All the information you need after mastectomy and breast reconstruction surgery so that you can focus on what matters most: healing and staying well. Why am I so tired all the time? What about these drains? Should I worry about lymphedema? Your mastectomy (with or without reconstruction) doesnít end when you leave the operating room. In Now What?, Amy Curran Baker, an occupational therapist who has had a double mastectomy and direct to implant breast reconstruction, and her co-authors, two registered nurses, answer all of your post-surgery questions in this comprehensive and empowering guide. Now What? helps you: Consider your options and make the decisions that are best for you Deal with frozen shoulder syndrome, wound care, swollen lymph nodes, and other side effects of mastectomy Organize the nitty-gritty issues of wound management post-op care with helpful charts and logs Hear real stories from other breast cancer survivors who have had a mastectomy
This book is the first comprehensive, authoritative reference that provides a broad and comprehensive overview of Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS). Written by experts in the field, chapters analyze elements of care that are both generic and specific to various surgeries. It covers the patient journey through such a program, commencing with optimization of the patient’s condition, patient education, and conditioning of their expectations. Organized into nine parts, this book discusses metabolic responses to surgery, anaesthetic contributions, and optimal fluid management after surgery. Chapters are supplemented with examples of ERAS pathways and practical tips on post-operative pain control, feeding, mobilization, and criteria for discharge. Enhanced Recovery After Surgery: A Complete Guide to Optimizing Outcomes is an indispensable manual that thoroughly explores common post-operative barriers and challenges.
Each year, over 250,000 heart valve repair and heart valve replacement operations are performed for conditions including stenosis, prolapse, insufficiency, aneurysm, Tetralogy of Fallot and regurgitation. However, most patients and caregivers surveyed felt their expectations were mismanaged - both before and after surgery. The Patient's Guide to Heart Valve Surgery was written by Adam Pick, a double heart valve surgery patient, to address this troubling issue and prepare the patient and caregiver for the challenges and opportunities of valve surgery - from diagnosis through recovery.
Dr. Troy A. Miles gives patients a clear understanding of what to expect following hip replacement surgery. He reveals how patients can improve their odds of successful outcomes and includes specific activity recommendations for the weeks, months, and years following surgery. This comprehensive and thoroughly illustrated guide bridges the gap between scientific evidence and real world advice. Readers will find information on what to expect after returning home from surgery, learn about which home modifications are essential during the early recovery phase, and gain a better understanding of how to safely resume popular sports such as golf, skiing, and tennis. Dr. Miles welcomes readers of all ages to learn more about the rapidly evolving field of adult join replacement.
Gold Winner 2012 Foreword Reviews Book of The Year, Health Category The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 1.7 million people developed healthcare acquired infections in 2010. Since most people spend only a small part of their lives in healthcare facilities, this guidebook also tells readers how to avoid picking up serious infections in day care centers, schools, business offices, and other common locations. Unlike other books, which focus on how to change the hospital systems, The Patient Survival Guide focuses on empowering you with the knowledge and techniques to ensure a safer healthcare experience. The Patient Survival Guide: Inspires you to be a your own advocate Describes in vivid detail how your preparation and informed vigilance can significantly reduce the chances of harm and death to your loved one in a hospital Provides specific, practical, and outside-the-box strategies for anticipating and preventing errors, with chapters devoted to each of the most common mistakes and mishaps Provides checklists for patients to use upon admission to healthcare facilities
“A classic. Read it. Use it. It can help guide you step by step into the bright light of the world of recovery.” —from the Foreword by Harry Haroutunian, M.D., Physician Director, Betty Ford Center “The Recovery Book is the Bible of recovery. Everything you need to know you will find in here.” —Neil Scott, host, Recovery Coast to Coast radio Hope, support, and a clear road map for people with drug or alcohol addiction. Announcing a completely revised and updated second edition of The Recovery Book, the Bible of addiction recovery. The Recovery Book provides a direct and easy-to-follow road map to every step in the recovery process, from the momentous decision to quit to the emotional, physical, and spiritual issues that arise along the way. Its comprehensive and effective advice speaks to people with addiction, their loved ones, and addiction professionals who need a proven, trusted resource and a supportive voice. The new edition of The Recovery Book features the revolutionary Recovery Zone System, which divides a life in recovery into three chronological zones and provides guidance on exactly what to do in each zone. First is the Red Zone, where the reader is encouraged to stop everything, activate their recovery and save their life. Next is the Yellow Zone, where the reader can begin to rebuild a life that was torn apart by addiction. Finally, the reader reaches the Green Zone, where he can enjoy a life a recovery and help others. Readers also learn how to use the Recovery Zone ReCheck, a simple, yet very effective relapse prevention tool. The Recovery Zone System works hand-in-hand with the 12-step philosophy and all other recovery methods. In addition, The Recovery Book covers new knowledge about addiction mechanisms and neuroplasticity, explaining how alcohol and drugs alter the brain. The authors outline a simple daily practice, called TAMERS, that helps people to use those same processes to “remold their brains” around recovery, eventually making sobriety a routine way of life. Written by Al J. Mooney, M.D., a recovery activist who speaks internationally on recovery, and health journalists Catherine Dold and Howard Eisenberg, The Recovery Book covers all the latest in addiction science and recovery methods. In 26 chapters and over 600 pages, The Recovery Book tackles issues such as: Committing to Recovery: Identifying and accepting the problem; deciding to get sober. Treatment Options: Extensive information on all current options, and how to choose a program. AA and other 12-Step Fellowships: How to get involved in a mutual-support group and what it can do for you. Addiction Science and Neuroplasticity: How alcohol and drugs alter pathways in the brain, and how to use the same processes to remold the brain around recovery. Relapse Prevention: The Recovery Zone ReCheck, a simple new technique to anticipate and avoid relapses. Rebuilding Your Life: How to handle relationships, socializing, work, education, and finances. Physical and Mental Health: Tips for getting healthy; how to handle common ailments. Pain Control: How to deal with pain in recovery; how to avoid a relapse if you need pain control for surgery or emergency care. Family and Friends: How you can help a loved one with addiction, and how you can help yourself. Raising Substance-Free Kids: How to “addiction-proof” your child. The Epidemic of Prescription Drugs: Now a bigger problem than illegal drugs. Dr. Al J. Mooney has been helping alcoholics and addicts get their lives back for more than thirty years, using both his professional and personal experiences at his family’s treatment center, Willingway, and most recently through his work as medical director for The Healing Place of Wake County (NC), a homeless shelter. The Recovery Book will help millions gain control of their mind, their body, their life, and their happiness. www.TheRecoveryBook.com
A clear and compassionate guide to overcoming substance problems "A no-nonsense, state-of-the-art guide."--Laurie Garrett, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Coming Plague "Comprehensive, illuminating, easy to read."--William Cope Moyers, Vice President of Public Affairs, Hazelden Foundation In Recovery Options: The Complete Guide, Joseph Volpicelli, M.D., Ph.D., an award-winning addiction research pioneer, and Maia Szalavitz, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist and former addict, provide frank and impartial appraisals of all the major treatment options, including: * Alcoholics Anonymous * Moderate drinking programs * Alternative treatments * Therapeutic communities * Cognitive therapies * Other 12-step programs * Medications * Methadone * Harm reduction * How families can help In Recovery Options: The Complete Guide, you will learn what addictionis--and what it isn't. You will examine both the mechanism of addiction and how you can make the best treatment choices . . . why some people are particularly prone to substance problems . . . and the genetic and learning mechanisms that help create these conditions. You'll explore the various types of treatment and the ideas on which they are based, and find out how effective each treatment is--and which ones are not effective. Finally, you'll find supportive information on staying clean and sober, preventing relapse, and minimizing damage caused by slips that may occur. Featuring the dramatic real-life stories of patients' experiences (both good and bad) with various methods of recovery, this warm, sympathetic, and accessible guide to overcoming alcohol and other drug problems will help you and your loved ones begin the journey away from substance misuse toward a better life.
About 100 million Americans live with some form of chronic pain—more than the combined number who suffer from diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. But chronic pain has always been a mystery. It often returns at the slightest provocation, even when doctors can't find anything wrong. Oddly enough, whether the pain is physical or emotional, traumatic or slight, our brains register all pain as the same thing, and these signals can keep firing in the nervous system for months, even years. In Total Recovery, Dr. Gary Kaplan argues that we've been thinking about disease all wrong. Drawing on dramatic patient stories and cutting-edge research, the book reveals that chronic physical and emotional pain are two sides of the same coin. New discoveries show that disease is not the result of a single event but an accumulation of traumas. Every injury, every infection, every toxin, and every emotional blow generates the same reaction: inflammation, activated by tiny cells in the brain, called microglia. Turned on too often from too many assaults, it can have a devastating cumulative effect. Conventional treatment for these conditions is focused on symptoms, not causes, and can leave patients locked into a lifetime of pain and suffering. Dr. Kaplan's unified theory of chronic pain and depression helps us understand not only the cause of these conditions but also the issues we must address to create a pathway to healing. With this revolutionary new framework in place, we have been given the keys to recover.
