Healthy Eating Tip #5 – Fruits & Veggies

“Vegetables and fruits are essential ingredients in almost every cuisine. If you let them play starring roles in your diet, they will reward you with many benefits besides great taste, terrific textures, and welcome variety. A diet rich in fruits and vegetables will lower your blood pressure, decrease your chances of having a heart attack or stroke, help protect you against a variety of cancers, guard against constipation and other gastrointestinal problems, and limit your chances of developing age-related problems like cataracts and macular degeneration, the most common causes of vision loss among people over age sixty-five. I’ve plucked potatoes out of the vegetable category and put them in the “Use Sparingly” category because of the dramatic effects on levels of blood sugar and insulin.”

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Best Sphygmomanometers for Nurses

As a nurse, there are two diagnostic devices that play a very important role in your job and you must know how to use them. The sphygmomanometer, also commonly known as the blood pressure cuff and the stethoscope are two extremely vital tools for you as a nursing student, new nurse or a seasoned nurse. Both these tools allow you to check the vitals of your patients and diagnose their condition.  You’ve settled on a stethoscope brand, now lets look at sphygmomanometers.

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Self-sealing syringe prevents blood loss in hemophilic mice

(Phys.org)—For people whose blood does not clot appropriately, such as those with hemophilia, diabetes, or cancer, getting an injection or blood draw with a hypodermic needle is not a trivial matter. Because the needle punctures the patient, this can result in continuous bleeding and risk of blood-borne infection. While researchers have looked at alternative methods, syringe injections are still the best method for rapid drug delivery. One solution could be a self-sealing syringe.

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THE FACTS ABOUT HAND WASHING AND HAND HYGIENE

In 1847, a Hungarian obstetrician by the name of Ignaz P. Semmelweiss showed that hand washing greatly reduced infections in newborns. Dr. Semmelweiss attempted to promote hand washing and cleanliness among his colleagues, who were so offended that they committed him to an insane asylum.

That was 150 years ago and times have changed. Semmelweiss’s claims have been proven true many times over, and it is now a well-known fact that indeed, hand washing greatly reduces the spread of disease. The importance of hand washing is preached to school children everywhere and 95% of people claim to practice proper hand hygiene.

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What You Can Do: Sterile Water for Injection Shortages

Backorders and shortages of sterile water for injections continue to plague every hospital’s staff, and likely will for the foreseeable future. In fact, the shortages have become so severe this winter that the American Society of Health System Pharmacists (ASHP), in conjunction with the University of Utah, published a series of best practices for how to handle this lack of availability.

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