Posts Tagged "medicine"


For most of us, the arrival of spring is a welcome sight and can be an invigorating season. However, for spring allergy sufferers, the season can leave many feeling like they’re walking around in a haze. While some, who suffer from seasonal allergies, may have mild symptoms that are a slight inconvenience, some people have symptoms so severe that it affects and interrupts daily routines. Regardless of the severity of your symptoms, there are ways to control your springtime allergies and hopefully help you get the most out of the season of renewal:

Pay Attention to the Weather

 

The springtime weather is ideal for most everyone, but allergy sufferers. Although allergies can strike at anytime, it’s important to pay attention to the weather outside in order to control your symptoms. It’s important to know that tree, grass, and ragweed pollens are abundant during warm days and cool nights and pollen levels often peak in the morning hours. Although rain can wash pollen away from surfaces in your yard (such as the sidewalks or your car), pollen can also worsen after a rainfall. When the weather is windy, you are more likely to be affected by the pollen rather than days without wind. If you are are sensitive to mold, you are more likely to struggle with your mold allergy when the weather is hot and humid.

Avoid Your Triggers

 

In addition to paying attention to the weather and limiting your exposure to the outdoors when allergen counts are high, you should take proper precautions to managing and avoiding your triggers. If you had a food allergy, you would go out of your way to avoid eating anything with the allergen; springtime allergies should be treated no differently. Although may not be able to easily control going outside, you can do other things to limit your exposure and avoid your allergen triggers. When allergen counts are high, consider keeping the windows and doors shut at home or in your car, take a shower and change your clothing after spending time outside, avoid hanging laundry outside, skip wearing contact lenses, and wear a filter mask if you need to take care of outside work (ie. yard maintenance).

 

In addition to taking necessary precautions outside, it’s important to keep your the indoors free from allergen triggers by limiting the amount of mold and pollen throughout your home. Immediately wash any clothing covered in allergens, use a vacuum with a high quality filter, use a dehumidifier, and use an air conditioner when possible.

Manage Your Allergy Symptoms

 

If your allergy symptoms continue despite your efforts to limit your exposure to certain triggers, medications may be your best option. Whether you take a nonprescription oral antihistamine or decongestant or are prescribed a medication by your doctor, it’s important that you are aware of what you’re taking, how they may affect you, and keep your medicine cabinet up to date and organized. If you are an annual allergy sufferer, you may want to get ready for allergy season before it hits by stocking up on allergy medication and making proper preparations throughout your home.

 

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For patients who are unable to gain easy access to health care facilities, or health care centers that are unable to send samples to labs for tests, the possibility of drone technology being applied to medical care poses itself as a very welcome development. Drones have the capacity to change the face of medical care significantly. With the recent review of drone legislation in the US, the stage is set for drone technology to become a mainstream tool of transport worldwide. The question now is, how will drone transport of medical related products and packages affect medical care?

Faster Delivery

The average drone can fly at a speed of 35-40mph, which is much faster than a bicycle and has the added advantage of being able to go as the crow flies. The drone is not encumbered by traffic or road signs, and can be estimated realistically per delivery time or ETA. Using drones in medical care for the delivery of medicines, vaccines, and samples for tests would ensure the packages are delivered fast and without any delays. Necessary drugs can get to ailing patients fast enough to save lives.

Unhindered Access, Anywhere

In many parts of the world, such as Africa, access to proper medical care is hampered by many conditions related to infrastructure. Timothy Amukele, a pathologist with John Hopkins University who has worked with health care centers and hospitals in Uganda and other parts of Africa, talks about how poor access to proper health care – including diagnosis and lab tests, is a major cause of suffering and death of patients in rural areas. Medical personnel present in such disadvantaged areas are often limited in their capabilities by these conditions. Drones can get into almost any location, rural or otherwise, requiring only a small patch of open ground for landing and lifting off.

Lowered Cost of Medical Care

According to research cited by Timothy Amukele, getting medical supplies and samples to and from rural areas is very expensive. This in turn results in high cost of medicines and medical care. With the reduction in costs from using drones, it is much cheaper to transport the supplies, and care for the patients. This would go a long way to developing a healthier society, especially in third world countries.

Concerns

A major constraint of using drones in medical supply is related to the takeoff and landing procedure which may jar the supplies or samples within the package and denature or spoil them. The solution to this is a likely modification of the hardware, and this will not be too far off into the future. Legislation to allow commercial drone flights within residential areas is underway, with the success of the drone delivery in Virginia earlier this year, where packages weighing 4.5kg were transported in 3 minutes over a distance of about 1.5 miles. The evidence is clear that unmanned transport of medical supplies would revolutionize medical care and provide better conditions for millions of people.

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