Heart and blood

ATHEROSCLEROSIS AND ITS TREATMENT

Atherosclerosis is one of the diseases of the cardiovascular system which is due to many causes. There is a number of factors which may determine its development.

Atherosclerosis of the blood vessels results from metabolic disturbances and particularly from disturbances of cholesterol exchange. These disturbances begin long before there is any external evidence of the disease. Therefore the doctor must prevent its appearance beginning preventive measures and treatment as early as possible.
Prevention and treatment of atherosclerosis consist mainly of a certain regimen for the patient, which he must strictly follow. The patient must get up, eat, work, and go to bed at exactly the same time every day.
Sound sleep is very important since it enables the nerve cells to rest. The patient with the signs of atherosclerosis must sleep not less than 7-8 hours and walk before going to bed. Mental and physical overstrain must be excluded.
The incidence of atherosclerosis is high in professional groups with insufficient physical activities. So physical exercises must be part of the prescribed regimen for such persons.
Smoking affects unfavourably the walls of the blood vessels and can result in their spasm, that is why patients suffering from atherosclerosis must not smoke.
The diet of the patients with atherosclerosis must contain sufficient amount of proteins, but fats and carbohydrates must be taken in very limited doses.
Vitamins are widely used in the treatment of atherosclerosis because some of them improve the metabolic processes and others dilate the vessels, particularly the peripheral ones.


Work of an In – Patient Department

When patients are admitted to the hospital they are received by a nurse on duty at the reception ward first of all.

Those patients who are to be hospitalized have already received the direction from the polyclinic. The nurse on duty fills in patient’s case histories in which she writes down their names, age, place of work, occupation, address and the initial diagnosis made by a doctor at the polyclinic.
Then a doctor on duty examines the hospitalized patients and gives his instructions to what department and wards the patients are to be admitted.
At the in-patient departments of a hospital life begins early in the morning. The nurses on duty take the patient’s temperature, give them intramuscular and intravenous injections, take stomach juice for analysis, apply cups and give all the prescribed remedies in the doses indicated by the ward doctors.
The nurses keep all the drugs in special drug cabinets. All the drugs have special labels. The names of drugs are indicated on them. Patients some drugs are poisonous, the over dosage of some other drugs may cause unfavourable reactions and even death.
At about nine o’clock in the morning the doctors begin the daily rounds of the wards during which they examine all the patients. After the medical examination the doctors administer the patients different procedures. Some patients are ordered to be taken electrocardiograms, or made laboratory analyses of the blood and urine.