Category Archives: Baby Boomer

How to be Participatory in the Face of Adversity

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From the lens of a patient who recently experienced major surgery, I now realize how difficult it is to be participatory when you are in pain and taking large doses of pain medication which dulls the senses and puts you in a place where you are not really thinking about anything but how to get through the next couple of days.

I consider myself to be an empowered patient who fully participates in my health care, questions my clinicians, and evaluates the risk/benefit of treatment plans presented by my clinicians.

I use the health data my clinician offers, including the reports and notes that are in my electronic health record, and confer with people who have had some experience with the same or similar conditions. I always go one step further and search the web for relevant information that applies to my particular health concerns. I provide feedback to my doctors and never hesitate to speak up and ask questions. I tap the wisdom and advice of my peers and encourage my providers to be participatory.

How to be Participatory in the Face of Adversity | e-Patients.net

Having a Hip Replacement | Psychology Today

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Having a Hip Replacement

Tips on getting through a joint replacement

Published on January 30, 2012 by Paul Thagard in Hot Thought

I’m currently preparing for my second hip replacement to take place in February, remembering the lessons learned from my first one in April, 2011. My younger brother is also getting a new hip in February, so I’m writing this to help him and other people go through a difficult but worthwhile experience. My replaced right hip works wonderfully, free of the pain that started in 1995 and grew steadily worse. There are many Web pages that provide valuable medical information, but in this post I want to focus on practical advice about getting how to manage the whole process.

For medical advice, let me suggest these pages:
Mayo Clinic: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/hip-replacement/MY00235
My Joint Replacement: http://www.myjointreplacement.ca/
My goal in this post is to provide practical suggestions to deal with matters that the medical sites don’t much discuss.

 

Having a Hip Replacement | Psychology Today

Leveraging ePatient Communications | Digital Pharma Blog

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Leveraging ePatient Communications

Posted by bryonmain on February 28th, 2013

As social media in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry becomes more widespread, a growing trend is ePatient communication. The internet has become the go-to source of information for many people; that holds true as they research diagnoses, check up on current research, and connect with others for support.

Citizen bloggers, with a particular diagnosis, educate themselves,  and are a key source of information for others with a similar diagnosis. In the digital age, where nearly everyone has a smartphone, these “man on the street” blogs offer a personal voice, answering questions and addressing areas of concern, as well as offering support. Patient bloggers, read by a wide range of patients and caregivers, can be a key source of internet buzz, when they offer a review or opinion on a new therapy or drug treatment option. Pharmaceutical companies can network with these bloggers, gaining both a platform for patient marketing, but also a window into the concerns and trends patients notice.

Leveraging ePatient Communications | Digital Pharma Blog

Peer-to-peer Healthcare

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Many Americans turn to friends and family for support and advice when they have a health problem. This report shows how people’s networks are expanding to include online peers, particularly in the crucible of rare disease. 

The most striking finding of the national survey is the extent of peer-to-peer help among people living with chronic conditions. One in four internet users living with high blood pressure, diabetes, heart conditions, lung conditions, cancer, or some other chronic ailment (23%) say they have gone online to find others with similar health concerns. By contrast, 15% of internet users who report no chronic conditions have sought such help online.

When asked about the last time they had a health issue, however, 71% of adults in the U.S. say they received information, care, or support from a health professional. Fifty-five percent of adults say they turned to friends and family. Twenty-one percent of adults say they turned to others who have the same health condition. The oft-expressed fear that patients are using the internet to self-diagnose and self-medicate without reference to medical professionals does not emerge in national phone surveys or in this special rare-disease community survey.
Join a discussion of this report on e-patients.net: Healthcare Out Loud

Peer-to-peer Healthcare | Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project

The newest replacement approach

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Hip replacement, or arthroplasty, is a surgical procedure in which the disease parts of the hip joint are removed and replaced with artificial parts, called prosthesis.  The goal of hip replacement surgery is to increase mobility, relieve pain, and improve the function of the hip joint.  People who have hip joint damage that interferes with their daily activities and are not benefitting from treatment are candidates for hip replacement surgery.  The most common cause of hip joint damage is , but other conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, osteonecrosis (the death of bone caused by insufficient blood supply), injuries, bone tumors, and fractures can also lead to the breakdown of the hip joint.  Doctors used to reserve hip replacement surgery for people over 60 years old.  They thought that older people are less active and put less stress on the artificial hip than younger people.  In recent years, however, doctors have found that hip replacement surgery can be successful in younger people because technology has improved the artificial parts.  Today a person’s overall health and activity level is more important than age in predicting a hip replacement’s success. (Source: www.niams.hih.gov)

Hip surgery flip! The newest replacement approach | Health – Home

Treatments | Arthritis Hip | Arthritis Knee

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25 Treatments for Arthritis Hip and Knee Pain

New guidelines offer consistent recommendations for doctors worldwide

When it comes to treating osteoarthritis in your knees and hips, you may have more options than you realize. In February 2008, the Osteoarthritis Research Society International (OARSI), a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting osteoarthritis research and treatment, published its first evidence-based recommendations for treatment of osteoarthritis of the hip and knee. The goal was to eliminate inconsistent treatment approaches by creating simple guidelines that would enable health care providers to determine which therapies would be most useful for an individual patient.

The committee took the scientifically proven commonalities it found in the international literature, evaluated the level of scientific evidence, proposed a strength of recommendation for each modality, and then condensed them into a comprehensive “playbook” of 25 treatment recommendations. The first of the 25 recommendations is to combine drug and non-drug treatments for optimal results. The remaining 24 fall into three categories: non-drug, drug and surgical. Following are the 25 recommendations with updates and links to further reading by Arthritis Today.

Treatments | Arthritis Hip | Arthritis Knee

Arthritis Self-Management Disease Management

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Beyond Doctor’s Orders

5 ways to enhance your chance of success with arthritis.

Succeeding with a chronic illness involves more than just following doctor’s orders. If you’re willing to work at it, these five habits will ensure you live successfully with arthritis:

1. Learn all you can.

Knowledge is power. Read everything you can, and locate trusted sources of news and information (online or offline); find out where exercise classes are being held in your community; and ask lots of questions – of your doctor, your physical therapist and other health-care providers.

2. Pay attention to your emotions.

Living with a chronic condition such as arthritis ups your chance of developing depression. Warning signs include constant tiredness, lack of appetite, trouble making decisions, disrupted sleep and feeling worthless. To head off depression, develop a network of family and friends who raise your spirits and can help you keep active.

3. Make your doctor your partner in care.

You’re more likely to find success if you and your physician make informed decisions together. Make sure your doctor spends time with you discussing treatment options and answering all your questions. Talk about ways to improve your functioning, such as losing weight, becoming more active or reducing stress. Don’t be embarrassed to talk to your physician about anything, including admitting when you haven’t followed her advice. Agree to disagree when the two of you have different opinions – and keep talking about it.

Arthritis Self-Management | Disease Management | Arthritis Today

What will a new hip cost?

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Only 16% of U.S. hospitals surveyed in a recent study gave a complete price quote for a common hip surgery, highlighting the obstacles many patients face in comparison shopping.

Pricing information remains difficult to obtain from medical providers and the figures that are quoted vary widely despite government efforts to make the process more consumer friendly, according to a study published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. for Internal Medicine.

Jaime Rosenthal, a student at Washington University in St. Louis who led the research, called two hospitals in every state and Washington, D.C., as well as the top 20-ranked orthopedic hospitals according to U.S. News and World Report.

She asked for the lowest bundled price, hospital plus physician fees, on a total hip replacement for a 62-year-old grandmother. She said her relative was uninsured but had the means to pay out of pocket.

The researchers found that 16% of the 122 hospitals contacted provided a complete bundled price. An additional 47% of hospitals could offer a complete price when hospitals and other medical providers were contacted separately, the study said.

And those price quotes varied considerably, from $11,100 to $125,798 for the same hip surgery. The study said Medicare and large insurers often pay $10,000 to $25,000 for joint replacement surgery.

This issue of healthcare pricing has taken on added importance since consumers are responsible for a growing share of their medical bills. Policymakers also hope that wider disclosure of medical prices could help slow down rising healthcare costs.

What will a new hip cost? Few hospitals quote a price, study finds – latimes.com

Early hip replacement cost-effective

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Brussels, 7 February 2013 –

Delaying Total Hip Replacement surgery (THR) in people with osteoarthritis (OA) as a way to cut costs is ineffective and denies patients the benefits of an active and healthy life.

Moreover, young adults do not benefit from postponing the treatment to avoid revision surgery in later life as the majority of younger people will never have to undergo revision surgery with current technology.

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