Have you noticed a decline in your sleep quality? Are you frequently waking up during the night and struggling to fall back asleep? Don't worry, you're not alone. Sleep fragmentation, a natural part of aging, can disrupt your sleep patterns. However, if it consistently reduces your sleep duration or prevents you from feeling refreshed upon waking, it's crucial to identify the underlying causes and seek appropriate treatment.
Sleep plays a vital role in restoring and rejuvenating the body. During sleep, the brain flushes out toxins, muscles repair, memories consolidate, and hormones are released. Insufficient or fragmented sleep over time can lead to concentration and mood impairments, as well as an increased risk of obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, stroke, cognitive decline, premature death, and possibly glaucoma.
Numerous factors can interrupt your sleep, and it's possible to have multiple disruptors exacerbating the issue. Here are some common examples:
1. Electronics: While electronic devices bring convenience to our lives, the blue light emitted from smartphone screens can hinder falling asleep. Similarly, noise from TV shows, music playlists, or podcasts playing overnight can disrupt your slumber.
2. Bed Partners: Snoring or restless movements from a bed partner, as well as pets or children climbing into bed, can disturb your sleep, especially if they encroach on your sleeping space.
3. Food or Alcohol: Consuming caffeine-containing items like chocolate, tea, or coffee later in the day can make it challenging to stay asleep. Late-night snacks may taste good initially, but they can cause heartburn and acid reflux during the night. Additionally, alcohol may help you fall asleep initially but can lead to sleep fragmentation as it wears off.
4. Underlying Conditions: Various health conditions, such as sleep apnea, chronic pain, neuropathy, hot flashes, stress, anxiety, depression, frequent nighttime bathroom trips, or tinnitus, can prevent you from sleeping through the night.
5. Medications: Certain medications meant to alleviate health issues can interfere with sleep. Examples include some antidepressants, steroids, beta blockers for high blood pressure, and drugs used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
6. Sleeping Environment: Uncomfortable beds, excessive room temperature, and light seeping through windows can all disrupt your sleep.
This two-piece outfit, known as an "iro and buba," also includes a free-size long-sleeve blouse that may be worn in a variety of ways. The Igbo style is achieved by tying the two wrappers together, but the Yoruba style is achieved by wearing one wrapper. To make my outfit stand out, I also wore high-heeled sandals.
Remote monitoring and virtual visits are both practical and affordable approaches to improve cardiovascular care.
During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, seeing and conversing with a doctor via smartphone, tablet, or computer while at home became the norm. The number of in-person medical consultations has increased during the last year or so. A scientific statement from the American Heart Association (AHA) that was published on December 20, 2022, in Circulation states that video visits and other telehealth methods can still be a good alternative for treating people with heart disease.
What we're seeing now is an increase in blended care that includes a combination of in-person and virtual visits. The hybrid model has been most successful for health care institutions that have built the infrastructure to incorporate virtual health care into their operations. According to her, it's critical for physicians and patients to pay attention to each person's unique needs, preferences, and level of comfort with various forms of care.
Telehealth in its various forms
There are three ways to deliver telehealth:
Synchronous communication between the patient and the doctor over the phone or another device with an Internet connection.
asynchronous—when information is transmitted between doctors and patients but not in real time, akin to e-mail monitoring—when data like weight, blood pressure, or a basic electrocardiogram (ECG) are delivered to the clinician by wirelessly connected equipment.
Most medical offices already had Internet-based portals that consumers used to schedule appointments and get test results before the outbreak. These portals frequently act as the entry point for synchronous visits, which are perfect for a lot of the care patients who have or are at risk for heart disease need.
For instance, doctors frequently discuss any lifestyle or medication modifications you may make to better manage your illness after reviewing information from various measurements or tests you've performed at home, such as weight, blood pressure, and blood sugar readings, or from a lab (a cholesterol test). According to the AHA statement, numerous studies have demonstrated that telemedicine therapy can significantly reduce blood pressure and other heart-related risk factors.
Currently, frequent communication between physicians and patients frequently comes from the medical office and frequently consists of reminders or surveys concerning screenings or testing. However, there would be more time for conversation if information was sent through a portal before a virtual visit.
In today's world of social media, it's not uncommon to come across medical advice that lacks scientific evidence. One such trend gaining attention is mouth taping to address snoring. However, while conscious nose breathing during the day can have its benefits, such as regulating breathing, filtering allergens, and reducing anxiety, using tape to maintain nasal breathing during sleep can pose risks. It may lead to difficulty in breathing, disrupted sleep, or skin irritation. Surprisingly, there is no scientific research supporting this practice, and in some instances, it may even lower oxygen levels during sleep.
Because I didn't have any skin problems, I remember being confused as I walked through a store looking for products to add to what I already used for my skin. I wanted something very affordable, so I looked for a product that I could use both morning and night. When I came across Osiris Avise recovery oil, I decided to give it a try. This is what I have to say about this product.
1. The pricing is reasonable given what the item does.
2. The product is a good one to own because you can use it with makeup and it gives your skin a brightly shining, moisturised appearance.
3. It also somewhat lightened my skin tone and became my go-to skin care item, especially on lazy days.
4. According to what is written on the product, it heals scars. I have a scar on my face, but I didn't keep note of whether or not it improved my appearance, so I can't speak to that. However, it definitely enhanced the appearance of my skin and made it smoother.
You probably browse around to compare prices before paying for a service, like a house repair or a plane ticket, for example. But because of the way our healthcare system is set up, you can't do that for medical services. Until the bill comes, you frequently don't even know how much your health insurance will cover or how much is your obligation.
The new federal Transparency in Coverage rule, which goes into effect in January 2021, aims to address this issue. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued the rule, which requires hospitals to: (1) publish the prices for every good and service they provide; and (2) create a user-friendly interface so that patients can estimate their expected costs for common tests and procedures.
Clear and varying prices
Clarifying the true costs related to diagnosis and treatment makes sense because cardiovascular disease is the most costly chronic disease for the American health care system. To achieve that goal, researchers at the Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center's Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Center for Outcomes Research made use of information made accessible by the new transparency rule. They were able to compare costs for six common heart tests and operations by browsing the websites of 20 of the best hospitals in the United States. These costs are the outcome of discussions between an insurance provider and a hospital or healthcare organization. Wide price disparities were uncovered by their research, which was published in the September 2022 issue of JAMA Internal Medicine.
According to lead author Dr. Rishi Wadhera, "The variation in prices for identical cardiovascular tests and procedures across different hospitals was, quite frankly, stunning." There was a 10-fold variation in the median cost of an echocardiogram (a cardiac ultrasound) between institutions. Prices varied even further for procedures like pacemaker implantation and percutaneous coronary interventions, which include minimally invasive techniques like stent placement to unblock blocked heart arteries.
Depending on which commercial insurance company a patient had, there were significant price variations within the same hospital. According to Dr. Wadhera, the cost of a stress test varies fivefold in one facility.