Shortness of breath and difficulty breathing are common symptoms for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). When someone is regularly having trouble breathing, it’s easy to understand why COPD and anxiety often go hand in hand.
Patients and families often ask, “what is end-stage liver disease?” It’s a good question given that end-stage liver disease is a term that covers an array of different conditions that affect the liver. This includes nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, liver cancer, alcohol-related liver disease, hepatitis B or C and other illnesses, infections, and diseases that affect the liver and bile ducts. When a patient’s liver disease reaches cirrhosis, a stage when the liver damage can no longer be reversed, it becomes a terminal diagnosis.
As the nation’s healthcare system moves from volume- to value-based care and increased engagement with patients, there is a new emphasis on patient-centered care. Healthcare providers are beginning to see their patients less as a medical diagnosis and more as an individual person with a life and needs beyond a diagnostic billing code.
The American Case Management Association states that “the goal of case management is to maintain optimal patient health status across the continuum of care in a manner that emphasizes both individual control over decisions and stewardship of resources regardless of provider.”
In a book full of determination and inspiration, perhaps the most inspiring thing is that Susan Spencer-Wendel’s memoir Until I Say Goodbye exists at all. Diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) at age 44, she typed out the book letter by letter with her right thumb, her only finger still able to type.
For the first time in U.S. history, a person is more likely to die from an accidental overdose than a motor vehicle crash. That is the chilling analysis of the National Safety Council as deaths from drug overdoses climbed above 70,000 in 2017 – more than all the Americans who died in the Vietnam War.
