Blog 12 - Mental Illness

           Mental illnesses are medical conditions that disrupt a person's thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to others and daily functioning. Mental illnesses can affect persons of any age, race, religion, or income. Serious mental illnesses include major depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), panic disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Mental illnesses are serious medical illnesses. They cannot be overcome through "will power" and are not related to a person's "character" or intelligence. Mental illness falls along a continuum of severity. Even though mental illness is widespread in the population, the main burden of illness is concentrated in a much smaller proportion-about 6 percent, or 1 in 17 Americans-who live with a serious mental illness. The National Institute of Mental Health reports that One in four adults-approximately 57.7 million Americans-experience a mental health disorder in a given year (About Mental Illness., n.d).

Schizophrenia is thought to affect about 1% of people worldwide. I personally know a woman who is suffering from schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that makes it difficult to tell the difference between real and unreal experiences, to think logically, to have normal emotional responses, and to behave normally in social situations (About Mental Illness., n.d). Romana a grandmother is very close family friend. She has two sons.  I was very young when I found out Romana is suffering from schizophrenia. She is suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. Cause of her schizophrenia is genetics. Her mother suffered from a same illness and now one of her son is also suffering.  She was diagnosed with schizophrenia in her early 30’s. She doesn’t remember any of us except her son and daughter-in-law (who she hates a lot and express her emotions openly), she doesn’t remember anything current, she likes to talk about her past and she likes to know if you were her neighbor or relative. Her family told us that she hallucinates and gets angry most of the time. She remembers her young life to every detail and likes to share her stories. She is taking medications which sometimes improve her symptoms. She is living with her other son who is taking care of her and his brother. I think due to her family help and support she was able to live a better life. Following image shows some of the symptoms of schizophrenia.  (http://www.oup.com/uk/orc/bin/9780199561988/resources/illustrations/ch09/)

Reference:

About Mental Illness. (n.d.). NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness. Retrieved November 16, 2010, from http://www.nami.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Inform_Yourself/About_Mental_Illness/About_Mental_Illness.htm

Blog 11 - Women and Chronic Disease/Illness

Interview someone who is living with a chronic illness. What are their living experiences? What are they doing to try to maintain their health despite the disease? You may use a pseudo name to protect their identity.

A chronic disease is a disease that is long lasting, it cannot be prevented by vaccine or cured by medication, nor does it disappear. Many chronic diseases affect more women than men. Women living with chronic disease need to understand, prevent and manage her condition to live a satisfactory life. My mother is living with a chronic disease known as Diabetes. Diabetes affects 24 million people in the United States and women make up almost half of this total (Alexander, L. 2009). My mother has Type 2 Diabetes where body develops resistance to insulin. Cause of diabetes is heredity, obesity, or a history of eating an overabundance of carbohydrate-heavy foods. My mom told me that all her life she maintained her weight. She was never overweight even after having two children she never gained any weight. But, after she had my youngest brother who is 16 now she was not able to lose the weight. She had him by C-Section and about year after that surgery they found out she had Uterine Fibroids. She had a surgery to remove the fibroids and it weight almost 4 pounds. It took her long time to recover from that. Since, she knew that her chance of getting this chronic illness is pretty high because both her parents had diabetes, she always maintained herself very well. Now she is doing whatever she can to slow the progression of diabetes. Her doctor told her that if she maintains the low carbohydrate diet and exercise more she can reduce or eliminate the use of medication. After she found out she had diabetes she was devastated because she saw her parents live with this illness. At first, it was hard for her to do regular blood-glucose checkup and take medications everyday but, now she is use to it. She is carefully watching her diet and exercising regularly. She has to test her blood glucose level 3-4times a day. She has to eat a portion size meal or snack every 2-3 hours. If for some reason she skips one meal her blood glucose levels goes down which causes her to be very hungry. She had to make few changes in her diet but those changes were for her healthier life. She is living with diabetes and that’s the fact that cannot be changed but instead to stressing herself about it she is incorporating it with her daily life.

References:

Alexander, L. (2009). Other Chornic Diseases and Condition. New Dimensions in Women's Health (5 ed., pp. 310-322). Boston: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.

Blog 10- Heart Disease

Women should take special care of their health in every stage of their lives. Maintaining a healthy life style is a key factor, it can decrease the risk of many diseases. Women should include healthy diet and exercise as a daily routine. Having a healthy weight, good nutrition and avoiding sedentary lifestyle reduces risk of diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and many more chronic diseases. A cardiovascular disease (heart attack, stroke) is the leading cause of death for women. Overall, more women compare to men died from cardiovascular diseases. In 2005, 329,250 women died compare to 322,841 men died due to heart disease (Alexander, L. 2009).

In women heart disease or symptoms of heart diseases become present later in life compared to men. Men can start showing symptoms at an earlier age. One of the major reasons most women shows symptoms of heart disease later in life is due to loss of estrogen. Estrogen has been shown to have a positive effect on the cardiovascular system (Alexander, L. 2009). More women die from heart disease than men, heart disease and stroke are the first and third leading cause of death for women.

Both men and women may experience symptoms such as; pain or discomfort in the chest region or, pain or discomfort in the upper torso, or shortness of breath or cold sweat, nausea, or dizziness. Compare to men, women are more prone to symptoms such as shortness of breath, nausea/vomiting, and back or jaw pain. In some cases women are not even aware they are having heart attack. In men plaque distributes in clumps whereas in women it distributes more evenly throughout artery walls. In result, more even distribution of plaque results in women's angiographic studies being misinterpreted as “normal” (Women and Heart Disease facts, n.d.). Women wait longer than men to go to an emergency room when having a heart attack and physicians are slower to recognize the presence of heart attacks in women because characteristic patterns of chest pain and EKG changes are less frequently present.

Heart disease can be prevented if women choose to live a healthy lifestyle. There are several lifestyle changes that can reduce risk of heart disease; exercise 30 to 60 minutes a day on most days of the week, maintaining a healthy weight, quitting or don't start smoking and, eating a diet that is low in saturated fat, cholesterol and salt.

References:

Alexander, L. (2009). Other Chornic Diseases and Condition. New Dimensions in Women's Health (5 ed., pp. 280-281). Boston: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.

Women and Heart Disease facts. (n.d.). Women's Heart Foundation. Retrieved November 2, 2010, from http://www.womensheart.org/content/HeartDisease/heart_disease_facts.asp



Blog # 9

What are the biggest challenges to regular exercise and a healthy diet that you face?  How are these challenges going to change for you over the next five years?

My biggest challenge with regular exercise is time. I have been evaluating myself weekly and the only exercise I have done is walking for half an hour and only three times a week. I need to take some time out from my day and just do exercise. My four month old baby boy keeps me very busy. Little time that I have I do homework or cook and clean. Before I had my son I was just busy with job and school. About a year ago I bought gym membership and I went to work out every day.  The reason I went everyday was because I was paying for it but, after few weeks instead of becoming a routine it was a burden. I found it difficult to take time out to go to gym. I took the health self- assessment for this class and it too suggested that I need to do regular exercise for my better health. Healthy diet is not so much of a challenge for me because I cook at home and I try to make healthy food. Sometimes we crave “outside” food and that day it gets harder to maintain a balance diet. If I continue my habit of not exercising and giving in to my cravings I will never achieve my weight goal. I have a family history of diabetes and if continue to being overweight I might get this chronic disease. I need to motivate myself to lose the weight and eat healthy every day.  I need to set a weight goal and off course a time limit so I can achieve that goal within time.

Blog # 8 - Menopause

Explore how menopause is viewed from a different cultural perspective. Write about this and be sure to cite your source/s.

Menopause is the end of menstrual cycle and childbearing capability. Menopause in a natural event in all women’s lives, it is the last menstrual cycle. Right before and during menopause women experience physical changes due to drop in hormone production. Menopause depicts end of woman’s reproductive life usually occurring between ages 45 and 55. Menopause is accompanied by various symptoms like hot flashes, night sweats and various psychic symptoms, of which hot flashes is known to occur in about 75% of the women and may continue for as long as 40 years. Image shows list of the symptoms women reports during menopause. (http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.jos-health-network.150m.com/menopause1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.jos-health-network.150m.com/menopause.html&usg=__xftJ__n5SutLg1PgwvItJYZ-KV4=&h=544&w=500&sz=128&hl=en&start=1&zoom=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=GREXXR0zChQYaM:&tbnh=133&tbnw=122&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmenopause%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26tbs%3Disch:1)

Menopause also differs in different areas of the world. Hot flashes in the West, shoulder pain in Japan and loss of vision in India, are the hallmarks of menopause. Even the median age of menopause differs from country to country. The median age at menopause reported from the West (50.3 years) is higher as compared to the range of 45–47 years in developing countries.

 In some societies youthfulness is valued and menopause is viewed as negative stage in a women lives. It is considered a difficult time in a women life because during menopause women experience uncontrollable moodiness, irritability and depression whereas, some women appreciate the freedom from menstrual periods. Western women are tired of the chorus of U’s associated with menopause: unattractive, useless, ugly, undesirable, unhappy and so on. I wanted to share the following image with everyone to show you how some people view menopause in our society. (http://ihatemenopause.com/)

 In Asian countries women gain respect when they enters into their middle age. They are thought to be wiser and more experienced. In countries such as New Zealand and India menopausal women are community leaders and hold a place of honor in their communities. It is a belief held by many cultures, that life after menopause is a time of strength, courage and wisdom.

In my opinion a women should not be afraid of getting old, and menopause should be a sign of wisdom and maturity. Women should enjoy every stage of their life so we can live up to our full potential.

Reference:

Alexander, L.L., LaRosa, J.H., Badar, H., Garfield, S., Alexander, W.J., (2010). New dimensions in women’s health (5^th ed.). Boston: Jones &Bartlett

Hunt, G. Menopause Across Cultures. RagMag. Retrieved October 18, 2010, from http://ragmag.net/2009/05/menopause-across-cultures

Blog # 7 - The Silent Partner HIV in Marriage

The Silent Partner - HIV in Marriage video shows that we live in a male dominating world. Yes, this world is changing and bringing rights to women but at what cost. Male domination is not only practiced in Kenya but throughout the world. The video shows that it’s okay for men to do anything he pleases and women should obey his every decision. Women cannot even have a say in usage of contraceptive which can save her from getting infected. Just because men are providing, doesn’t mean women cannot have a say in anything. Customs and tradition has added to women pain and suffering, custom such as dowry gets men to thinking that they own women. Women are owned by their father and then when they get married there husband buys them in the name of dowry which means they are taking complete ownership of that woman. It brings me to a documentary that I saw about Female Infanticide in India. In India and most of South East Asia dowry is where bride’s father pay’s groom family as compare to dowry in Africa where groom pays bride’s family. In this documentary daughters are killed the day that they are born and, the reason is that parents cannot afford to raise the daughter and needs to pay dowry required by groom’s family. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnmtKLQRh6g. These documentaries show that women are not in power. They cannot make decision about their life and their life is been constantly handling by male. It all comes down to illiteracy among people.  Educations about usage of contraceptive early on can save lives. In sub-Saharan Africa, home to two-thirds of the world’s people living with HIV, women make up 60 percent of those infected. Places like Africa and Kenya needs special attention from their government and NGO’s they should organize a program which not only teaches women but also men about the benefit of contraceptive. Most men transmit STI’s to women and then die from it. Condoms play a key role in preventing HIV infection if these men are given proper knowledge infection rate will go down. I hope that social and economic inequalities between men and women can come to an end.

Blog # 6 - Prenatal Care

In your opinion, why should prenatal testing be routine for all pregnant women?

Prenatal care is recommended for all women who are pregnant and who are thinking of becoming pregnant. Prenatal care ensures healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby. When a woman is thinking about becoming pregnant she should consult with a doctor so she can start by having right type of vitamin, she might need some immunization and some other test. We all should adopt a healthy behavior but when you are thinking about becoming pregnant or are already pregnant you should take special care of yourself. Healthy behavior includes proper diet, physical activity and proper weight gain. Pregnant women should go for a routine checkup every month or as health care provider advice, regular prenatal checkups let you know how your baby is doing and can identity problems before hand. It’s always best to educate yourself about all the prenatal test and checkups so you know what to expect.

Prenatal care is very important it can help identify any problems that a pregnancy might have. I will give you my example; when I was pregnant I was diagnose with gestational diabetes. I was able to control my diabetes very well and the reason was I had prenatal care. Imagine if I didn’t seek prenatal care than there was no way of knowing about my gestational diabetes and I wouldn’t have any care of my diet and it would result in risking my health and my baby’s health. Due to my routine checkups and required test that is a part of prenatal care a problem can be identify and be solved within time before any major health risk.

Prenatal care can identify several different things for example health problem in mother that can affect the baby’s health, growth of baby every month such as heart rate, size, sex and, position in the uterus. It can also identify the chance that baby has certain congenital, genetic or chromosomal problems. There are several tests that are performed during each trimester. First trimester includes ultrasound test for fetal nuchal translucency and two maternal serum blood tests which can identify risk for chromosomes abnormalities.  

First trimester screening image. (http://www.chop.edu/export/system/galleries/images/hospital/conditions/first-trimester-screening-161393.gif)

Second trimester tests includes Alpha-fetoprotein screening (AFP). If the blood test is abnormal AFP can detect spina bifida, Down syndrome and other chromosomal disease.  Other test includes amniocenteses, chronic villus sampling, fetal monitoring and, glucose tolerance test.

Chorionic villus sampling (CVS) is a prenatal test that involves taking a sample of some of the placental tissue. This tissue contains the same genetic material as the fetus and can be tested for chromosomal abnormalities and some other genetic problems. Third trimester test includes Group B Streptococcus (GBS) and, abdominal and transvaginal ultrasound.

GBS is caused by the bacteria Streptococcus agalactiae. Not all babies who are exposed to the bacteria will become infected. Above Image displays Vaginal Bacteria Spreading to Fetus. For more detail information about these test visit http://www.lpch.org/DiseaseHealthInfo/HealthLibrary/pregnant/tests.html.