Treating Spasticity - Oral Medications and Surgery
Spasticity a disorder of muscle function that causes muscle tightness or spasm. It is the involuntary movement (jerking) of muscles, which occurs when there is damage to the central nervous system. This damage may result from a traumatic brain, injury stroke, tumor, cerebral palsy or multiple sclerosis (1). Symptoms may include hypertonicity (increased muscle tone), clonus (a series of rapid muscle contractions), exaggerated deep tendon reflexes, muscle spasms, scissoring (involuntary crossing of the legs), and fixed joints (2). Spasticity may be as mild as the feeling of stiffness or tightness of muscles, or it may be so severe as to produce painful uncontrollable spasms of the extremities, usually of the legs. It may also produce feelings of pain or tightness in and around joints and can also cause low back pain (3).
Some people find that spasticity is so severe or frequent that it disrupts their life. Health care professional suggest a number of things to calm or stop spasticity: range-of- motion exercises, stress management, prescription drugs, physical therapy regimens, and or surgery. Each offers some help, but treatments like medication and surgery bring complications. The patient is forced to decide if decreasing spasticity is worth the side effects from drugs or loss of some movement and feeling from surgery. Many people who have spasticity take few, if any, medications to control their spasticity (4).
While spasticity cannot be cured, some of the problems associated with spasticity can be cared for in a number of ways. At this present time, there are several medications and surgical methods that are used to help treat spasticity. In most cases, treatments consist of combinations of different medications, implantation devices, and surgery. The investigation of this paper deals with a comparison of the oral medications being used by patients and the numerous surgical procedures available to treat spasticity. The use of oral medications for treatment of spasticity may be very effective. Benzodiazepines, baclofen, dantrolene sodium, and tizanidine are the most widely used agents for reduction of spasticity. The challenge is to establish a treatment plan that will strike a vital balance between improved function, patient satisfaction, and possible side effects. At high dosages, oral medications can cause unwanted side effects that include sedation, as well as changes in mood and cognition (5).
Benzodiazepines such as diazepam are the oldest and most frequently used oral agents for spasticity related to spinal cord injury, cerebral palsy, and cerebral vascular accident.
It depends on what specific situation the student is stuck in to determine which foods they 're living off. My assumption of their daily meals is first, breakfast is one piece of fruit and a breakfast sandwich from a fast-food joint. Then, lunch or dinner is one entree of pizza, fried chicken, or a burger. Occasionally the student may snack off a bag of chips or a candy bar, but other than that, I can’t say that most students are eating healthy; I’ve seen at my college snacking mostly on chips while taking a break from class. Luckily, there some solutions to help to change the eating habits of the students. I discovered in Victoria Li’s article “Easy Diets for College Students” some helpful tips for the struggling students. She suggests “While opting for burgers fresh off the grill seems tempting, adhere to the habit of filling half your plate with fruits and vegetables, then filling the remainder with whole grains and lean protein” (2). In other words, it’s okay to have a greasy burger, but just as long you have something healthy to go with it, leading to a good balance of protein and energy Li says. As for the students going hungry because of their tight budget, some colleges or nearby locations may have meal donors. Li mentions in her article about the importance of not skipping meals as she says “Feeling famished due
English as a communication tool holds prominent position in Chinese curriculum (Liu, 2012). Learning English as a Second Language (ESL) has seen its boost in China (Qiang & Wolff, 2007). Mastering English is an asset for students in job hunting and further education. As academic achievement is highly valued in Chinese culture, students are expected to achieve high marks in English tests (Liu, 2012). University students need to pass National English proficiency examinations, which are the part of the evaluation for obtaining degrees (Wolff, 2010). Students attend after-school English courses for enhancing their English because of the pressure (Liu, 2012). The majority of ELL students aim at improving the international English proficiency tests results, such as International English Language Testing System (IELTS) and Graduate Record Examinations (GRE). ELL students are more motivated in the after-school English courses because of the high-target learning environment. However, the teacher-centred learning procedure neglects the long-term enhancement of students’ English level. The ignorance of the long-term development is due to less student involvement during the teaching procedure (Mo, 2012). Some Chinese ELL students choose to attend ESL courses abroad. The reasons are that they can have a better language environment (Wolff, 2010) and can engage more in the learning procedure (Smith & Hu, 2013). The aim of the study is to compare the teacher-centred teaching in China and student-centred teaching in Canada and to examine efficient teaching methods for Chinese speaking ELL
To have a better understanding of your patients particular case with acute kidney failure you would want to gather a patient history to see if they have used any nephrotoxic medications or have had systemic illnesses in the past that may have been related to poor perfusion in their body. The laboratory tests you would want to pay attention to would be a complete blood count, urinalysis, ultrasound, glomerular filtration rate and a measurement of serum creatinine and potassium level (Rahman, Shad, Smith 2012).
When I arrived here at college I was extremely disappointed with the selection of food here in the cafeteria. I frequently found myself eating only hamburgers and pizza over and over again, simply because I did not like the other choices. About four months into the school year I had do go to the doctor for a virus and when the nurse weighed me I was a little surprised by what I saw. I had gained a little over ten pounds, close enough to what some refer to as the “Freshman 15.” It is a common fear among college students that they are going to gain fifteen pounds during the course of adjusting to college life. However experts have stated that the idea of the so called “Freshman 15,” is not that accurate. Every college student is obviously not going to gain fifteen pounds. However I believe that it is possible and it is a problem for many college students. College life completely changes eating habits among college students. Most students do not make the right choices about eating and exercising. College students across the country are severely unhealthy in their behaviors, and for some students the “Freshman 15” may be a reality.
The basal ganglia are part of the extrapyramidal system and work in conjunction with the motor cortex in providing movement and serve as the relay center. Damage to this area results in Athetoid Cerebral Palsy, the second most common form of cerebral palsy. Involuntary purposeless movements, particularly in the arms, hands, and facial muscles, characterize Athetosis. In addition, the individual can become “stuck” in abnormal positions or postures and require specific positioning to maintain more normal tome and
Raskin, Jamin. We the Students: Supreme Court Cases for and about Students. 2nd ed. Washington D.C.: CQ Press. 2003.
During the 1990-1991 school year, dietary records of 1,912 college students were examined to identify the amount of meals students skipped and which types of food students were actually eating. The study found that 22% of the students skipped their breakfast, however students were recorded to snack at least once a day. Furthermore, the study also found men consumed foods with higher calories and higher amount of fat. The study appears to be more quantitative, however qualitative practices must have taken place when interviewing subjects about their meals to input into the dietary records. The findings propose that college students should be eating more vegetables and fruits, along with consuming less carbonated beverages and dishes with a high amount of fat. Although, this is a well done study, it is limited because it was done over 20 years ago, so eating habits of college students might have changed within this time. For instance, within these 20 years, the perception of soda has changed drastically, which illustrates the need for this type of study to be more relevant to college students today. Moreover, much of this study is focused on what these students are eating, but I also believe finding out about how students attain their meals is important for the understanding of a college student’s dietary
Racette, S.B., Deusinger, S.S., Strube, M.J., Highstein, G.R., & Deusinger, R.H. (2005). Weight changes, exercise, and dietary patterns during freshman and sophomore years of college. Journal of American College Health, 53(8), 245-251.
All college students have heard of the dreaded “freshman fifteen.” The majority of students see it as inevitability. This college curse is caused by a drastic change in lifestyle and eating habits. College students are more likely to eat unhealthy food and less likely to exercise. However, steps can be taken to avoid needless weight gain. Despite the hectic lifestyles of teens, they know that a balance of exercise and good nutrition is the key to health.
Teresa Fung, an assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition at Simmons College has noticed trends in college students’ eating habits.
Freshman year of college is a turning point in most young adult’s lives. They are moving away from home and living on their own or with peers. Tammy Smith, an incoming freshman is concerned about what her diet will be like while living in a dorm. She has heard that a lot of females in college will develop eating disorders because of their poor diet and possible weight gain from lack of exercise. Tammy started to do research on the internet and stumbled across “Healthy Eating: A Practical Guide” published by Concordia University. In the guide, it has guidelines and tips for college students to eat healthy while on a budget, and a chart for the amount of each food group that a female needs to eat to have a healthy diet. While doing
The human body is amazingly physically capable and is able to create a number of complex movements and generate varying amounts of force, with varying speed and control of the movement due to the function of the body’s Central Nervous System. The Central Nervous System transmits messages from the brain to the part of the body a person wishes to move by using nerve fibers very rapidly, and this results in humans being able to complete a number of complex movements in very controlled manners and at considerably fast paces. However, sometimes the transmission of messages from the brain to the Spinal Cord can become disrupted, and this leads to less control of movements and can lead to movements becoming slowed down or even stopped
Functional motor deficits from a SCI occur when there is an interruption to the tracts in the ascending and descending pathways. In this case, the pyramidal tracts in the motor pathways, which originate in the brain and descend to the spinal cord, are affected. The corticospinal tracts (CST), which are located in the descending motor pathways, are a bundle of nerve fibers that are involved with voluntary motor movement and skilled limb movements. The effects of damage to the corticospinal tracts depend on the location in which the damage occurs. Most of the axons of upper motor neurons from the primary motor cortex project to the neurons in the spinal cord are contained in the lateral corticospinal tract (Vogelaar and Estrada 2016). As a result, damage to this area can lead to motor impairment in the form of paresis or paralysis (Maraka et al. 2014). When axons from
Through life we have many different stages to where we are either settling down for a nice home cooked meal or we are constantly on the go, running around our hectic lives, eating very unhealthy foods. Especially in our college years, students are always on the go running to and from class grabbing a burger and fries from a campus restaurant or eating the microwaveable foods like ramen. Many people try to eat healthy, but always succumb to the stereotype that eating healthy is expensive and takes too much time. This is a common misconception because there are ways in which anyone can eat healthy and on a budget as long as they eat proper portions, eat the right kind of foods, and excessive.
People eat food every day without thinking twice about it, because it is a necessity for us to live. How often do you think about what is in the foods that you eat? How many calories does it have? Are there any vitamins and minerals in it? Is it high in fat? For most of us and especially college students who live a busy life on the go, the answer to that question is probably no. Since becoming a recent graduate of Indiana University of Pennsylvania Academy of Culinary Arts, I have been more interested in food and what people are eating. Also since more young Americans are becoming obese I want to find out what they are eating and where. Going to college and seeing how students have poor eating habits I want to find out why they are eating this way. Is it because they are away from home for the first time? Or is it because that is the only food that is available for them? I also want to find out if students would eat healthier if it was provided for them? My hypothesis is that students eat unhealthy because it is more convenient for them. There is usually no time to cook a homemade meal and most college students are always in a hurry so it is easier to pick up takeout. Also most college students don’t know how to cook. I also believe that most college students don’t care if the food is unhealthy for them, as long as it tastes good. Hopefully, in the following pages I will uncover the wide world of college eating.