scholarly journals Monitoring patients on lithium – a good practice guideline

2002 ◽  
Vol 26 (9) ◽  
pp. 348-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joy Nicholson ◽  
Brian Fitzmaurice

Aims and MethodTo develop a guideline that would encourage a systematic approach for both psychiatrists and general practitioners in the provision of safe, effective and consistent management of patients who are prescribed lithium. A multi-disciplinary working group developed the guideline following literature review and consultation with lithium clinics and specialist centres nationally.ResultsThe Lothian lithium guidelines include three sections: (a) a lithium treatment plan; (b) advice for clinicians on managing lithium levels; and (c) pointers for counselling patients on lithium. The treatment plan is a key document in the guidelines which, once completed, ensures continuity of care with the transfer of patient-specific information.Clinical ImplicationsThis development has provided the opportunity for primary and secondary care services to work together in producing a guideline that will improve patient care and minimises risk.

Arthroplasty ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Glen Purnomo ◽  
Seng-Jin Yeo ◽  
Ming Han Lincoln Liow

AbstractArtificial intelligence (AI) is altering the world of medicine. Given the rapid advances in technology, computers are now able to learn and improve, imitating humanoid cognitive function. AI applications currently exist in various medical specialties, some of which are already in clinical use. This review presents the potential uses and limitations of AI in arthroplasty to provide a better understanding of the existing technology and future direction of this field.Recent literature demonstrates that the utilization of AI in the field of arthroplasty has the potential to improve patient care through better diagnosis, screening, planning, monitoring, and prediction. The implementation of AI technology will enable arthroplasty surgeons to provide patient-specific management in clinical decision making, preoperative health optimization, resource allocation, decision support, and early intervention. While this technology presents a variety of exciting opportunities, it also has several limitations and challenges that need to be overcome to ensure its safety and effectiveness.


Author(s):  
Michael M. Miller

The language employed in managing coexisting pain and addiction affects the management itself. Clinicians working with such patients may not realize that the two disorders share a terminology that can be confusing, imprecise, overlapping and/or stigmatizing. This chapter has two components:1. A description of Pain Medicine as a specialized area of practice, research, and education, whose leaders try to clarify concepts and terminology to improve patient care, professional standards, and public policy.2. The language of Addiction Medicine; arguably, even more complex than that of pain medicine because of the emotions, stigma, and discrimination attached to substance use disorders labels.All physicians’ concern must be that the patient adheres to the treatment plan by using prescription medications in only safe and healthy ways. This requires counseling, and monitoring treatment adherence and the safety of prescriptions, even in the absence of a diagnosable substance use disorder.


2015 ◽  
Vol 137 (09) ◽  
pp. S3-S6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nabil Simaan ◽  
Rusell H. Taylor ◽  
Howie Choset

This article discusses various challenges and puts forth the concepts of intelligent surgical robots and complementary situational awareness (CSA) as a means for achieving new surgical systems with unprecedented capabilities in terms of safety, ease of operation, and exact execution of pre-operative surgical plans. Situational awareness is defined in accordance with by the three stages of sensory acquisition, sensory comprehension, and projection. A robotic system with CSA assists the user not only in manipulation, but also in forming the situational awareness regarding the task at hand by using perception resources beyond the capabilities of the user. In the future, it is expected that CSA systems will increasingly be embedded within a larger framework of Computer-Integrated Interventional Medicine, in which patient-specific information such as images, lab results, and genomics are combined with general knowledge to model and diagnose the patients’ condition and to develop an optimized treatment plan.


1998 ◽  
Vol 37 (02) ◽  
pp. 171-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Glassman ◽  
B. K. Rimer

AbstractIn more and more medical settings, physicians have less and less time to be effective communicators. To be effective, they need accurate, current information about their patients. Tailored health communications can facilitate positive patient-provider communications and foster behavioral changes conducive to health. Tailored communications (TCs) are produced for an individual based on information about that person. The focus of this report is on tailored print communications (TPCs). TPCs also enhance the process of evaluation, because they require a database and the collection of patient-specific information. We present a Tailoring Model for Primary Care that describes the steps involved in creating TPCs. We also provide examples from three ongoing studies in which TPCs are being used in order to illustrate the kinds of variables used for tailoring the products that are developed and how evaluation is conducted. TPCs offer opportunities to expand the reach of health professionals and to give personalized, individualized massages in an era of shrinking professional contact time.


2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 96-98
Author(s):  
Brian A Bruckner ◽  
Matthias Loebe

Patients undergoing re-operative cardiac surgical procedures present a great challenge with regard to obtaining hemostasis in the surgical field. Adhesions are ever-present and these patients are often on oral anti-coagulants and platelet inhibitors. As part of a well-planned surgical intervention, a systematic approach to hemostasis should be employed to decrease blood transfusion requirement and improve patient outcomes. Topical hemostatic agents can be a great help to the surgeon in achieving surgical field hemostasis and are increasingly being employed. Our approach, to these difficult patients, includes the systematic and planned use of AristaAH, which is a novel hemostatic agent whose use has proven safe and efficacious in our patient population.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 208-222
Author(s):  
Miglena Smerikarova ◽  
Stanislav Bozhanov ◽  
Vania Maslarska

Background: Sartans are mostly used as a part of combination with additional medicines in the therapy of essencial hypertension. Preferred combinations are ARB and thiazide diuretics (Hydrochlorothiazide (HCT) and Chlorthalidone (CHL)) or ARB and calcium antagonists. The number of sartans mostly prescribed by specialists is only seven - Candesartan (CDS), Eprosartan (EPS), Irbesartan (IBS), Losartan (LOS), Olmesartan (OMS), Telmisartan (TMS) and Valsartan (VLS). Methods: The widespread use of sartans in the treatment of hypertension requires reliable methods of analysis. Bulk drugs and pharmaceutical preparations should be analyzed to ensure the quality of the medicinal products reaching patients. On the other hand, the analysis of drugs in biological fluids aims to trace and improve patient care by adjusting the therapeutic doses of drugs. According to our knowledge, a review devoted to the analysis of sartans was published in 2014. Results: Spectral methods are widely used in the analysis of bulk drugs and pharmaceutical dosage forms due to their relatively simple procedures, low reagent and sample consumption, speed, precision and accuracy combined with accessibility and comparatively low cost of common apparatus. Many papers for determination of sartans in bulk drugs and pharmaceutical preparations based on liquid chromatographic techniques were published in the available literature. Among these methods, HPLC takes the leading place but UPLC and HPTLC are also present. Conclusion: The widespread use of sartans in the treatment of hypertension requires reliable methods of analysis. Bulk drugs and pharmaceutical preparations should be analyzed to ensure the quality of the medicinal products reaching patients. On the other hand, the analysis of drugs in biological fluids aims to trace and improve patient care by adjusting the therapeutic doses of drugs. Since 2014, many articles have been published on the sartans analysis and this provoked our interest to summarize the latest applications in the analysis of sartans in pharmaceutical formulations and biological media. Articles published from 2014 to 2018 are covered.


Author(s):  
Roman David Bülow ◽  
Daniel Dimitrov ◽  
Peter Boor ◽  
Julio Saez-Rodriguez

AbstractIgA nephropathy (IgAN) is the most common glomerulonephritis. It is characterized by the deposition of immune complexes containing immunoglobulin A (IgA) in the kidney’s glomeruli, triggering an inflammatory process. In many patients, the disease has a progressive course, eventually leading to end-stage kidney disease. The current understanding of IgAN’s pathophysiology is incomplete, with the involvement of several potential players, including the mucosal immune system, the complement system, and the microbiome. Dissecting this complex pathophysiology requires an integrated analysis across molecular, cellular, and organ scales. Such data can be obtained by employing emerging technologies, including single-cell sequencing, next-generation sequencing, proteomics, and complex imaging approaches. These techniques generate complex “big data,” requiring advanced computational methods for their analyses and interpretation. Here, we introduce such methods, focusing on the broad areas of bioinformatics and artificial intelligence and discuss how they can advance our understanding of IgAN and ultimately improve patient care. The close integration of advanced experimental and computational technologies with medical and clinical expertise is essential to improve our understanding of human diseases. We argue that IgAN is a paradigmatic disease to demonstrate the value of such a multidisciplinary approach.


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