HealthOnTrack

Archive for April, 2012

When it comes to medical transport, we think of the red lights and sirens of the ambulance speeding down the road on the way to saving another life. However there are many implications and usages we may not realise that are involved with medical transport services. For example, the transportation of a sorely needed emergency replacement organ or a helicopter pulling a climber off a mountain for immediate treatment are all alternatives in medical transport that we may not have thought about.

Now there is a study that proves the claims medical transport companies have been making for years; emergency transport saves lives period.  Read more... (330 words, 3 images, estimated 1:19 mins reading time)

Frozen food can be a great way to store excess food and saves having to make daily trips to the store. We’re not talking about pre-packaged frozen food products in the form of frozen dinners, but rather frozen items that one would ordinarily use when cooking.

It’s quite remarkable how much food goes to waste in the UK every year. It amounts to approximately seven million tonnes at a value of about twelve billion pounds. On average just under seven hundred pounds worth of food ends up dumped in the trash, which could mostly be avoided if the right food was frozen in the right way. The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) estimates that if food waste was prevented it would be equivalent to removing one in five cars from our roads. There is a considerable amount of energy and resources, from cost of frozen distribution to milk pasteurization, which ends up being wasted when perfectly good food is left to go bad and subsequently discarded.

There are ways to save money and the environment by making sure food is frozen at the right times. Firstly one should plan meals for the week ahead. This way it avoids you having to take a trip to the shop everyday (which has other environmental consequences). The Department of Agriculture in the United States has decaled that, save for eggs and the can in which tinned foods are stored, mostly anything can be frozen.  Read more... (357 words, 1 image, estimated 1:26 mins reading time)

We hear calls for blood donations all the time. Many people don’t make the effort to perform the act, possibly because there is not a sense of directly helping someone or changing a course of events. People underestimate the value of donating blood, but the simple fact is that the benefits of one ten-minute blood donation session could save a life. That should be motivation enough. We learn about transportation of blood around the body, but what actually happens to the blood after all blood donations are made to the blood bank. Where does it go and how is it stored?

Blood donations in the UK could take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to travel around the country by medical courier. Last year UK blood donations at drives all around the country totalled approximately two million.  Read more... (313 words, 1 image, estimated 1:15 mins reading time)

As Malta turns into a hotspot of tourists, it seems to also be moving with the times and has recently opened its first biobank. The bank is the first DNA bank ever on Malta soil and it will hold an archive of DNA and blood samples of Maltese residents. Not only will this assist with future health but also opens the door to medical research on diseases, some of which are specific only to the Mediterranean.  Read more... (315 words, 1 image, estimated 1:16 mins reading time)

We’ve all been in a position where car cleaning is necessary; be you a student or you take your work on the road, the evidence will certainly present its dirty face soon enough. However, one should take just as much care with car cleaning as they would with a home or even clothing. It’s not enough to just throw those old takeaway bags and empty cans of soda out, you need to get down and dirty with a handheld vacuum or car cleaning products. Luckily we have a few tips for the unwary whom may need a helping hand; after all it’s just as important to keep your car clean for health reasons as you may need for a home since we spend a considerable amount of time in our cars after all.  Read more... (385 words, 3 images, estimated 1:32 mins reading time)

Some might say the UK has been at the forefront of health and safety awareness in recent years. Their stringent policies, from safety awareness training to the mandatory enrolment in a safety awareness course, are  implemented without fail. Employees are expected to maintain a certain level of knowledge when it comes to the protection of themselves and their colleagues.

Construction work is a field in which safety awareness is most crucial.  A comprehensive safety awareness program would certainly form part of orientation in this line of work and quality mens work shoes would be essential workwear on construction sites as workers are dealing with considerably heavy objects.  Read more... (303 words, 1 image, estimated 1:13 mins reading time)

Animals and humans share the property of creating various sounds that come about through the vibrational frequencies generated from the vocal chords. Brain processing of these sounds occurs as a response to the varying frequency changes caused by changes in vocal pitch. Determining where and how the brain starts processing these different frequencies has always been a challenge to scientists. The frequency changes are known as frequency-modulated sweeps (FM) and in order to understand behaviours relating to hearing and speech, the more we know about the behaviour of these sweeps, the better.

At the California Institute of Technology two biologists have solved the mystery of the location and manner in which brain processing functions with respect to these types of signals. A true breakthrough in acoustic technology, the findings of this research has a large impact in deciphering the meaning of words, through better understanding of FM sweeps. The dipping or rising of these sweeps most prominently affects languages where such changes can actually alter the meaning one word. Mandarin Chinese is a good example of this.  Read more... (404 words, 1 image, estimated 1:37 mins reading time)

Ear wax can be an icky tricky thing at the best of times. The general public are ignorant of its purposes to a wide degree, and often seek to clear their ears of all the residual wax to ‘clean’ it. But reaching for that cotton swab too often isn’t good for your hearing health according to medical professionals.  Read more... (261 words, 1 image, estimated 1:03 mins reading time)

It can not only be complicated, but expensive when choosing between different carpet cleaners and the solutions they offer. Do you pay yourself into a corner with professional carpet cleaners to be sure that the deed is done or can you take that personal touch yourself, save money and still do an effective job? If you’re optioning for the latter, then this is the article for you; we’re going to look at different home-made carpet cleaners and see which is the best of the bunch.

Homemade carpet shampoos can save you a lot of money and a carpet cleaner recipe is a lot easier to accomplish than most would think.  Read more... (330 words, 2 images, estimated 1:19 mins reading time)

Many individuals try to steer clear of vacuum cleaners as much as they can, normally in an attempt to avoid cleaning as opposed to having an actual fear of the object. However, for an unlucky few the vacuum cleaner poses a very real problem. Zuigerphobia is a strange phobia that is the fear of the vacuum cleaner, which is most commonly experienced by small children and pets, however cases of Zuigerphobia in teens and adults have also been reported.  Read more... (297 words, 1 image, estimated 1:11 mins reading time)