An emerging link between the urinary microbiome and urinary incontinence
Most people know that microorganisms live on our skin, and in other places in the body such as the digestive tract. However, traditional thinking and medical teaching was that there was no such microbiome in the urinary tract. Many people may still believe that urine is sterile.
Advanced detection methods such as enhanced urine cultures and DNA sequencing have shown that this is not true. These newer technologies have enabled identification of low levels of microorganisms that were not previously detected using conventional methods. This has revolutionized how we think about the urinary tract when it is both healthy and un...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - August 12, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Jeannine Miranne, MD, MS Tags: Incontinence Kidney and urinary tract Women's Health Source Type: blogs
Fidget Spinner for Rapid Detection of Urinary Tract Infections
More than half of all women experience at least one episode of urinary tract infection (UTI) in their lifetime, with men also facing increasing risks of infection as they age. Current detection of UTIs rely on patients reporting symptoms followed by a lab culture of the urine for known bacterial culprits, which typically takes a few days. However, doctors tend to prescribe antibiotics to suppress any suspect cases of UTI before they get the test results, contributing to the increasing problem of antibiotic resistance. Dipstick tests that reduce the time taken for diagnoses come with a high chance for false positives.
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Source: Medgadget - May 26, 2020 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Rukmani Sridharan Tags: Diagnostics Medicine Urology Source Type: blogs
Weezy
I have a dog.
She is a very sweet creature. And she is terminally ill. She has been with my wife and me for almost 6 years. We rescued her when she was not quite 2 years of age. She’d been a street dog in the Atlanta, Georgia area, she’s had puppies, and she’d been shot. But she found a home with us.
When she was healthy she was a loving, happy, mischievous girl. She seemed to know whenever I was having a bad day because she would always snuggle with me without ever having to ask or be invited. And she was always welcome to do that. And she could eat. She loved her food. Ours too. She loved beef jerky, cheesebu...
Source: Qui Interrogat - May 21, 2020 Category: Nursing Authors: Walt Trachim Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
WalkWise Walker Attachment Helps Seniors Stay Safe and Mobile
Falls have serious consequences for seniors, especially those who live alone. Medical alert devices can notify emergency services, but they are not always worn. In addition, they do not address fall prevention by encouraging active lifestyles and physical strengthening. WalkWise hopes to fill these gaps.
The Fargo, ND-based company offers a smart device that can be attached to the wheels of most walkers. The device can alert family members to falls and it collects walker activity data. These insights could help families address inactivity and physical deconditioning proactively.
We asked Peter Chamberlain, WalkWise F...
Source: Medgadget - May 19, 2020 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Cici Zhou Tags: Exclusive Geriatrics Rehab Telemedicine Source Type: blogs
Soft Actuator and Sensor for Underactive Bladder Treatment
Researchers at the National University of Singapore have developed a soft sensor and actuator to monitor bladder volume and help empty it on-demand. The device is intended to be implanted on the bladder surface during a surgical procedure to treat patients who cannot completely empty their bladders voluntarily.
Patients can suffer from an underactive bladder following a spinal cord injury, meaning that they cannot easily sense when the bladder is full, or completely empty it. Approximately 80% of patients who suffer a spinal cord injury will demonstrate some bladder dysfunction. Not only is this inconvenient and upsetti...
Source: Medgadget - May 6, 2020 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Neurology Rehab Surgery Source Type: blogs
Treating COVID-19 in a patient with multiple myeloma
Some readers have recently been asking me about curcumin and Covid-19. Is it good or bad to be taking it if you contract coronavirus? Can it reduce your risk of contracting Covid-19? (See my post on vitamina D, incidentally.) I don’t know.
If I had any answers, believe me, I’d be publishing them…immediately.
Well, it just so happens that this afternoon I read a very interesting Science Daily article that may shed some light on this matter. It discusses the case study of ONE myeloma patient, in Wuhan, who was given an immunosuppressant drug, a monoclonal antibody, called tocilizumab. Here’s the lin...
Source: Margaret's Corner - April 4, 2020 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Margaret Tags: Blogroll curcumin myeloma tocilizumab Source Type: blogs
Slowing Down: When You Need Time to Focus on Your Own Health
When most people think about E coli, the first thing that comes to mind likely is eating tainted food or as a result of improper handwashing. What came as a surprise to me was that it can also show up as a UTI (Urinary Tract Infection) caused by kidney stones that back up in the urethra, which prohibits the flow of urine. It is more than an academic exercise that had me researching this all too common condition in men and women. As I am writing, I am less than 24 hours post-surgery to remove these pesky critters that have been backing up the works since 2014. It was my fourth go around that culminated in a cystoscopy, whi...
Source: World of Psychology - March 8, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Edie Weinstein, MSW, LSW Tags: Health-related Personal caregiving Source Type: blogs
New study compares long-term side effects from different prostate cancer treatments
Prostate cancer therapies are improving over time. But how do the long-term side effects from the various options available today compare? Results from a newly published study are providing some valuable insights.
Investigators at Vanderbilt University and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center spent five years tracking the sexual, bowel, urinary, and hormonal status of nearly 2,000 men after they had been treated for prostate cancer, or monitored with active surveillance (which entails checking the tumor periodically and treating it only if it begins to grow). Cancers in all the men were still confined to the p...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - February 27, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Charlie Schmidt Tags: Health Prostate Knowledge Treatments HPK Source Type: blogs
Smartphone Camera Test for Urinary Tract Infections
Researchers at the University of Bath have developed a simple point-of-care test for urinary tract infections that uses a smartphone camera. The system can rapidly detect the presence of E. coli in urine samples and could guide doctors in their decision to prescribe antibiotics, ensuring appropriate patient care and avoiding the overuse of antimicrobial medication.
It can sometimes be difficult for clinicians to know whether to prescribe antibiotics. Unnecessary use of antibiotics is resulting in antimicrobial resistance, which will pose significant challenges to healthcare in the coming years. However, if a patient ha...
Source: Medgadget - January 9, 2020 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Diagnostics Medicine Urology Source Type: blogs
Switching to Outpatient Surgery for Everyone ’s Benefit
By AMY KRAMBECK, MD
The
trend toward less invasive procedures, shifting from inpatient to outpatient, has
changed the face of surgery. Industry-changing leaps in technology and surgical
techniques have allowed us to achieve our treatment goals with smaller
incisions, laparoscopy and other “closed” procedures, less bleeding, less pain,
and lower complication rates. As a result, patients who used to require days of
recovery in the hospital for many common surgeries can now recuperate in their
own homes.
Outpatient
procedures grew from about 50% to 67% of hospitals’
total surgeries between 1994 and 2016,1,2 and o...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 19, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Medical Practice Physicians Amy Krambeck benign prostatic hyperplasia outpatient surgery Source Type: blogs
Should I Circumcise My Baby?
Whether or not to circumcise your baby is a personal decision often determined by a variety of social, cultural, medical, or religious circumstances. Parents have the right to choose what they believe is best for their newborn and typically undergo extensive research before deciding what’s best for their family.
So, what is the process of circumcision? Once parents decide to move forward, about an hour before the procedure, doctors use an anesthetic to numb the baby’s penis. The area is then sterilized and the excess skin on the penis is clamped and cut. Finally, the physician covers the penis in bandages or gauze to e...
Source: Cord Blood News - October 22, 2019 Category: Perinatology & Neonatology Authors: Maze Cord Blood Tags: babies pregnancy Source Type: blogs
Antibiotic-resistant urinary tract infections are on the rise
There is a global crisis of antibiotic resistance, and urinary tract infections (UTIs) may be the canary in the coal mine. UTIs are one of the most common types of infections; at least one in two women and one in 10 men will experience a UTI in their lifetime.
Like many human infections, UTIs are usually caused by bacteria living on or in our bodies, and require treatment with antibiotics. What’s alarming the medical community now is that UTIs are becoming ever harder to treat with common antibiotics.
Antibiotic overuse leads to antibiotic resistance
At some point, most people have taken a course of trimethoprim/sulfamet...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - October 14, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Lisa Bebell, MD Tags: Drugs and Supplements Health Infectious diseases Kidney and urinary tract Women's Health Source Type: blogs
Prepubertal Dysuria Not as Simple as a UTI
Prepubertal boys who present to the emergency department with dysuria are uncommon. The adult with burning on urination is assumed to have a sexually transmitted disease, but of course that diagnosis should not be high on your list for boys.In fact, infectious urethritis in children is quite uncommon unless there is premature sexual activity or sexual abuse by an adult. Unfortunately, a variety of noninfectious urethral pathologies may mimic infectious urethritis in children. A urinary tract infection in a prepubertal boy is an infectious cause of dysuria. Those infections, however, rarely present with the isolated symp...
Source: M2E Too! Mellick's Multimedia EduBlog - September 3, 2019 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs
Smart Diaper Detects Urinary Tract Infections
Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are dangerous for infants and the elderly. While the onset of UTIs generally involves pain and other symptoms, young children are not able to describe how they’re feeling, while the elderly may suffer from neurodegenerative conditions that reduce sensation in the affected area. Moreover, it’s difficult to obtain a sample for testing from those that wear diapers. Now, engineers at Purdue University have developed a sensor-embedded diaper that can accurately point to the presence of a bacterial infection in the urinary tract.
The sensor, placed within a commercial diaper, detec...
Source: Medgadget - June 25, 2019 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Medgadget Editors Tags: Diagnostics Urology Source Type: blogs
