Surgery Recovery Time and What to Consider as You Get Older

 

The recovery time after surgery, depending on a person’s age and health, is an important part of the overall surgical experience. The ease, or difficulty, in which a person moves through recovery time can determine the success of the surgery, and overall health afterward. We all know how much a surgery can affect us, especially as our bodies’ age and take more time to heal. Hopefully though, with the right tips and a smart routine, you can avoid additional surgery that may be required.

Surgery complications may occur within the first weeks, so it’s wise for patients to be thoroughly prepared. Many have a tendency to make the bulk of their surgery preparations on the day of surgery, while neglecting to make similar preparations afterwards.

 

Predicting Recovery Is an Inexact Science

Surgeons are constantly faced with the task of trying to evaluate the outcome of a patient’s surgery. For the most part, the usual means of evaluation are crude. The normal standard for estimating the length of a hospital stay and mortality are different and elusive for patients over 40 years of age. However, doctors are now able to give answers that are more informative to older patients and their families about a particular operation. Know that your particular case may take longer or shorter depending on your health, rest, and age. Take it easy and know the signs for when you feel well enough to get back to normal.

 

Recovery Indicators

There is no exact prediction for an elderly patient’s recovery time. However, there are indicators that can help determine the difficulty for recovery, like weight loss in the past year, the strength of the patient’s grip, over-exhaustion, and a patient’s level of physical activity.

Using this information, doctors are able to assign a score from 1 to 5: Zero to 1 gives the patient a passing grade for a robust recovery; 2 to 3 determines that a patient is intermediately frail, and a score of 4 to 5 labels a patient as being frail.

According to the Courtyard at Jamestown, an assisted living in Orem, UT, frail patients have far less reserve to help them recover quickly. The results are obvious. People, considered frail, are much more likely to risk poor outcomes after surgery. The odds of a patient being assigned to a rest, nursing, or assisted living home, is also rise in proportion to their level of frailty.

 

Families and elderly patients should routinely ask doctors if a patient is too frail for surgery. A surgeon can give an honest assessment, but it’s still up to family members or the patient to decide on the surgery. There are simply too many critical factors for a lay person to consider. After assessing the situation in terms of surgical costs, state of health, and recovery time, individuals and their families can make a better-informed decision.

 

Categories: aging, health, recovery, science, surgery, Wellness

The Science of Nutrition: The Facts about Fat You Don’t Know

There’s no denying that nutrition, and how different foods affect your wellbeing, is a science. However, calling it “a science” can make you think that you’ll get black and white results every time, which isn’t the case. Sports dietician Heather Neal explains, ‘The problem with nutrition is that the science both makes sense and doesn’t make sense all at the same time. It’s not because of a lack of quality research; it’s because research can both prove and disprove a theory all in one go. Nutrition science can show that something is fact, then turn around and demonstrate the opposite. It’s not experts trying to persuade us that something’s true when it’s not or poorly designed research studies (although there are plenty of those). It’s because while nutrition is based in science, it can’t be put into a box with a checkmark next to it that says, “yes, this is absolutely fact.”’ How frustrating!

 

‘It’s why I both love and hate my job as a dietician,’ Neal points out. ‘I can’t tell clients that yes, this 100% will work, and this is absolutely wrong, or guarantee xyz results by doing precisely abc. See, nutrition is a science woven with art. What works for one person doesn’t work for another. What destroys one person’s body may help somebody else’s. What’s “true” one day may be wrong the next and then true again. It happens a lot, and it’s what makes people distrust nutrition.’ She adds, ‘Here’s one to wrap your head around: fat isn’t bad — even saturated fat. Now, I know most people have gotten off the low-fat bandwagon by now and appropriately so, but it’s also time to get off the fat-is-bad wagon entirely.’

 

Neal details, ‘Saturated fat is, apparently, good for you. Or at least not terrible for you. It’s not the demonized, artery-clogging culprit we’ve made it out to be…The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reviewed old saturated fat research and came to a new conclusion: saturated fat doesn’t cause heart attacks. It was a logical conclusion from past research: people who had heart attacks and clogged arteries ate a lot of saturated fat, therefore saturated fat is bad for you. What the research missed was the actual cause and effect connection. This doesn’t mean you should dive in to a plate of saturated fat, though…What it does mean is that we should give fat a chance.’ So what do we really know about fat, and why should you let it play a role in your diet wellness?

 

1. Cholesterol Confusion: Neal notes, ‘Saturated fat does raise LDL cholesterol (the artery-clogging stuff) but it also raises HDL cholesterol (the good kind) and lowers triglycerides (also good). For reference, carbohydrates raise triglycerides, which are markers of heart disease.’

2. The Right Stuff: ‘Replacing dietary saturated fat with fats like polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats (like those from nuts, oils, etc.) will likely lower your cardiovascular disease risk,’ says Neal. ‘But replacing saturated fat with carbohydrates will not. It’s all about the context of your diet as a whole.’

3. The Wrong Stuff: Neal warns, ‘The one thing everyone seems to be able to agree upon is that trans fats are bad. Avoid them.’

4. Omega 3s: According to Neal, ‘Most people eat way more omega-6 fatty acids than omega-3 fatty acids, which is why you hear so much about supplementing with omega-3s. This doesn’t mean omega-6s are bad, but you want to keep the ratio in proportion. Good sources of omega-3s are fatty fish and nuts. Omega-6s are found in vegetable oils like corn, soy, and safflower.’

5. Fat Functioning: ‘Most important of all, you need fat to function,’ Neal asserts. ‘Fat is required to absorb vitamins A, D, E, and K, synthesize hormones, lubricate joints, and promote the sensation of satiety (fullness).’

Categories: artery clogging, cholesterol, Fat, fatty acids, heart attacks, neal, nutrition, omega 3s, omega 6s, Omega-3, saturated, science

Will Sex Education be Watered Down?

It is thought that sex education in schools could be at risk of being “watered down” if the proposed changes to England’s science curriculum go ahead. According to a team of experts, sex education should be “unambiguously” included in science lessons. A coalition of organisations has formed to promote this idea.

The letter has been signed by more than 100 organisations and individuals ranging from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to Mumsnet, the Sex Education Forum and the National Children’s Bureau. The group argues the planned changes will not help schools create an honest and open culture around sex and relationships and is more like to foster problematic ideas within schools. It urges the government “to put any adult squeamishness about sex aside”.

Its mission statement says: “The National Curriculum science is the only compulsory part of sex and relationships in education in schools and must teach children about how their bodies work to prepare them for growing up and to protect them from harm.”

The group is specifically concerned that children will not be taught about sexual reproduction and puberty at an early stage and that some will already be experiencing changes in their bodies without having been taught about what to do with them and that they are a normal aspect of growing up.

The Sex Education Forum says that the plans leave a gap in teaching about reproduction in primary school. The forum highlights the section in the draft which says that six- and seven-year-olds should be taught about the process of reproduction and growth in animals but which also says that at this age pupils “should not be expected to understand how reproduction occurs”.

Will Sex Education be Watered Down?

Categories: Education, education forum, forum, reproduction, Schools, science, sex education, taught

Man To Have New Penis Built From Forearm

It’s hard to imagine any of us without the appendages that we were born with. For some however, the truth is far stranger than the imagination.

Andrew Wardle was born with testicles, no penis and a bladder outside of his body that later created bladder and kidney problems throughout his life. To function properly, 15 operations were made to insert a tube into his bladder in order to urinate. Whilst his bladder was successfully fixed, his birth defect remained, causing social and mental anguish for the 39-year-old.

According to the Sun, Wardle told journalists, “I never thought this day would come, and I still can’t believe it is possible for me to actually have a fully functioning penis.”

With the possibility of an active sex life and even the possibility of starting a family, the news is an astounding comfort.

According to Dr. Christoper M. Gonzalez, the life-changing procedure has been attempted in America but, understandably, it is an uncommon one.

So how in the world can it be done?

The surgery is known as a forearm free-flap procedure.

You read correctly: Doctors are going to take tissue and nerve samples from Wardle’s arm in order to build him a new appendage.

The 12-hour operation involves rolling the flap of skin from the arm into a cylinder before being grafted onto the pubic bone, where the long and complex process of linking nerves and organs together can finally happen.

So what about afterwards?

With the future looking brighter, Wardle can look ahead and have a fully active sex life and even a family. Gonzalez mentioned however, that because the arm naturally lacks erectile tissue, it is going to take more than a blood-rush down south. As such, there is the option of a malleable erection – in which the penis is bent up or down whenever the user wishes – or a pump, which is inflated or deflated.

With such an ambitious and beneficial project ahead of him, Wardle’s future is starting to look promising …

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Man To Have New Penis Built From Forearm

Categories: science, sexual health, Sexual Wellness