For people of all ages, the everyday stress of life often leads to the sacrifice of one of the most important aspects of human health: sleep. Most adults need between seven and nine hours of sleep each night, but on average, many adults receive seven hours or less. The number is even worse for college students, with six hours being the average amount of sleep that students are getting on a good night.
Blanchard Valley Health System is prohibiting cloth masks in all facilities and locations. BVHS will require patients and visitors to wear a surgical or an N-95 mask, which will be provided upon entry.
Targeting is defined by the dictionary as a means of selecting an object of attention or attack. Targeting is a marketing tool that identifies a target audience and directly advertises products to them through various channels. For example, a company could target reruns of The Golden Girls or The Mary Tyler Moore Show for products such as Medicare or AARP designed for an older audience. Those versed in online video games may recognize targeting as a strategy where one player continuously attacks the same person during the contest.
In 1817, James Parkinson published a paper titled, An Essay on the Shaking Palsy, that described his observations of abnormal movements in some individuals. Dr. Parkinson was an English surgeon who was better known in his day as a geologist and paleontologist. In 1804, he published a book on fossils titled, Organic Remains of a Former World. He wrote more books on fossils than he did on medicine. At that time in England, physicians were available to the wealthy and he broke this mold by writing numerous pamphlets on how to improve your health and seeing patients who could not pay.
When it comes to COVID-19 immunity, one of the issues people consider is whether to get a vaccine or acquire natural immunity through having an active COVID-19 infection. That means getting the virus rather than the vaccine shot.
The problem with natural immunity is having an active infection that is not benign. More than 800,000 Americans have died of COVID-19 in addition to multiple hospitalizations and quarantines. Of increasing concern is the “long COVID-19” problem of continued symptoms beyond one month. Fatigue, shortness of breath, chest discomfort, cough and combinations of those symptoms can persist over 50 percent of the time. In addition, physical symptoms of joint pain, headache, taste and smell are not uncommon. That does not include psychological, mental, memory issues of “foggy thinking,” poor concentration and anxiety/depression. A majority have noted a reduction in their quality of life.
A New York Times reporter in August of 2020 coined the term twindemic to describe the concern for an increase in both flu (influenza) and COVID-19 during the winter months of 2020. The good news is that a twindemic never occurred in 2020 but the word stuck. Twindemic is a portmanteau word. A portmanteau is when words are blended together to form a new meaning. The words are not combined together like starfish but rather are a mash of words. The word smog is a portmanteau mash up of smoke and fog that has become part of our vernacular.
