When springtime comes, it's surely a warmly welcomed season for most people, sick and tired of snow and rain during the winter. But there is a certain group of people, who just wish this time would never come. No, we aren't talking about goths or emo. Allergy sufferers have a very hard time when all the flowers and plants start blooming giving much more problems to deal with. These are the typical symptoms of an allergy:
1. Itch in the eyes
2. Runny nose
3. Sinus pressure
4. Sneezing
5. Headaches
What is the main reason behind allergies?
The most wide spread of all allergies observed in people is the so-called hay fever. This sort of illness is caused by such allergens as grass, pollen and ragweed.
Meanwhile, there are other allergies that are not affected by seasonal changes, these include allergies to foods, dust or pets.
Is there any specific age for allergies?
To much surprise, allergies can break out in any age. And even if you have been free of this condition in your teens and early adulthood, there's still a chance to suffer from it later on. In reality, allergies go the both ways - a child can outgrow them, but a senior can develop it later in life.
How to cope with allergies?
In case you well aware of your allergy or think that your annual springtime sickness might be a form of allergy it's best to discuss it with your physician. Only a professional can competently analyze your symptoms and come up with an effective treatment for your condition. Antihistamines and decongestants are the most typical medications doctors prescribe for treating allergies. The first type is well known for causing sleepiness with patients, but there are many newer drugs that treat allergies without such side-effects.
Besides taking drugs, you might want to follow these tips that will help you minimize contact with sickening allergens:
* Mowing a fresh loan might be not a very bright idea if you are allergic to grass.
* Keep your clothes and hair clean when walking outside. Pollen may stick to it and get into your home.
* Pollen usually counts soar in the morning and evening, so it's better to go out during the daytime.
* Close your windows and keep the air conditions in order to keep the pollen out of your home.
Is there any cheap medical insurance that will pay for my treatment?
In most cases, insurance companies pay for treating allergic diseases with their policyholders. However, it is recommended that you first check your policy or consult with your agent to make sure your cheap health insurance plan provides such a coverage. The main aspect here is to stick to your insurance company's guidelines. For example, in case you are with an HMO, before you go to an allergist, you'll have to acquire a referral from your primary healthcare provider.
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How to deal with allergies and insurance?
Health plans for college teens
When fresh high school graduates hit their prom ball, most of them probably has a very good idea about where to go next. But do you have any idea about insuring your new student's health when he or she leaves to college?
In most cases, teenagers younger than 24 years old are covered by their parent's medical insurance policy. But if your or your spouse's plan doesn't cover college student, it's time to see what the education facility your teen is heading to has to offer in terms of insurance. The basics of college insurance plans
In some colleges insurance policies are partially or fully payed by the facility, which undoubtedly will save parents a lot of money. However, the benefits vary substantially from one college to another, so it's recommended that you study the offers thoroughly after selecting a college. Local insurance companies
tend to collaborate with college committees in order to design specific insurance packages for the present college student market.
Signing with a college insurance plans usually offers free doctor's office visits and annual check ups, however any additional tests, examinations, treatments and prescriptions will have to be paid for. Additional services that may be included as free include maternity care, AIDS/STD tests, cholesterol checks and other activities. The amount of premiums and selection of bonuses vary substantially between colleges, in most cases due to state regulations.
Out-of-network issues
The primary concern for parents with their kids going to college is how the teen will be covered by the family insurance plan (if choosing to stay with it) and how the doctors will respond when he or she goes out-of-state. If you have an HMO plan, it requires special referrals for visiting doctors and other healthcare specialists out of your network. PPOs simply pay less when a person visits out-of-network specialists. In case the teen is leaving for a college that is out of your state, and you don't want him or her to hassle with domestic doctor referrals, getting prompt medical attention, going with what the college has to offer insurance-wise is the most rational decision for you.
Points to think of when deciding on a college insurance plan
There is a set of factors to think about when selecting a cheap health insurance plan that may save you time and money in the future if evaluated correctly. Here are the main ones:
* Find out of there are any restrictions concerning providers that a student can apply to.
* Learn if there is any coverage during the vacation periods.
* See if there is any health coverage during the summer or winter breaks for the student.
* Get to know if there is an easy access to treatment facilities at the college.
* Investigate what services are offered free of charge or at a reduced price at the campus clinic.
Avoid the coverage from lapsing
Lapsing health insurance when your teen already has a pre-existing condition is likely to cause issues later on. HIPAA imposes that any pre-existing medical conditions can be covered as exclusions in not more 12 months after enrollment. But in case the qualifying coverage is kept without lapsing of 63 days, the insurance company has to take out the length of coverage from the period of exclusion. For example, a 4-month exclusion will result from a 8-month prior coverage, however there won't be no exclusion period for 18-year coverage. This way it is very important to keep continuous coverage for all medical conditions, regardless whether you buy cheap health insurance at the college or renew your present policy.
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High Cholesterol?
What’s the big deal about blood cholesterol anyway? Is your cholesterol high, low, middling, whatever? Well, the fact of the matter is that if you have high cholesterol you could be well on your way to a heart attack or stroke so that’s reason enough to start worrying about it. Is your cholesterol high? Let’s look at what could contribute to high blood cholesterol. It could be all that weight you’re carrying around, it could be all that junk food you’re downing everyday, it could be the lazy, laid-back life you love which thinks of exercise and shudders. It could be your cholesterol is high due to stress - at home, at work, maybe even at play. And for women over 50 with high cholesterol, it could just be the fact that they are over 50. You might just say, ‘So what if my cholesterol’s high? Well, if your cholesterol’s high, you need to know this. We all have good cholesterol HDLs or high density lipoproteins and bad cholesterol LDLs or low density lipoproteins. HDLs are the transporters - they carry the excess cholesterol to the liver to be broken down. LDLs, however, can cause a build-up of plaque in the arteries. If high cholesterol symptoms are left untended, it can give you a rather rude wake-up call, i.e. a heart attack
The trouble is the problem sneaks up on you so quietly, and very often high cholesterol shows no warning signs and you don’t really know about it till it explodes. That’s why it’s important to have your self checked for symptoms of high cholesterol and to check that your LDL levels are below100 mg/dL and your HDL levels are over 40 mg/dL. The National Cholesterol Education Program was launched by The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) in 1985 to reduce the percentage of Americans who have cholesterol higher than what it should be through educational campaigns run by professionals. What ways are there to treat high cholesterol, or better still, prevent it? Well, exercising, giving up smoking and controlling your weight are great ways to begin. You could also look at a low cholesterol diet (for high cholesterol) and at what Nature has to offer. One natural remedy that packs quite a punch is garlic. All you need to do is to pop a clove in your mouth and chew first thing every morning - it’s a great LDL-fighter. If you just can’t do it, then chop it up and swallow it down with water. If even that’s too much, try taking garlic supplements in capsule form. Mitamins‘ Natural Remedy for High Cholesterol contains garlic extract amongst other vitamins, herbs and minerals thought to reduce bad cholesterol. Fish oil or Omega-3 is a great natural remedy for the treatment and prevention of high cholesterol too. Participants in a study who took a daily fish oil supplement actually had a 40% lower chance of sudden heart-related deaths than non-fish-oil takers. That’s probably why Eskimos hardly suffer from high cholesterol. Also good are oat bran, red rice and avocado. A 1000mg Vitamin C tablet a day is also supposed to help when cholesterol is high. The trick is to measure cholesterol levels at least once every five years and to get what is called a ‘lipoprotein profile’. Is your cholesterol high? Managing cholesterol levels and making sure they are not high is in your hands so do the best you can for your health.
Author Bio: Mitamins team bd@mitamins.net Targeted: High Cholesterol; Safety: Avoid Vitamins Overdose, Supplement Drug Interactions; Quality: Freshly Made with Brand Ingredients. vitamin support for high cholesterol treatment(http://www.mitamins.com/disease/High-Cholesterol.html)
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Broccoli sprouts offer protection
A concentrated extract of freeze dried broccoli sprouts cut development of bladder tumours in an animal model by more than half, according to a report in the March 1 issue of Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. This finding reinforces human epidemiologic studies that have suggested that eating cruciferous vegetables like broccoli is associated with reduced risk for bladder cancer, according to the study's senior investigator, Yuesheng Zhang, MD, PhD, professor of oncology at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. "Although this is an animal study, it provides potent evidence that eating vegetables is beneficial in bladder cancer prevention," he said. There is strong evidence that the protective action of cruciferous vegetables derives at least in part from isothyiocyanates (ITCs), a group of phytochemicals with well-known cancer preventive activities."The bladder is particularly responsive to this grou
p of natural chemicals," Zhang said. "In our experiments, the broccoli sprout ITCs after oral administration were selectively delivered to the bladder tissues through urinary excretion." Other cruciferous vegetables with ITCs include mature broccoli, cabbage, kale, collard greens and others. Broccoli sprouts have approximately 30 times more ITCs than mature broccoli, and the sprout extract used by the researchers contains approximately 600 times as much. Although animals that had the most protection against development of bladder cancer were given high doses of the extract, Zhang said humans at increased risk for this cancer likely do not need to eat huge amounts of broccoli sprouts in order to derive protective benefits. "Epidemiologic studies have shown that dietary ITCs and cruciferous vegetable intake are inversely associated with bladder cancer risk in humans. It is possible that ITC doses much lower than those given to the rats in this study may be adequate for bladder cancer prevention," he said. Zhang and his colleagues tested the ability of the concentrate to prevent bladder tumours in five groups of rats. The first group acted as a control, while the second group was given only the broccoli extract to test for safety. The remaining three groups were given a chemical, N-butyl-N-(4-hydroxybutyl) nitrosamine (BBN) in drinking water, which induces bladder cancer. Two of these groups were given the broccoli extract in diet, beginning two weeks before the carcinogenic chemical was delivered. In the control group and the group given only the extract, no tumours developed, and there was no toxicity from the extract in the rats. About 96 percent of animals given only BBN developed an average of almost two tumours each of varying sizes. By comparison, about 74 percent of animals given a low dose of the extract developed cancer, and the number of tumours per rat was 1.39. The group given the high dose of extract had even fewer tumours. About 38 percent of this high-dose group developed cancer, and the average number of tumours per animal was only .46 and, unlike the other animals, the majority were very small in size.
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Trends in school counseling journals: the first fifty years
The school counseling profession has published three journals in the course of its history. All articles in these journals were coded as to authorship, article type, content, and the core areas of the 2001 Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) Standards. Distributions of articles in each category are discussed by decade, and the three journals are compared. Implications of the findings are discussed
The first known school guidance program in the United States dates to 1889, when a Detroit school principal, Jesse B. Davis, introduced a guidance curriculum that was delivered in each English class in his school (Coy, 1999). In response to the industrialization and urbanization that was taking place in the country, the first decade of the 20th century saw increased concern for vocational guidance (Aubrey, 1992). Between 1914 and 1918, school guidance programs were initiated in several large cities around the United States (Poppen & Thompson, 1974). While vocational guidance came to include educational or academic guidance in the 1930s, counseling was originally conceived of as a tool or technique to assist in the guidance program (Aubrey).
It was not until the middle of the 20th century that the field of school counseling attained the status of a profession. That milestone is marked by the formation of a professional organization, the American School Counselor Association (ASCA), in 1952. As ASCA is celebrating its 50th anniversary, now is an appropriate time to reflect on "where it has been, where it is now, and where it is going" (Brown, 1969). ASCA was formed at close to the same time as the American Personnel and Guidance Association, forerunner of the American Counseling Association (ACA). APGA was inaugurated and became the fifth division to formally join the larger organization in 1953. This alliance was an important one, as "ASCA and ACA sort of grew together" (McDaniels, quoted in Simmons, 2002a). The ACA is also celebrating its 50th anniversary, and the significant contribution of ASCA to the broader field has been noted.
The importance of school counseling was reflected in the movement by states to develop and implement counseling certification standards. The first certificate (Pupil Personnel Service Certificate, Guidance and Counseling) was issued in Ohio in 1955 (Coy, 1999). The newly legitimized profession of school guidance and counseling received a boost from Title V of the National Defense Education Act (NDEA), which was passed in 1958 in reaction to the launching of Sputnik by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. This act provided funding for expanding school testing programs and for training institutes for school counselors, both novice and experienced (Poppen & Thompson, 1974). The effect was an increase in the number of school counselors from 6,780 in 1951 to more than 30,000 in 1965 (Aubrey, 1992). Further support for expanded school guidance and counseling came from the James B. Conant report on American education, published in 1959 (Poppen & Thompson). In 1960, a White House Conference on Children and Youth also stressed the need for school counseling programs. The 1960s saw national upheaval concerning the issues of human and civil rights, which was a factor in the APGA national convention in 1968 (Simmons, 2002b). In the 1970s, Title III of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act provided funding for elementary school guidance and counseling programs.
The present focus on developmental guidance and counseling in the schools can be traced to the influence of Robert Mathewson, who, as early as 1949, proposed that the school guidance program should be organized and implemented in a developmental fashion. He argued that teachers alone could not provide the necessary experiences required for optimal development of students, and he saw guidance programs as the most critical educational factor in enhancing student development (Aubrey, 1992).
A profession's journals can be viewed as a reflection of the history of the profession. Goodyear (1984), on the occasion of the publication of the inaugural issue of the newly titled Journal of Counseling and Development, reviewed the content of the previous journal (Personnel and Guidance Journal) as a means of evaluating the development of the profession to that point. At various times in the journal's history, other authors have examined the journal as a tool for self-reflection. Weinrach, Lustig, Chan, and Thomas (1998) commented that, "Studies such as these need to be conducted periodically to provide the profession with information about itself" (p. 428).
In 1954, the first journal dedicated exclusively to the school counseling profession, The School Counselor, was published by ASCA. In 1967, a second periodical, Elementary School Guidance and Counseling, was added. In 1997, the two journals were merged, and the flagship journal of the organization, Professional School Counseling, was introduced. As individuals reflect on 50 years of professional school counseling, an analysis of the journals provides a unique perspective from which to review its development. Although other researchers have considered a portion of the school counseling literature, this analysis is unique in that it covers the entire history of all of the school counseling journals.
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Mental health issues
This issue focuses largely on mental health issues. Five of the articles deal directly or indirectly with children's mental health matters in the context of Medicaid. This overview compares and discusses the findings of these articles in some detail before briefly outlining the remaining articles on more specialized topics.
The President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health issued its final report in July 2003, setting forth a number of key goals and findings. Among those particularly relevant to matters discussed in this issue is Goal 1, which emphasized, "Mental health is essential to overall health ...," and Goal 3, that disparities in mental health services [specifically, the underserving of minority populations] should be eliminated. In 2004, SAMSHA expects to issue its action agenda for implementing the Commission's recommendations. A key part of that agenda will be the conduct of research to understand disparities in mental health treatment and provide a basis for their elimination. The first three articles in this issue contain findings that underscore the continued existence of the disparities noted by the Commission, and, to some extent, particularize those disparities--information that can be helpful in addressing this critical problem.
Children's Mental Health Services under Medicaid
The article by Larson, Miller, Sharma, and Manderscheid examines data on service use and payments for children in racial/ethnic subgroups in Medicaid Programs of four States, and compares the service use of children treated for mental health/substance abuse conditions with those without such conditions. The authors note previous findings that mental health problems among children and adolescents affect about 10 to 20 percent of children age 9-13, and that treatment rates appear to be increasing. Most importantly, they note that previous evidence suggests that the overall rate of diagnosable mental health/ substance abuse disorders is comparable across racial and ethnic groups. In this article, the authors present updated analyses of Medicaid data that predate many State health care reform initiatives in order to provide baseline data for the analysis of reforms. The Larson et al. study resulted in a number of complex findings concerning demographic differences in treatment rates and types of conditions treated for various groups. Particularly striking are the findings that: nearly all diagnoses are more common among Medicaid recipients who are white; mental health/substance abuse diagnoses among white claimants are over two times the rate of diagnoses of children in other racial or ethnic groups combined; and major depression, bipolar disorders, and other psychoses are nearly three times more common among white child/adolescent claimants than youth in other race/ethnicity groups. Not surprisingly, similar findings of concern related to disparities in the actual use of mental health/substance abuse services, such as physician services and inpatient hospital care. Their article closes with some helpful suggestions as to approaches to address disparities in diagnosis and treatment of mental health/substance abuse disorders, noting that, ultimately, public insurance programs such as Medicaid "... must use multiple points of leverage to increase access, address stigma and misperceptions of care, and influence the quality of care delivered."
The article by Saunders and Heflinger examines the effects of introducing Medicaid managed care into a previously fee-for-service (FFS) environment on children and adolescents' access to behavioral health care services, and on the mix of such services that will be available. It does this by comparing access and service mix in Mississippi (FFS) and Tennessee (managed care). It also examines access and service mix in these States based on race, sex, age, and Medicaid enrollment category. The study found, among other things, that although each State experienced positive annual growth in behavioral health service access (with the exception of Tennessee's overnight services), female and minority youth were less likely to access behavioral health services, both overall and by type of service. The authors comment that their logistic regressions "... offer evidence that managed care not only reduces access to behavioral services overall and both access to and mix of inpatient services ..., but it also may lead to reductions in specialty outpatient services as well." In the Medicaid categories, the authors report "... a consistent pattern of lower access to behavioral health services among poverty-related youth and greater access of foster care youth relative to youth on supplemental security income."
On the other hand, the authors state: "Nevertheless, the news [coming from this study] is not all bad for managed care ..." explaining that Tennessee experienced significant positive increases in case management services. This suggests that the problem of reduced access to mental health service providers is offset by increased use of the services of case managers.
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Lembur lagee....
hari ini pertama puasa 1430 H, huaamm., capek juga sehh., tapi harus tetap semangatt... SMANGATTTT!!!!!!!!! bangun pagi masih juga kebawa ngantuk, pas liat makanan yang masih terpajang didapur jadi ngiler,, he..
Jam 07.30 >> harus berangkat ngantor, sekarang jadwal lembur pagi, malezzznya minta ampun, masa harus masuk jam 8 pagi trus pulangnya jam 8 malam., tar buka puasa sendiri dunk di kantor,
Emmaaakkkk, Nikahin anakmoe ini secepatnyaaaaa,, gak sanggup lage nehhh sendiriannnn....
:)
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