluid.

The small femoral head (22.25mm) produced wear issues which made it suitable only for sedentary patients, but - on the plus side - a huge reduction in resulting friction led to excellent clinical results. For over two decades, the Charnley Low Friction Arthroplasty design was the most used system in the world, far surpassing the other available options (like McKee and Ring).

In 1960 a Burmese orthopaedic surgeon, Dr. San Baw (29 June 1922 – 7 December 1984), pioneered the use of ivory hip prostheses to replace ununited fractures of the neck of femur (’hip bones’), when he first used an ivory prosthesis to replace the fractured hip bone of an 83 year old Burmese Buddhist nun, Daw Punya. This was done while Dr San Baw was the chief of orthopeadic surgery at Mandalay General Hospital in Manadalay, Burma. Dr San Baw used over 300 ivory hip replacements from the 1960s to 1980s.

He presented a paper entitled ‘Ivory hip replacements for ununited fractures of the neck of femur’ at the conference of the British Orthopeadic Association held in London in September 1969. An 88% success rate was discerned in that Dr San Baw’s patients ranging from the ages of 24 to 87 were able to walk, squat, ride the bicycle and play football a few weeks after their fractured hip bones were replaced with ivory prostheses. Dr San Baw’s use of ivory was, at least in Burma during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s (before the illicit ivory trade became rampant starting around the early 1990s) cheaper than metal. Moreover, due to the physical, mechanical, chemical, and biological qualities of ivory, it was found that there was a better ‘biological bonding’ of ivory with the human tissues nearby the ivory prostheses. An extract from Dr San Baw’s paper, which he presented at the British Orthopeadic Association’s Conference in 1969, is published in Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (British edition), February 1970.

In the last decade, several evolutionary improvements have been made in the total hip replacement procedure and prosthesis. Many hip implants are made of a ceramic material rather than polyethylene, which some research indicates dramatically reduces joint wear. Metal-on-metal implants are also gaining popularity. Some implants are joined without cement; the prosthesis is given a porous texture into which bone grows. This has been shown to reduce the need for revision of the acetabular component. Surgeons still frequently use bone cement for the femoral component, however, which has proven very successful after 35 years of clinical experience.

The latest developments are several competing Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) approaches, which may result in far less soft tissue damage and a quicker recovery. C.A.O.S (Computer assisted orthopedic surgery) is also being marketed heavily by the implant manufacturers, though its value remains largely unproven.. Computer assisted surgery is said to better navigate prosthetic implantation.

An alternative to total hip replacement (THR) is hip surface replacement (HSR), also referred to as hip resurfacing. With both THR and HSR, a prosthetic socket is pressed into the pelvis. With THR, the end of the femur is amputated, a metal shank is inserted into the femur, and the shank holds a ball which mates with the socket. With resurfacing, the end of the femur is not amputated; the outer surface of the femoral ball is replaced with a cylindrical metal cap. Resurfacing eliminates the common THR problem of the metal shaft loosening from the femur. Resurfacing preserves bone stock if a revision is ever needed. A larger diameter ball and socket more closely mimic the natural joint structure, reducing the risk of dislocation and improving range of motion. There has been no published clinical evidence to show that today’s CoCr metal-on-metal articulating surfaces have the osteolytic effect on bone that earlier polyethylene devices had. Ten year success rates of hip resurfacing from studies in England report success equal to or greater than standard total hip replacement, in age-matched patients. In the United States, the first modern resurfacing device received FDA approval in May 2006, while some 90,000 resurfacings have been performed world-wide.

Patients need to be aware of all surgical options before hip replacement surgery. Hip surgeons have different surgical techniques and surgical outcomes. Currently, there are several different incisions used to access your hip joint. The posterior approach (widely used by the majority of orthopedic surgeons) separates the gluteus maximus muscle in line with the muscle fibers to access the hip joint. Other methods access the hip from the lateral side of the hip joint. In contrast to the posterior approach and lateral approach, the anterior approach uses a natural interval between soft tissue to gain access to the hip joint. Its main disadvantages are that it risks damage to the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve, and it is not widely available to the public because fewer surgeons have been trained in this technique.

Anesthetics have been used for thousands of years. In fact, the first recorded use of anesthetics was actually in the ‘pre-history’ era, an era of human history predating written text.

Early Uses of Herbal Anesthetics

In the pre-history era, anesthetics were herbal in nature. Opium poppies are known to have been harvested as early as 4200 BC, and these plants were farmed first in the Sumerian Empire. The first recorded uses of anesthetics containing opium preparations was in 1500 BC, and by 1100 BC, civilizations in Cyprus and other locations were farming and harvesting the plants.

Opium poppies were introduced to India and China in 330 BC and 600 to 1200 AD, respectively. Other types of herbal anesthetics were in use in China during this era as well. In the second century, the Chinese physician Hua Tuo is known to have used an anesthetic derived from cannabis to perform abdominal surgery.

In Europe, Asia, and the Americas, several other ’solanum’ plant species were used as anesthetics, including mandrake, henbane, and several datura species. Each of these contains a potent tropane alkaloid. In the classical Greek and Roman eras, prominent figures such as Hippocrates and Pliny the Elder noted the uses of opium and solanum-containing plants. In the Americas, the leaves of the coca plant (from which cocaine is derived) were an often-used anesthetic. This was applied by Incan shamans who would chew coca leaves and then spit the leaves into wounds to administer a local anesthetic.

Herbal anesthetics of these types were widely used for several centuries; however they were not without drawbacks. One of the main problems with the use of herbal anesthetics was in administering the right dosage-too little would have no effect, and too much often killed the patient. Standardization of anesthetics was difficult, but was achieved to a certain degree prior to the nineteenth century by categorizing anesthetics according to the location in which anesthetic plants were grown.

The Discovery of Morphine

In 1804, a German pharmacist named Friedrich Wilhelm extracted morphine from the opium poppy, and named the compound ‘morphium’, for the Greek god of sleep and dreams. However, morphine was not widely used for nearly fifty years. In 1853, the hypodermic needle was developed, and thanks to this new method of administration, the use of morphine increased substantially. Morphine was then widely used as an anesthetic.

In 1874, a morphine derivative called diacetylmorphine-commonly known as heroin-was developed. Nearly twice as potent as morphine, heroin was marketed for a short time by Bayer, starting in 1898. However, it was just 16 years later in 1914 that the possession of morphine, heroin, and cocaine without a prescription was outlawed in the US due to the highly addictive nature of these substances.

Development of Inhalant Anesthetics

Oral and inhalant anesthetics were utilized historically by Muslim anesthesiologists, and the use of these preparations was well known in the Islamic Empire. Several hundred surgical operations were performed which used sponges soaked in narcotic preparations, placed over the face of the individual undergoing surgery.

In the Western world, the development of inhalant anesthetics, along with the use of sterile surgical techniques developed by Joseph Lister, was one of the main keys to performing successful surgery in the nineteenth century.

During the nineteenth century, both carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide were used in experimental surgical procedures. While the use of carbon dioxide as an anesthetic never became popular, nitrous oxide did in fact become very widely used.

The anesthetic properties of nitrous oxide were first noted by Humphry Davy, a British chemist, in a paper published in 1800. However, it was not until several decades later in the 1840s that nitrous oxide became more widely used. One of the first successful uses of the gas for painless tooth extraction was carried out by American dentist William Thomas Green Morton, in 1846.

During the same decade, an inhalant anesthetic called diethyl ether was also used for tooth extraction. Diethyl ether was originally synthesized by German physician Valerius Cordus in 1540; however it was not until the 1840s that the first public demonstration of the use of ether occurred. A decade earlier, in the 1830s, chloroform had also been developed. This became more popular in Britain, but even so the dangers of both ether and chloroform were well-noted.

Modern Anesthetics

Modern anesthetics are of two types: general and local anesthetics. Local anesthetics include substances such as lidocaine and procaine. These work by preventing transmission of nerve impulses in the area where the anesthetic is administered. General anesthetics, on the other hand, are more similar in nature to nitrous oxide in their method of delivery, and in fact this inhalant anesthetic is still in use. Inhalation anesthetics are usually fluorochemicals (isoflurane, sevoflurane and desflurane) that have much lower flammability than diethyl ether, thus they are much safer to use in the operating room.