From: Spudboy100@aol.com
Date: Wed Mar 05 2003 - 23:17:51 MST
Mike Lorrey shared:
<<She spent over a month in the ICU, all of it sedated and with her
incision wide open due to swelling preventing it from being sewed shut.
She has been in the Vascular Surgery ward under 24 hour nursing care
for the last month and is concious, but with a tracheotomy, a tube
through the nose and four into her abdomen for draining fluid while she
continues to heal.
I am frankly quite shocked that surgeons today are still relying on
plain old sutures to close abdominal incisions>>.
Indeed! What seems to be needed is advances in tissue engineering.
Interestingly enough, there is a short article in the 3-5-2003 in Yahoo,
Health, wednesday which is an attempt to use stem cells to accomplish this.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=571&ncid=751&e=1as been in the Vascular Surgery ward under 24 hour nursing care
u=/nm/20030305/hl_nm/stemcell_transplant_dc
By Keith Mulvihill NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Michigan doctors are hoping
that their first-of-a-kind stem cell treatment will help a teenage boy regain
lost heart tissue after he was shot in the heart by a nail gun and
subsequently suffered a massive heart attack.
The experimental procedure used stem cells harvested from the boy's own
blood, which were later infused into the damaged portion of his heart via a
catheter. A team of doctors gathered Wednesday and announced the preliminary
results of the procedure at a news conference at Beaumont Hospital in Royal
Oak. In the stem cell procedure, which was performed February 21, the boy was
initially given a drug that helps stimulate the production of stem cells in
the blood. Stem cells were then harvested and concentrated from the boy's
blood and the solution was infused directly into the damaged artery,
explained Dr. Steven Timmis, one of the cardiologists overseeing the boy's
care. The aim of the procedure is to stimulate blood vessel and heart muscle
growth in areas of the heart without sufficient blood supply, Timmis said in
a telephone interview. Stem cells are so-called master cells that can develop
into various tissues in the body and using them to repair damaged hearts is a
hot area of medical research. People who survive a major attack are often
left with damaged heart muscle, which reduces the heart's pumping capacity
and can result in progressive heart failure. >>
This above needs to work, or something like it!
<<I recall a bit from a Niven story (I think called "Veil of Anarchy")
about a fellow who had a digital watch implanted beneath his skin >>
Funny, what item I remember best about that novella, was the naked redhead
female, wearing the long floating black cape. :-)
<<Lastly, I am perturbed at what is considered acceptable nursing care
today. She is at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, which is
considered a top notch facility, and the neglect and bad attitude of
many of the nurses has annoyed us to no end. I pity those who have to
stay at lower quality institutions. As Doctor MacCoy would say, "This
is barbaric!">>
This is where robots would come in handy, for all aspects of living, coping,
and recovery. I bet its technically doable, now the economics?
Mitch
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