Identifying domestic abuse against women and children

Kathleen Baird and Debra Salmon outline the role of primary healthcare professionals in identifying domestic abuse against women and children.

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Do your patients understand? Determining your patients' health literacy skills.

Despite teaching endeavors, nurses are constantly faced with patients who do not understand how to manage their health-care. This problem has come to the forefront of healthcare issues. As a society, there is concern that despite medical advances, progress with healthcare may be in jeopardy because the skills needed by patients to manage their care are insufficient.
This issue is affected by many factors.

One of the most prominent factors is the lack of patient health literacy skill assessment. One of the first and most basic parts of the nursing process is to assess the patient. To teach patients, we must identify their learning needs, but the assessment cannot stop there.

Nurses need to know patients' health literacy skills so that they can teach them in the best manner possible.
This article provides specific information on health literacy assessment tools and the skills needed by nurses to use these tools. Each nurse must decide what tools will work for his or her patients, so that in the end, each patient will understand how to manage his or her healthcare.

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A Guided Tour of the Human Body

Over 18000 Digitized sections of the body and Images demonstrate introductory concepts of anatomy.

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Preparing for and responding to bioterrorist attacks: the role of disease management initiatives.

Components of disease management that are applicable to the development of services for bioterrorism preparedness and response include collaborative practice models, population identification processes, reporting/feedback loops, process and outcome measurements, patient self-management education, and evidence-based practice guidelines.

This management system should be flexible and applicable to all possible diseases associated with bioterrorism, while including specific management recommendations for each disease.There are many gaps in the US's ability to respond to a bioterrorist attack that can only be filled by collaborative research among disciplines involved with bioterrorism preparedness; namely, basic, clinical, and behavioral sciences, public health, and law. Laboratory scientists will need to develop new and improved diagnostic tests, treatments, and protective measures.

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Woundcare Assessment and principles of healing

The management of wounds has been described since ancient times, when wounds were cleaned with substances including saltwater, milk, wine and vinegar. Leaves and sand were often used to achieve control of bleeding (haemostasis) and cavities filled with sea sponges soaked in wine and vinegar.

The Second World War brought huge advances in wound management, with antibiotics such as penicillin becoming widely available. But it was not until the 1960s that the concept of moist wound healing was developed, and it was the 1980s before it was implemented

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