Coughs can be discomforting and annoying if it persists for a long period of time. A cough which does not produce any kind of mucous is known as a dry cough or an unproductive cough. Usually it is a natural reflex process of the body to expel a foreign object from within. Nevertheless, there are many causes which can cause nagging coughs.

What Are The Basic Causes?

There may be many reasons for a persistent cough and so it is important to consult a doctor if it lasts for more than a week. Many factors can trigger a dry cough ranging from a simple allergy to a respiratory infection. Below mentioned are some of the common causes of such coughs.

Allergies: Although allergies are often associated with rashes, watery eyes and sneezing, most of the people also develop unproductive coughs. This is often caused due to post-nasal drainage that leads to persistent coughing.

Viral infections: Dry cough can also be caused at the beginning of a viral infection. Gradually the cough becomes productive accompanied with other symptoms such as fever, headache and body ache. It is important to consult a physician immediately.

Asthma: People suffering from asthma often experience chronic unproductive coughs accompanied with shortness of breath, wheezing and tightness of the chest. Sometimes, people experience just a persistent cough without mucous. However, a good physician can detect asthma symptoms through effective medical tests.

Climatic conditions: Dry cough can also be caused due to changing climatic conditions. Moisture in the air or low humidity can cause irritation in the throat due to the drying of mucous membranes.

Medicines: Intake of certain medicines can also cause persistent coughs. Some of the blood-pressure medications have certain side-effects and unproductive coughs may be one among them.

Diseases: Unproductive coughs can also be a sign of some diseases such as lung cancer, tuberculosis or pneumonia. But mostly, it is often accompanied with other symptoms such as shortness of breath, fatigue, pain, weight loss and lack of appetite.

Smoking: Dry cough is often experienced by people who smoke cigarettes. People exposed to air pollution also suffer from persistent coughs.

Gastroesophageal Reflex Disease (GERD): Another cause for a dry cough may be due to the disease known as GERD or the acid reflex. The acid from the stomach slowly seeps into the esophagus while a person sleeps flat. This can trigger the trachea and cause irritation.

What Are Its Effective Cures?

If the cough persists for more than a week, it is prudent to visit a doctor. Today there are many medications to cure different types of coughs. But proper diagnosis is necessary to understand its causes.

There are many effective home-remedies to cure persistent coughs. A combination of honey and turmeric is one of the most effective remedies that help to cure coughs and allergies. Ginger is another effective remedy that helps to cure dry cough that occurs during the night.

Besides home remedies, different types of cough formulas are also available that can alleviate these symptoms. Today there are various ayurvedic medicines that are quite effective in suppressing coughs.

Compliance and risk-management in social services is not a tick-box procedure however, it is the bottom line in service users care. The social service staff has as much responsibility as the organisation to maintain standards within budgets. It is been well noted that social services is facing unprecedented change, focusing on four structures which are: planned; unplanned; safeguarding and procurements. This is certainly the case with the “Birmingham County Council” (May 2011) who was summon to the Court to determine the eligibility criteria matrix (DH 2002) for care needs assessment (within critical level of needs) and it lost the case on technicalities. The decision of the court was that Birmingham County Council did not consult its intentions widely to all the stakeholders.

The Court’s decision has halted drastic changes that most social services would have wished to pursue in recent times. However, the intended changes may have resulted in many challenges but, also opportunities for efficiency. One critical task is to standardise compliance to governance and risk-management requirements across the new structures and streamline the organisation’s activities. In health and social care, compliance is not just a process of ticking the right boxes and this is the difference between services to people who can make contributions towards their well-being and tragedy. Care giving has to be tailored to individual needs irrespective where the service is delivered (in the primary or secondary sector) while compliance is imperative.

Monitoring services has taken on even greater resonance with the “Care Quality Commission’s” new authority to sanction and even close down services if concerns of significant risk to service users are identified. The Commission can and does turn up unannounced at any service within an NHS trust or a care home and question staff, patients and service users about key areas within the standards of quality and safety, as set out by the legislation (DH 2000, 2005). The task of ensuring our enlarged workforce and all the services provided within the NHS and social service organisations should comply with the standards. In the present time, the standards are further complicated by the reorganisations and restructuring around the departments while bridging operational and culture differences between services.

Nonetheless, developments in technology has enhanced as well as embedded a sophisticated but easy-to-use real-time quality monitoring tools; from allocation of cases, to self-assessments, inputting relevant activities in the system, and ensuring correct processes. Through the dashboard technology, managers have instant access to up-to-date information or are able to extract information and give advice to all concerned at any giving time about what assurance is available to them, gaps in services or budget constraints that exist, and what is being done about issues in question.

This level of visibility is an absolute prerequisite to running health and social care at this point of demographic change and budgetary control. Yet, it is not uncommon to work in an organisation such as social services that still relies on multiple spreadsheets with outdated information and a poor grasp of what their problem areas are. Not only are these organisations ill-equipped to cope with the changing demography, policies, budgets as well as staffing issues, transformation and redesigning of the systems, they are also impeded by an intellectual deficit to embrace business culture within the organisations. In reality, the health care and social care sectors should welcome the extra stringency being exercised by the “Care Quality Commission”. It is now empowered to help drive quality performance and safeguarding of service users care, a goal we should all strive to achieve. Equally, as long as good governance is implicit in everything we do, we need not fear its new powers.

For a long time, the NHS and social service organisations have exhausted their resources and attention by seeking to back up everything they do with documentary evidence of good practise rather than focusing on practicing budgetary management on a day-to-day basis, in the field, where it matters. To date only a few management teams have placed adequate emphasis on taking a bottom-up approach to service developments and delivery. Time has come to shift the emphasis from creating paper trails and searching for proof of protocol, to each member of staff taking personal responsibility for their actions. This approach requires a level of education for all front line staff, which will involve keeping standards in the front of their minds in everything they do.

Compliance in budgetary rules, quality assessment and care as well as risk management is paramount for the NHS and social care to survive in the current macro and micro financial challenges and increasing demand for care. Front line staff needs to be reminded that compliance is not about form filling or chasing evidence for abstract standards, it is in fact about practicing the basic standards of care every day.

In recent years the American people have been brainwashed by the media and pharmaceutical companies to believe symptoms are normal and taking pharmaceutical drugs with multiple side effects or even death is an ordinary part of daily life. People have been led to believe that they cannot or should not take care of themselves and need to see a medical doctor for every little problem they experience and to ask for the drug advertised on the television to take care of their problem. This belief began in the early to mid 1900’s when illnesses like polio and tuberculosis were common. Scientists formulated pharmaceutical drugs which they led people to believe brought these illnesses under control. Doctors (allopathic) were the only ones who could prescribe these drugs (rightly so given the potential for harmful side-effects). This led to people becoming dependent on doctors for resolving all of their health issues, even simple problems, creating a bigger dependency on pharmaceutical drugs.

In 400 BC Hippocrates said, “Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food.” Thomas Edison, inventor and visionary, said, “The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame and diet, and the causes of disease.”

In today’s world, medical doctors do not have the time or knowledge to teach about nutrition or ways to maintain a healthy body. The training most medical doctors receive seldom includes nutrition content of foods, how to eat healthy or ways to combine foods to obtain the best nutrition, let alone the benefits of herbal supplements. The majority of medical doctors depend on using pharmaceuticals for treating symptoms and illness, not using herbs and supplements to support the body naturally.

The responsibility for our health is ours and ours alone. Putting the burden of responsibility for our everyday health totally on our healthcare providers creates a cycle of dependency. A better solution to health issues is found in a well-balanced personal preventative approach to wellbeing. Once you realize that you can learn how to take care of your own body, you will be set free from a dependency on someone else for all the answers.

When you get a cut on your finger, it is not the bandage that heals the cut – it is your body. Sometimes our bodies need additional help, but in general, if you consistently give your body the nutrition it needs, it will be able to take care of itself.

One of the most important things to keep in mind is to listen to your body and what it is telling you. When you experience a symptom, it is a result of the body telling you that something is wrong and you need to make a change. Vince Lombardi said, “Excellence is achieved in mastery of the fundamentals.” Focus on the fundamentals of good health and over time your listening skills will improve. As you regain health, your communication skills with your body will become more effective.

Rather than thinking of quality products and education as an expense, consider it an investment in your health. Every dollar spent now could save you thousands in missed work, medications, doctor visits, operations, lab work and tests, not to mention pain and suffering. Find someone trained in nutrition and natural health and start learning how to take care of your body today.

Most often than not, people who find themselves a candidate for gastric band surgery, are hesitant to undergo the procedure for a lot of reasons. It can be anything to everything. Even before considering the possibility of this surgery, there are numerous factors to weigh in and contemplate about. And certainly, one of the top questions there would be, is it expensive?
Well, the answer is yes and no. Yes, because it would cost you more or less $12,000. No because, it’s well worth it. If you think about it, this is a great investment which will pay off substantially on your part. I mean, I know twelve grand is twelve grand, but this is a one time, big time expense, and that’s it. If you do this right all the way, then it would definitely save you a lot more cash than you think.
Most severely obese people tend to have a generic lifestyle and so probably spend the same amount of money in a year. Food is definitely high on the list, and this is something we can’t help, because we physically need sustenance and our stomach just needs way more food than others. And then, there’s our healthcare expense. It is almost imperative for people in our situation to visit the clinic or the nearest hospital regularly because our health is always at risk. Hypertension, diabetes mellitus, cardiac problems, and other endocrine conditions are just some of the burdens of obesity, and these things, when added all up, cost a fortune.
So it’s easy to see why Gastric Band Surgery is by far the most practical way to address morbid obesity, especially when any of these complications start to arise. However, it is important to learn everything you can about the procedure, so that you can plan properly and thereby make the most out of your money.
You should choose your healthcare provider meticulously. It is less expensive to look for hospitals which offer all-in packages where everything is taken care of for you. From the learning and preparation phase, through the surgery, and to the rehabilitation and follow ups, a surgical package is proven to be very beneficial. That’s why it is important to make a proper choice in your healthcare provider. They should be someone highly qualified and competent who can answer all your questions and someone highly recommended by people who are knowledgeable about this. It is critical to choose someone who can give you a comprehensive plan, because you are as much a part of this as anybody, and so you have to know and understand every step of the way. It is also a must that you trust your team. You will be working with your healthcare team throughout this process, and you will be placing your life in their hands, so you have to be comfortable with them for this endeavour to be successful.
Remember that this is a health investment and like any other, you need a capital to make it. With a good investment, what may seem like a huge amount of money will be nothing compared to benefits you will reap later on.

When it comes to accidents or even getting older, the part of the body most often affected are our legs or feet. Getting around becomes a challenge, and for some people, nearly impossible without some kind of walking aid. If this were to happen to you, would you be more comfortable getting around with a cane, crutches, walker or rollator? Not everyone can handle moving about with crutches, which can be unwieldy to use. And, not everyone is comfortable with the stability offered by canes, so the choices become limited.

Making the Choice

That said, which of the many mobility aids is going to be the right choice for you? Both types of walking aids offer more stability than either crutches or canes, but not everyone has the same level of comfort using any type of aid. It might be better if you were more informed as to what each one does, and what they can offer for you in terms of comfort, stability and movement, before you make the right choice, especially if you are going to be using them for some time to come.

Walkers

A medical walker is essentially an aluminum frame, with cross supports added to provide stability. They come in two versions, with or without wheels. The basic walker, the one without wheels, allows for movement by providing leaning support while you lift it and place it down prior to stepping forward. It is more stable than using crutches, as it does not require a lot of upper body strength to use, and even people with balance issues can use one, if they are careful to pause before each step, to be sure of their balance before moving forward.

The wheeled variety features small caster type wheels, which are installed primarily to help with the forward sliding of the device. This type of medical walker is good for those who may have trouble lifting and sliding the device forward in order to take that next step. Those patients that are easily fatigued during movement, however, may find that a medical walker is not a good fit for them, unless there are nearby seats where they can rest while using it.

Rollators

The main difference between walkers and a rollator is that it offers more stability, a greater range of movement, and some models even come with a seat upon which you can rest, if you need to. It resembles a small cart at first glance, and is quite similar in function to those walkers put to use by small children when they are first learning how to walk. A rollator allows you to center your weight in the middle of it, as opposed to walkers, where your weight is placed more to the front of the device as you swing it to move.

With a walker, if you wish to turn or move backwards, it can be problematic. With the rollator design, you simply grasp the handles, and turn the wheels in the direction you wish to turn, or simply roll it slowly backwards for a smooth progression. A rollator also is best for those who are perhaps re-learning how to walk after spinal damage, or recovering from paralysis, because its use encourages you to center your weight, just as you would while walking without aid. If you are easily fatigued, this is the right choice for you, because with the seat option, you have a handy place to rest during movement, without the encumbrance of a wheelchair.

Additional Rollator Options

Because this device is much easier to use than a walker, it is quickly gaining in popularity, especially among the elderly. With options available like cushioned seats, baskets, and a choice between three and four-wheeled versions, it is quickly allowing patients to return to shopping excursions, giving them needed exercise, and carrying purchases without compromising their hands.

Some will choose rollators with three wheels, as opposed to the four-wheeled version, for one very simple reason: maneuverability. The three-wheeled version can handle tight turns better, and has a narrower frame that will fit down hallways and aisles easier than some of the wider, four-wheeled types.