Humans, have developed numerous diseases during our time here on Earth. In order to stay healthy doctors have had to establish treatments able to heal the sick, with modern equipment doctors are able to do just that. Machines are helpful to a certain extent only when the source of a disease is identified can a doctor possibly begin to examine it and eventually proceed towards a solution. While many cures have been developed many conditions still exist currently incurable like Retinitis Pigmentosa. The process for curing a disease can be long and difficult. In order to develop an antidote doctors must find the cause of a disease, conduct research and determine an approved course to take in order to cure it.
First labeled as Retinitis Pigmentosa by Doctor Donders in 1857, Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) is a condition which causes the rods and cones in a patient’s eye to degenerate. Cones are responsible for allowing people to see during the day and in color. Rods allow people to see in low light environments. RP is most commonly inherited by one’s parents, of which both carry the recessive gene responsible for RP, although some isolated cases occur. The first signs of RP is impaired night vision often observed during childhood followed by the narrowing of peripheral vision. In mild cases tunnel vision doesn’t develop until the fifth or sixth decade (Willacy). Patients with RP are commonly diagnosed in their teens. In order to diagnose RP the patient must go through a series of examinations. The First is an initial assessment followed by a visual acuity test, a common test evaluates the sharpness of the retinal focus within the eye. Followed by a visual field assessment to test a patient’s peripheral vision. Both these tests...
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The improvement of medicine over the course of the human successes gave great convenience to the people of today. Science has cured and prevented many illnesses from occurring and is on its way to cure some of the most dreadful and harmful illnesses. As the world modernizes due to the industrialization, so does the ways of medicine. Some cures are approached by chance, some, through intense, scientific measures.
The widespread involvement of Retinal Pigment Epithelium (RPE), flat (placoid) nature of the lesions and absence of overlying serous retinal detachment and minimal choroidal involvement lead Gass to conclude RPE was primary focus of inflammation.(1) ...
...Restricted After Gene Therapy Death. The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. Retrieved September 22, 2011, from http://partners.nytimes.com/library/national/science/health/052500hth-gene-therapy.html?scp=9&sq=FDA%20jesse%20gelsinger&st=cse
Red-green color blindness is not uncommon in the general population. The unequal crossover in the X-chromosome which causes this disorder is much more easily achieved than the mechanisms which cause other types of color blindness, due to the proximity of the two pigment genes. Five to eight percent of men are affected with this genetic condition, and due to a lacking pigment, have trouble distinguishing between red, green and brown. (1)
16. Wang, Yadong. "An Anti-angiogenic Reverse Thermal Gel as a Drug-Delivery System for Age-Related Wet Macular Degeneration." Macromolecular Bioscience: 464-469. Web. 1 May 2014.
It is a rare condition that affects 2 % of Americans. Signs of pathological myopia include: Bending or distortion of straight lines, altered color perception, reduced contrast sensitivity, and increasing gloss of central vision. It is a quick severe progression of myopia and loss of vision is the end result. There is an increased risk of retinal detachment and other degenerative changes in the back of the eye (bleeding from abnormal blood vessel growth). If any of these things occur the risk of cataracts could increase. Treatment calls for a combination of a drug and a laser procedure called photodynamic therapy. It is reported to be the seventh ranking cause of legal blindness in the United States of America the fourth ranking cause in Hong Kong and the second in parts of China and Japan this form of myopia frequently progresses in adult life, with small intermittent steps of elongation being observable at any age. The adult progression appears to be due to the stretching of the walls of the eye. Genetically weak elements of the scleral wall are prone to thinning and stretching. One of the major forces at work in this stretching process appears to be the normal intra-ocular pressure (Ward
In September 14, 1990, an operation, which is called gene therapy, was performed successfully at the National Institutes of Health in the United States. The operation was only a temporary success because many problems have emerged since then. Gene therapy is a remedy that introduces genes to target cells and replaces defective genes in order to cure the diseases which cannot be cured by traditional medicines. Although gene therapy gives someone who is born with a genetic disease or who suffers cancer a permanent chance of being cured, it is high-risk and sometimes unethical because the failure rate is extremely high and issues like how “good” and “bad” uses of gene therapy can be distinguished still haven’t been answered satisfactorily.
Vitamin D deficiency is a widespread health problem, affecting up to 1 billion people worldwide.[1] It has gained increasing recognition in the developing world, including Sub- Saharan Africa (SSA) where sunshine prevails all year round.[2–4] Previous studies in SSA have found widely varying prevalence of vitamin D deficiency, affecting 9-49% of the normal population in a region well endowed with round the year sunshine.[5–7] Cultural norms, religious practices, skin pigmentation, malnutrition, diet, co-morbidities like tuberculosis, and drugs may contribute to vitamin D deficiency in this setting.[2, 3]
There's a disease that lurks among young children even to this day. It's a direct result of a mutation in the genes that could result in the removal of the eye. Both boys and girls are affected, and one in every fifteen to thirty thousand babies is infected every year (Ambramson, Ch1). This eye corrupting, chromosomal abnormality shows up in about 300-350 new cases each year. It is called retinoblastoma.
Vitamin B12 deficiency, or Cobalamin deficiency, occurs frequently among elderly people. Vitamin B12 is a nutrient that helps keep the body's nerve and blood cells healthy and helps make DNA, the genetic material, in all cells. Vitamin B12 also helps prevent a type of anemia called megaloblastic anemia that makes people tired and weak. Often times, the symptoms of this deficiency are undetectable because the signs are subtle. This creates several issues including identifying those at risk for deficiency and providing those individuals with the correct treatment. Throughout the paper I will address issues such as the causes and evaluations, treatments and procedures, and dietary impacts of vitamin B12 deficiencies using several studies related to vitamin B12 deficiency within the elderly. The purpose of this paper is to determine what the effect of lack of vitamin B12 has on the elderly and what, if any, can be a preventative for such deficiency.
Macular degeneration in general can affect many people in minor or drastic ways. People who experience this form often complain of vision loss when they are in dim light, especially when they are reading. The "dry" type is often characterized by a more gradual loss of vision compared to the "wet" type. Signs of this disease include an increase in drusen, which is an accumulation of a yellow-white substance, in the underside of the macular retina. A loss of cells can be seen in the macula. The macula is our sensitive sight region, where intricate detail can be seen. Thus, vision in this area is helpful and necessary to drive, read, focus on small details, and recognize familiar faces. The macula is located in the back of the eye known as the retina. The macula is only about 5 mm in diameter, and includes the fovea, which gives us our detailed central vision. If a person suffers from the "dry" form in one eye they will be more likely to develop it in the other eye as well.
Holick, MF 2007, 'Vitamin D Deficiency', New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 357, no. 3, pp. 266-81.
After the industrial revolution in the 18th century in Europe and America, there was the rapid industrial and economic growth in the 19th century, which in turn caused various scientific discoveries and various invention therefore making more progress in identifying illnesses and developing modes of treatment and cure, this was where modern medicine started. After the industrial revolution there were more industries, which in turn created a lot of work-related diseases and poor hygiene, also as the cities began to grow larger, more communicable diseases began to increase, cases like typhoid and cholera became epidemics. As well, due to the changes occurring, more and more people became more aware and since there was democracy there became an increase in demand for health care. There were also the wars that occurred, causing injuries which needed to be treated. Modern medicine evolves to solve the problems of the society at a given time and various advances in this mode of health care has occurred over the years. It has been seen that modern medicine is a positive influence in the society today for various reasons, the goal of the modern medicine is to achieve good health of the citizens, and modern medicine is experimental which is capable of advanced diagnosis. Likewise, modern medicine has an effect on the social and economic state of the modern society. Modern medicine is understood as the science of treating, diagnosing or even preventing illnesses using improved sophisticated technology. This mode of treatment involves a variety of methods, using diet, exercise, treatment by drugs or even surgery.
Over the centuries, several treatment methods have been utilized by humans for remedy diseases when they caught. Two of them are modern medicine and traditional medicine. Traditional medicine, which is also called alternative treatment, is older than modern medicine. This effective treatment had been used for many centuries before modern medicine was found. On the contrary, modern medicine has been used since the 1900’s (Lyons). In this system, drugs’ tests are carefully done in the safe laboratories, and their side effects are identified before they are given to the patient. Moreover, the effects of the pills are written on the leaflets which are found in the drug packages to warn the patients for these effects. However, sometimes the side effects are not blocked, so people have to take another pill to get better. It makes people take more chemicals into their bodies. Even traditional medicine, give its place to the modern medicine when its beginning times, it is used efficaciously like modern medicine at the present time. In course of time, people will gain reliance on traditional medicine again, since alternative medicine is more efficient and powerful in order to get better and soothe the diseases than modern medicine. In fact, in traditional medicine, there are fewer drugs, side effects, holistic therapy that people can be availed.