Measles in Disneyland

In most recent news, the measles have been spreading through America. This is a highly contagious virus and vaccination in children have always been greatly recommended. Some people are saying this is becoming an outbreak because over 50 cases have been reported since December 2014. I personally think that this might be due to the lack of parents vaccinating their children. Anti-vaccine has been going on for the past two years and other officials are “blaming” those parents for spreading the measles.  Since this virus has been linked to Disneyland in California, public health officials are saying that children under 12 and those who haven’t been vaccinated to stay away from the park.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/21/health/disneyland-measles/

Laughter is the Best Medicine

For the most part I am a happy and optimistic person. I can easily laugh with my friends at a funny joke or a funny video. Laughter is also becoming a turning point with those who have Alzheimer’s or Dementia. Laughing decreases the stress levels in the body and releases endorphins that aid in memory loss prevention. A study was done where elderly individuals who had diabetes and another who were healthy watched a 20 minute humorous video. “The groups that watched the funny video also showed greater improvement in memory recall, learning ability and sight recognition, compared with those who did not watch the video. The diabetic group demonstrated the greatest improvement in both cortisol levels and memory test scores.” So after all, laughter is the best medicine. I am still exploring my options of what I can do in my health major. Having the opportunity to work with patients who have memory troubles by getting them to laugh would be a very rewarding experience.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/276042.php

Mental Health and Social Media

In most recent years, social media has had a mixed relationship with mental health and wellbeing. In an article written for medicalnewstoday.com, it takes a look on how social media affecting us. It says that there are 1.2 billion users who use a social network each month. Social media addiction is becoming more and more a real addiction. The article says “recent statistics show that 63% of American Facebook users log on to the site daily, while 40% of users log on multiple times a day.” Facebook addiction has been closely related to someone who has a drug addiction. I personally think that is crazy how if a person has to look at Facebook at least once a day for that reward to the brain, otherwise they go through withdrawals. Being on social media also affects our emotions. We could be scrolling through our news feeds and experience sadness, happiness, anger, and jealous within five minutes. This article also suggest an idea that I never thought of. Social media can actually improve mental health. “In fact, the researchers believe that this viral spread of happiness is so strong that if magnified, it could trigger an ‘epidemic of well-being.’” Those who have strong social anxiety can use social media to connect with people and still feel social behind a screen.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/275361.php

How Religion Plays a Role in Funerals

When thinking about religion and dying, those can be very similar or very different. Each religion has their own view about what you should do with a body after it dies. I looked at an article from a very conservative Christian writer called “To Bury or To Burn”. The writer asks three questions on how you should develop your own religious thought about cremation or burial. The first question is “what moral norm(s) apply in this situation”? This says that in the commandments it says not to steal and respect material goods. The article says that this applies to caring for yourself at all and cremation is not necessarily the most moral one. My response is that if it is the most feasible option for the family then that may be best. The second question is “which method best demonstrates love of God and love of neighbor”? In this question the author says that your body is in the image of God and when you are cremation a body you are basically cremating God. Once we die our spirit is no longer in our body, but our body should still be respected. The final question is “which method would bring the most glory to God”? It says that biblically speaking burials bring the most glory to God. Recently there has been a shift to cremation because of it being a cheaper option. For me personally, I think that when planning a funeral religion does play a huge part in it. Your choices are influenced by the questions asked previously and also how the ceremony will take place.

http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/to-bury-or-to-burn-cremation-in-christian-perspective

The Change in How Your Health Will Be Cared For

The quality of healthcare has been changing a lot over the past few years. When I was in high school I worked for a nursing home in the kitchen. There were a lot of workers there who genuinely cared about the service that the residents were receiving. Then on the other hand there were staff members who worked there that you could tell they were there for a paycheck. I read an article written by two Harvard students (Michael E. Porter and Thomas H. Lee) called “The Strategy That Will Fix Health Care”. They had six suggestions that would improve health care, and I believe it would help the structure of nursing homes. The first one was “organize into integrated practice units (IPUs)”, which is a team that will provide full care for the patient’s condition. IPUs would also engage family members in counseling, education and support. The second was to “measure the outcome and cost for every patient”. This strategy is how it sounds. They are going to compare the outcome the patient got with the cost they had paid. This is to see if the care they are receiving is worth what they are paying. The third is “move to bundled payments for care cycles”. This means that the full care cycle will be covered in one bundled. You won’t be paid for each separate visit to the doctor, or for a single MRI. You will be paid for the whole care at the end. The fourth strategy is “integrate care delivery systems”. This means that there will be more options available at different places that you could receive care. The article gave an example of a patient who had back pain. With this strategy, the patient will be able to receive care closer to their home. The fifth strategy was “expand geographic reach”. This is similar to strategy four. There are two models that could be followed. There is the more common hub-and-spoke model and the second is clinical affiliation. Both systems use ways to provide high quality care to people who wouldn’t receive it, such as those who live in underdeveloped parts of the city. The last strategy these two students provided was “build an enabling information technology platform”. This is probably the most important strategy. Building this platform will allow all those who are involved with the patient’s care to have access to it. Another advantage to this is that it will have the capability to have terminology related to the patients treatment so all the other doctors involved are on the same page. I really agree with this system that they have created here. I feel as if it is more practical and up-to-date with our busy and technological lives.

 

https://hbr.org/2013/10/the-strategy-that-will-fix-health-care/

For Profit or Not For Profit

When exploring my options of what to do with my health major, I have considered working with a non-profit organization. I want to work in patient registration or be a tech. My choosing to work for a non-profit is that my organization is doing this care without funding from the state and it is often considered a charity. I want to work where I am giving excellent patient care and not worry about the money. A study has been done recently that shows the comparison of patient care between non-profit and for profit hospitals. Published in an article called “When Nonprofit Hospitals Become For-Profit, Patients Fare No Worse” written by Alan Neuhauser, it talks about how there is not a difference is care. I found it to be a little disturbing that privately owned for-profit hospitals wouldn’t use their money to develop into more resources for their care.  In their study they found 237 non-profit hospitals had become for-profit to have more financial support. The care in these hospitals did improve because they had the means to do so. They had the work ethic and the value of a non-profit, but the money and support from investors.

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/hospital-of-tomorrow/articles/2014/10/21/when-nonprofit-hospitals-become-for-profit-patients-fare-no-worse

The Business of Dying

For a long time I have been interested in going into the funeral business. I have the personality of wanting to help people who are in a vulnerable state. As I continue with my schooling to reach that goal, the business is changing. I read an article called “The Death of the Funeral Business” by Sandy Hingston where it highlights how this is changing. Cremation is becoming more and more popular rather than burying your loved one in the ground. We do cremation because it is easier and cheaper to spread someone’s ashes than to buy an expensive casket and a burial plot. Because cremation is becoming popular, the funeral services are changing as well. Slide shows and photo montages of the person's birth to death are being displayed in various ways. How will the lack of burials change the future? In the article I read, Hingston makes the observation about how anthropologist use burials to identify people from different time eras. For example, anthropologist can examine a plot and gather possible information on how that person lived, ate, and religious affiliations. If we continue to cremate people, how will anthropologist years from now learn on how we were as a society? I personally think we should continue to keep with the tradition of having a formal funeral service. There is something about seeing your loved one in the casket and then seeing that casket being lowered into the ground that brings closure. I think that it sometimes more morbid when you cremate someone. You burned that person into ashes to just sit in a vase on the fireplace mantel.

http://www.phillymag.com/articles/death-funeral-business/?all=1