This book is a comprehensive guide to Targeted Drug Delivery (TDD), also known as Intrathecal Drug Delivery (IDD), and offers an overview to this unique form of treatment. The medication is delivered by intrathecal pumps and is less common than some other techniques for interventional pain management, but is essential in conditions such as refractory pain, cancer pain, multifocal pain, severe spasticity, and in patients who are not candidates for surgical correction of their underlying condition. This book is the first source to describe both the optimal surgical implantation and patient management aspect of this therapy, and thus will be a valuable single reference guide for interventional radiologists, anesthesiologists, physiatrists, oncologists, neurologists, spine surgeons, palliative care physicians, and primary care physicians.
While there has been increasing interest in recent years in the welfare of farm animals, fish are frequently thought to be different. In many people's perception, fish, with their lack of facial expressions or recognisable communication, are not seen to count when it comes to welfare. Angling is a major sport, and fishing a big industry. Millions of fish are caught on barbed hooks, or left to die by suffocation on the decks of fishing boats. Here, biologist Victoria Braithwaite explores the question of fish pain and fish suffering, explaining what we now understand about fish behaviour, and examining the related ethical questions about how we should treat these animals. She asks why the question of pain in fish has not been raised earlier, indicating our prejudices and assumptions; and argues that the latest and growing scientific evidence would suggest that we should widen to fish the protection currently given to birds and mammals.
Intrathecal Drug Delivery for Pain and Spasticity - a volume in the new Interventional and Neuromodulatory Techniques for Pain Management series - presents state-of-the-art guidance on the full range of intrathecal drug delivery techniques performed today. Asokumar Buvanendran, MD and Sudhir Diwan, MD, offer expert advice on a variety of procedures to treat chronic non-malignant pain, cancer pain, and spasticity. Comprehensive, evidence-based coverage on selecting and performing these techniques - as well as weighing relative risks and complications - helps you ensure optimum outcomes. - Understand the rationale and scientific evidence behind intrathecal drug delivery techniques and master their execution. - Optimize outcomes, reduce complications, and minimize risks by adhering to current, evidence-based practice guidelines. - Apply the newest techniques in intrathecal pump placement, cancer pain management, use of baclofen pumps, and compounding drugs. - Quickly find the information you need in a user-friendly format with strictly templated chapters supplemented with illustrative line drawings, images, and treatment algorithms.
"[This book] deserves to be in everyone’s library. . . . It’s loaded with great information, and it can save your life or the life of someone you love."—Dr. Joseph Mercola "This book is life-changing for those trying to understand their own bodies, or those of loved ones, and it’s truly transformative in the hands of medical professionals, especially young doctors."—Foreword Reviews Thomas Cowan was a 20-year-old Duke grad—bright, skeptical, and already disillusioned with industrial capitalism—when he joined the Peace Corps in the mid-1970s for a two-year tour in Swaziland. There, he encountered the work of Rudolf Steiner and Weston A. Price—two men whose ideas would fascinate and challenge him for decades to come. Both drawn to the art of healing and repelled by the way medicine was—and continues to be—practiced in the United States, Cowan returned from Swaziland, went to medical school, and established a practice in New Hampshire and, later, San Francisco. For years, as he raised his three children, suffered the setback of divorce, and struggled with a heart condition, he remained intrigued by the work of Price and Steiner and, in particular, with Steiner’s provocative claim that the heart is not a pump. Determined to practice medicine in a way that promoted healing rather than compounded ailments, Cowan dedicated himself to understanding whether Steiner’s claim could possibly be true. And if Steiner was correct, what, then, is the heart? What is its true role in the human body? In this deeply personal, rigorous, and riveting account, Dr. Cowan offers up a daring claim: Not only was Steiner correct that the heart is not a pump, but our understanding of heart disease—with its origins in the blood vessels—is completely wrong. And this gross misunderstanding, with its attendant medications and risky surgeries, is the reason heart disease remains the most common cause of death worldwide. In Human Heart, Cosmic Heart, Dr. Thomas Cowan presents a new way of understanding the body’s most central organ. He offers a new look at what it means to be human and how we can best care for ourselves—and one another.
Dr. Robert G. Schwartz has specialized in Complex Chronic Pain, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and Vascular Medicine for over 20 years. His medical practice - Piedmont Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation P.A. in Greenville, South Carolina - is a Mecca for those with chronic pain who are frustrated with ineffective surgical and pharmaceutical treatments. Patient testimonials are plentiful. One patient reports, "He found out more about me and what was wrong in one visit than 6 doctors had in the last 17 months." Resolving Complex Pain is a patient-oriented resource for those with chronic pain. The book includes descriptions of the many illnesses treated by Dr. Schwartz, as well as diagnostic options and pioneering treatments. In addition, the innovative "Challenge & Choice" program - a tool designed to enhance insight awareness and responsible choice in medical decision-making - is presented. Anyone who has the desire can follow the program's home tutorial format. COLOR also available.
For patients with chronic pain, a guide to understanding their condition, the medical system’s traditional treatments, and what other choices they have. Are you suffering from chronic pain? Do you feel that everyone, including your physician, thinks you are crazy? Are your loved ones and friends tired of hearing you complain? Are you becoming more depressed and anxious because of your pain? Do you find that you are isolating yourself from others? Are you sick of taking pain medications? Do you question whether injections or surgery are right for you? Is the medical system frustrating you or letting you down? Are you searching for a better way to address your pain? Answering yes to any of these questions means you are part of the very serious pain epidemic in our society. You are not alone! Millions are suffering. The United States is the most advanced society in the world; yet, the majority of pain medications, procedures, and surgeries are not solving this rampant problem. Paindemic will open your eyes to what you should know. Too many unnecessary and risky interventions are being done with little benefit and at great expense. It’s time to gain a better perspective to guide you down a more rational path to address and improve chronic pain—even low back pain. Ignorance is not bliss. What you don’t know about your pain could hurt you. “A brutally honest portrayal of our current sick care medical model. No other book gives you such an in-depth and thought-provoking overview of how pain should be assessed and treated. Dr. Cady has truly outdone herself!”—Jamie L. Guyden, MD, Integrative Medicine Physician
This book focuses on both the management of the pain as well as the pain patient and is formatted as a practical, evidence-based guide to managing chronic pain conditions. It meets the market need for a reference that aides physicians in understanding and improving chronic pain in their patients. Organized across 46 chapters, the book begins with an introduction on chronic pain evaluation, and specifically stresses the importance of complete patient evaluation including social and psychological evaluation. Subsequent chapters then start with an evaluation, medical and interventional options available, how and when to move from one option to another and the level of evidence offered for each intervention. These unique chapter elements provide the reader with a case-based approach to managing their patients. Additionally, a brief discussion of epidemiology and pathophysiology of the disease process is included and the technical aspects of interventional techniques are reviewed. Edited by a leader in the field with international contributing authors across pain medicine, Practical Chronic Pain Management this book is written primarily for anesthesiologists, pain specialists, rheumatologists, and primary care physicians.