Heart disease affects millions of people every year. The MLA Guide to Finding Out About Heart Disease organizes and offers evaluated print and online resources to help readers develop a collection or research specific medical options, incorporating important data and key concepts about risk factors and symptoms of heart disease.
This comprehensive two-volume work provides an overview of an area of growing concern, offering readers a one-stop resource for researching the chronic conditions that increasingly plague our society. Chronic diseases and their consequences are among the foremost problems faced by the U.S. health care system, accounting for untold distress and mounting personal and societal costs. Bringing together an unprecedented array of detailed data and facts, this unique two-volume encyclopedia provides information that will help readers understand what they can do to avoid these diseases, as well as how to best manage chronic conditions that may affect them or their families. Designed for high school, public, and university libraries, this three-volume set covers an extensive range of disorders, including diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, asthma, heart disease, arthritis, osteoporosis, kidney disease, Alzheimer's disease, HIV/AIDS, and hepatitis. Depression and anxiety are covered, as are violence and injury, drug use and abuse, and tobacco as a health hazard. Much more than just a list of diseases, this encyclopedia enables readers to easily research terminology, symptoms, methods of diagnosis, medical treatments and alternative medicine, risk factors, associated conditions, and preventive approaches. The work is consistent with Healthy People 2010 national goals and objectives and with National Health Education Standards.
Heart failure—the expression alone is scary. The idea that the blood-pumping organ in our chest can struggle, stutter, or suddenly stop is deeply disconcerting. But for those who get the diagnosis, the future is not necessarily bleak. With the right treatments and a healthy lifestyle that includes exercise and good nutrition, many people with heart failure can improve their condition and live well. Heart failure expert Edward K. Kasper, M.D., teams with journalist—and survivor—Mary Knudson to give readers an honest account of this misunderstood condition. The authors explain the complex science of heart failure and look critically at the care available. Living Well with Heart Failure, the Misnamed, Misunderstood Condition will help readers understand: • The causes of the condition • Normal and abnormal heart rhythms • How to recognize symptoms and when to seek treatment • Which diagnostic tests to expect • The best treatments for different types of heart failure • How pacemakers work • The advantages and disadvantages of implantable cardioverter defibrillators • How to be safer in a hospital • What exercises result in increased heart, leg, arm, and core body strength • What foods to eat and what to avoid Informed by the shared knowledge of doctor and patient, those diagnosed with heart failure and their loved ones will learn how to effectively manage the condition in this comprehensive and compassionate guide.
The daily challenges of living—and coping—with a chronic and progressive invisible illness. Heart disease is the leading cause of death for women worldwide. Yet most people are still unaware that heart disease is not just a man's problem. Carolyn Thomas, a heart attack survivor herself, is on a mission to educate women about their heart health. Based on her popular Heart Sisters blog, which has attracted more than 10 million views from readers in 190 countries, A Woman's Guide to Living with Heart Disease combines personal experience and medical knowledge to help women learn how to understand and manage a catastrophic diagnosis. In A Woman's Guide to Living with Heart Disease, Thomas explains • how to recognize the early signs of a heart attack • why women often delay seeking treatment—and how to overcome that impulse • the link between pregnancy complications and future heart disease • why so many women with heart disease are misdiagnosed—and how to help yourself get an accurate diagnosis • the importance of cardiac rehabilitation in lowering mortality risk • what to expect during your recovery from a heart attack • how the surreal process of coping with heart disease may affect your daily life • methods for treating heart disease–related depression without drugs Equal parts memoir about a misdiagnosed heart attack, guide to the predictable stages of heart disease—from grief to resilience—and patient-friendly translation of important science-based findings on women's unique heart issues, this book is an essential read. Whether you're a freshly diagnosed patient, a woman who's been living with heart disease for years, or a practitioner who cares about women's health, A Woman's Guide to Living with Heart Disease will help you feel less alone and advocate for better health care.
This life-affirming, instructive, and thoroughly inspiring book is a must-read for anyone who is - or who might one day be - sick. It can also be the perfect gift of guidance, encouragement, and uplifting inspiration to family, friends, and loved ones struggling with the many terrifying or disheartening life changes that come so close on the heels of a diagnosis of a chronic condition or life-threatening illness. Authentic and graceful, How to be Sick reminds us of our limitless inner freedom, even under high degrees of suffering and pain. The author - who became ill while a university law professor in the prime of her career - tells the reader how she got sick and, to her and her partner's bewilderment, stayed that way. Toni had been a longtime meditator, going on long meditation retreats and spending many hours rigorously practicing, but soon discovered that she simply could no longer engage in those difficult and taxing forms. She had to learn ways to make "being sick" the heart of her spiritual practice - and through truly learning how to be sick, she learned how, even with many physical and energetic limitations, to live a life of equanimity, compassion, and joy. And whether we ourselves are ill or not, we can learn these vital arts from Bernhard's generous wisdom in How to Be Sick.
A “thought-provoking and powerful” study that reframes everything you’ve been taught about addiction and recovery—from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Myth of Normal (Bruce Perry, author of The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog). A world-renowned trauma expert combines real-life stories with cutting-edge research to offer a holistic approach to understanding addiction—its origins, its place in society, and the importance of self-compassion in recovery. Based on Gabor Maté’s two decades of experience as a medical doctor and his groundbreaking work with people with addiction on Vancouver’s skid row, this #1 international bestseller radically re-envisions a much misunderstood condition by taking a compassionate approach to substance abuse and addiction recovery. In the same vein as Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts traces the root causes of addiction to childhood trauma and examines the pervasiveness of addiction in society. Dr. Maté presents addiction not as a discrete phenomenon confined to an unfortunate or weak-willed few, but as a continuum that runs throughout—and perhaps underpins—our society. It is not a medical “condition” distinct from the lives it affects but rather the result of a complex interplay among personal history, emotional and neurological development, brain chemistry, and the drugs and behaviors of addiction. Simplifying a wide array of brain and addiction research findings from around the globe, the book avoids glib self-help remedies, instead promoting a thorough and compassionate self-understanding as the first key to healing and wellness. Dr. Maté argues persuasively against contemporary health, social, and criminal justice policies toward addiction and how they perpetuate the War on Drugs. The mix of personal stories—including the author’s candid discussion of his own “high-status” addictive tendencies—and science with positive solutions makes the book equally useful for lay readers and professionals.
This guide offers practical tips on science writing - from investigative reporting to pitching ideas to magazine editors. Some of the best known science witers in the US share their hard earned knowledge on how they do their job.
A 75th anniversary e-book version of the most important and practical self-help book ever written, Alcoholics Anonymous. Here is a special deluxe edition of a book that has changed millions of lives and launched the modern recovery movement: Alcoholics Anonymous. This edition not only reproduces the original 1939 text of Alcoholics Anonymous, but as a special bonus features the complete 1941 Saturday Evening Post article “Alcoholics Anonymous” by journalist Jack Alexander, which, at the time, did as much as the book itself to introduce millions of seekers to AA’s program. Alcoholics Anonymous has touched and transformed myriad lives, and finally appears in a volume that honors its posterity and impact.
Estimates indicate that as many as 1 in 4 Americans will experience a mental health problem or will misuse alcohol or drugs in their lifetimes. These disorders are among the most highly stigmatized health conditions in the United States, and they remain barriers to full participation in society in areas as basic as education, housing, and employment. Improving the lives of people with mental health and substance abuse disorders has been a priority in the United States for more than 50 years. The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 is considered a major turning point in America's efforts to improve behavioral healthcare. It ushered in an era of optimism and hope and laid the groundwork for the consumer movement and new models of recovery. The consumer movement gave voice to people with mental and substance use disorders and brought their perspectives and experience into national discussions about mental health. However over the same 50-year period, positive change in American public attitudes and beliefs about mental and substance use disorders has lagged behind these advances. Stigma is a complex social phenomenon based on a relationship between an attribute and a stereotype that assigns undesirable labels, qualities, and behaviors to a person with that attribute. Labeled individuals are then socially devalued, which leads to inequality and discrimination. This report contributes to national efforts to understand and change attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that can lead to stigma and discrimination. Changing stigma in a lasting way will require coordinated efforts, which are based on the best possible evidence, supported at the national level with multiyear funding, and planned and implemented by an effective coalition of representative stakeholders. Ending Discrimination Against People with Mental and Substance Use Disorders: The Evidence for Stigma Change explores stigma and discrimination faced by individuals with mental or substance use disorders and recommends effective strategies for reducing stigma and encouraging people to seek treatment and other supportive services. It offers a set of conclusions and recommendations about successful stigma change strategies and the research needed to inform and evaluate these efforts in the United States.
