Modern Medicine can keep you alive
Machines, medications and man-made parts: modern medicine continues to find and develop life-saving and life-prolonging interventions.
Advancements in heart research include:
- Bypass surgery
- Man-made implantable cardiac devices like pacemakers
When organs fail, there’s dialysis for kidney failure, and transplants for kidney, lung, liver and heart. Cancer continues to be researched, and survival rates and life expectancy has greatly increased. For neurological (brain) illness and injury, medications and interventions are emerging, and rehab helps with increased function. Even infections – which were regularly the cause of death in past generations – are now treated with antibiotics.
However, as the body winds down, so-called ‘Heroic Measures’ may do more harm than intended. CPR (Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation) Breathing Machines (ventilators), Feeding tubes and specific medications can be considered Heroic Measures or seem more like Futile Treatment. When making decisions about any of these, it can help to understand the longer-term results and possible complications.
Music Therapy: Unlocking the soul
Music has charms they say.. (Joe Jackson: ‘Slow Song’) Amy Clements-Cortes For Amy Clements-Cortes, PhD, MusM, MTA, the charm of music is its ability to accomplish a multitude of health and wellness goals. One of Amy’s areas of specialty is end of life music therapy...
Dr Michael Gordon: geriatrician and humanist
Dr Michael Gordon on playing music together, information vs knowledge and sex. Dr Michael Gordon, Geriatrician (amongst other things) What a wonderful wide-ranging conversation with Dr. Michael Gordon, Geriatrician, Writer, and Ethicist. Not necessarily in that order....
The ABC’s of AED (Automated External Defibrillator)
An Automated External Defibrillator (AED) is not an Implantable Cardiac Device (ICD) You may have seen them in sports clubs, bars and public transit locations. Unlike an ICD (implantable cardioverter defibrillator), which have been known to keep a person alive even as...
Passion and healthcare, Passion in healthcare
Long Term Care and Retirement Communities Conference Two of the themes of Together We Care, the conference on the future of Long Term Care and Retirement Communities: Passion in health, and passion for health. Keynote, Paul Alofs is the CEO of one of the top 5 Cancer...