By Chloe Bennett, B.Sc.Reviewed by Dr. Mary Cooke, Ph.D. The properties of the blood and the ease of its retrieval make it a useful source for doctors to analyze to measure specific features of homeostasis within patients. This allows for accurate diagnosis and treatment options to be prescribed. How do Blood Tests Work? Taking blood samples from patients is typically used...
Tag: <span>diagnosis</span>
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Student correctly guesses mystery disease on Netflix series ‘Diagnosis’
by Virginia Commonwealth University Lilian Fung was taking a break from studying when she came across a column in The New York Times Magazine called “Diagnosis” that described hard-to-solve medical mysteries. The column, written by Lisa Sanders, M.D., tells a patient’s story and crowdsources diagnoses from readers. Fung, a third-year medical student in the Virginia Commonwealth University...
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Why Can’t We Stop Pancreatic Cancer?
There is little a person can do to prevent it, and there is nothing comparable to mammography or colonoscopy to screen for it when it is most amenable to cure. Pancreatic cancer, which will be diagnosed in about 56,770 people in the United States this year, is the only cancer with a rising mortality rate...
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Evaluating blood flow is key to early diagnosis and treatment for people with critical limb ischemia
by American Heart Association Non-invasive techniques and devices for assessing blood flow and other diagnostic considerations for people with critical limb ischemia are addressed in a new scientific statement from the American Heart Association, published in the Association’s flagship journal Circulation. The statement provides perspective on the strengths and limitations of current imaging techniques, including...
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#HelloMyNameIs: A simple act to improve patients’ experiences of care
by Maisam Najafizada, Arifur Rahman And Katie Oxford, The Conversation In 2011, Dr. Kate Granger, a British geriatrician was diagnosed with cancer and her subsequent hospital stays and visits began. As a care provider, she noticed something simple, yet significant, that was often missed by the hospital staff. When staff showed up with updates on...
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CAVA Device Spots Nystagmus to Diagnose Dizziness
Dizziness is a common condition but its underlying causes can be very difficult to diagnose. It is usually unpredictable and doesn’t last very long, so by the time a patient presents to the physician everything checks out as normal. Detecting nystagmus (uncontrolled eye movements) is a pretty reliable way of diagnosing peripheral vestibular disorders, but the randomness and rarity...
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List of tests for diabetes
By Rachel Nall, MSN, CRNA Reviewed by Deborah Weatherspoon, PhD, RN, CRNA It can take time for the symptoms of diabetes to appear. However, a doctor may be able to detect the condition in its earlier stages by performing various medical tests. These tests can detect different forms of diabetes, including type 1, type 2, and gestational diabetes. In...
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Is this scab infected? Diagnosis and treatment
By Rachel Nall, MSN, CRNA Reviewed by Owen Kramer, MD The body creates scabs to protect wounds from bacteria. If bacteria do get in, the wound can become infected. This may cause a crusty, yellow scab to develop. A scab is a collection of material, such as blood and skin cells, that forms a protective layer over damaged...
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Gravity of dialysis treatment appears to elude many patients
New research suggests that people who undergo dialysis treatment for end-stage kidney disease tend to be overly optimistic about their life expectancy, relative to national mortality data for that patient population. This optimism might limit the benefit of planning for a late-stage illness and fuel the aggressive end-of-life care that these patients often receive, the authors said. JAMA Internal Medicine...
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Less than 40 percent of all U.S. adults have ever had HIV testing
Marc A. Pitasi, M.P.H., from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in Atlanta, and colleagues analyzed data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System to determine the percentage of adults tested for HIV in the United States nationwide, including 50 local jurisdictions where the majority of new diagnoses of HIV infection were concentrated in 2016 and 2017 and seven...