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Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003
Total posts: 21842
Location: Dublin
Age: 0
Gender: Male
Posted: 03-05-2006 13:53
Post subject: Acupuncture
Friday, April 28, 2006
Neuro Clues to the Mysteries of Acupuncture
Advanced imaging methods may reveal how this ancient healing technique affects the brain.
By Emily Singer
Some people think of acupuncture as a wacky Eastern medicine, without any basis in science, while others consider it to be a crucial alternative to pain-relief medicine. Whatever the perspective, acupuncture use in the United States is on the rise, and the medical establishment has been taking notice. Now scientists are using advanced brain-imaging techniques to study the ancient practice -- and have begun to uncover some tantalizing clues about how it works.
Acupuncture is the 2,000-year-old practice of sticking extremely thin needles into the skin at specific points on the body, to try to control a range of symptoms, including pain, allergies, and infertility. While its effectiveness is still under debate, some large-scale clinical trials suggest that the technique can effectively relieve pain.
Two large controlled trials of acupuncture for osteoarthritis pain, published in 2004 and 2005, found that the practice is more effective than a sham treatment. Another study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2005, found acupuncture to be effective for migraines; however, patients experienced the same level of pain relief regardless of whether needles were placed in traditional acupuncture points or other spots.
"Acupuncture has been shown to have some therapeutic effect, but we have an incomplete understanding of the basic science that supports it," says Bruce Rosen, director of the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, within the Harvard-MIT division of Health Sciences and Technology. Rosen and colleagues are part of a small number of scientists using brain-imaging techniques to understand what acupuncture does to the brain, as well as which characteristics, such as needle placement, are important for beneficial effects.
Rosen's team at the Martinos Center is funded in part by a $5.9 million grant to study the neurological basis of acupuncture from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), a division of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, whose mission is to rigorously test commonly used alternative therapies.
The team has shown that acupuncture affects regions of the brain involved with sensory processing, as well as with cognitive and emotional processing. For example, Kathleen Hui, an instructor at Harvard Medical School and a member of the Martinos team, has shown that acupuncture induces a characteristic activity pattern in the brain. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, which measures brain activation, scientists found that parts of the limbic system, a brain area involved in emotion, motivation, and memory, and parts of the cortex, involved in cognitive processing, seem to quiet down during acupuncture. These areas become active when a person is focused on performing a task, suggesting that acupuncture might affect some homeostatic mechanism involved in the brain's resting state, says Rosen.
The Martinos researchers have also shown that acupuncture elicits the same characteristic pattern of brain activity, regardless of the type of acupuncture or placement of the needle, a finding that supports results from some clinical trials.
The team is now beginning to study the longer-term effects of acupuncture. Patients with carpal tunnel syndrome, a condition of pain or numbing in the wrist caused by a compressed nerve, show characteristic brain activity patterns in their somatosensory cortex, the brain area that processes sensory information. A pilot study by Vitaly Napadow, also at the Martinos Center, has found that after several weeks of acupuncture treatment, these patients' symptoms improve and their brain activation patterns begin to look more like normal subjects. "It's as if the [brain] changes that occur during carpal tunnel were somehow ameliorated during acupuncture," says Rosen.
Designing well-controlled trials is one of the biggest challenges in studying acupuncture. "With mood and pain, there are big placebo effects," says Chris Evans, a neurobiologist and pain expert at the University of California, Los Angeles. "To differentiate the placebo effect from the actual potential effects of acupuncture is an important goal to which imaging can probably add a lot."
However, scientists first need to figure out the best placebo treatments. With drug trials, doctors can simply give some patients a fake pill. "Because we don't know how acupuncture works, we can't develop an adequate sham," says Richard Hammershlag, a neurobiologist who began focusing on acupuncture several years ago, and is now research director at the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine in Portland.
Scientists sometimes use acupuncture needles placed outside of traditional acupuncture points -- but, according to Rosen's studies, that practice may resemble an active treatment more than a control. Another option is sham needles, which look like they are being inserted into the skin but don't actually penetrate. Rosen and his team hope their studies will eventually help to design optimal clinical trials.
"Only then," says Richard Nahin, NCCAM's senior advisor for scientific coordination and outreach, "can the scientific community provide definitive information to the public and health-care providers [on the effects of acupuncture]."
Edit to amend title.
Last edited by ramonmercado on 15-05-2009 13:23; edited 1 time in total
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Posted: 05-05-2006 11:01
Post subject:
Interesting. I've read a bit about pain suppression trials in psych textbooks (e.g. Carlson). Acupuncture, hypnosis and distraction techniques are often compared; but to my knowledge never all three together. I look forward to hearing about any neural correlates (a big area of interest for me).
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Location: Still above sea level
Gender: Male
Posted: 25-09-2007 06:36
Post subject:
Sticking needles in a bad back 'eases pain better than drugs'
Nigel Hawkes, Health Editor
Acupuncture works better than conventional treatments in reducing lower back pain, according to researchers in Germany.
But so does fake acupuncture, where the needles are inserted shallowly and in the wrong places. In a trial of more than 1,100 people, both were almost twice as effective as a combination of drugs, physiotherapy and exercise.
The results suggest that both acupuncture and sham acupuncture act as powerful versions of the placebo effect, providing relief from symptoms as a result of the convictions that they engender in patients.
A team led by Michael Haake, of the University of Regensburg, recruited 1,162 patients aged between 18 and 86 who had suffered lower back pain for an average of eight years. They were divided into three equal groups, and treated either with genuine acupuncture, with the needles inserted in precisely specified places and to a predetermined depth, with fake acupuncture, or with antiinflammatory drugs, painkillers and physiotherapy.
Success was measured as a one-third improvement in pain, or a 12 per cent improvement in mobility.
After six months, almost half of those on true acupuncture (47.6 per cent) and 44.2 per cent of those on sham acupuncture had met these criteria, while only 27.4 per cent of those treated conventionally had. This suggests, say the authors in Archives of Internal Medicine, that acupuncture, however incompetently it may be applied, is about twice as effective as conventional therapy.
"The superiority of both forms of acupuncture suggests a common underlying mechanism that may act on pain generation, transmission of pain signals or processing of pain signals by the central nervous system and that is stronger than the action mechanism of conventional therapy," the authors say.
"Acupuncture gives physicians a promising and effective treatment option for those experiencing chronic low back pain, with few adverse effects or contraindications. The improvements in all primary and secondary outcome measures were significant and lasted long after completion of treatment."
They say that this is the largest and most rigorous trial to investigate the benefits of acupuncture, the technique in which sharp needles are introduced to a considerable depth into the body in precisely defined places in the body.
Its results, they acknowledge, are surprising. That random pricking of the skin to a depth of one to three millimetres works almost as well as "true" acupuncture, which involves penetrations to a depth of five to forty millimetres in precise places, leads them to question the underlying mechanism.
It also suggests that lengthy training in the technique may be superfluous. All that is needed is to declare that you are a practising acupuncturist and make a few shallow insertions, the trial suggests.
The trial aimed to distinguish between the physical and the psychological effects of the technique. If true acupuncture worked better than sham, it would have shown that it has a genuine basis in physiology. But the trial failed to find any differences at all. So the authors conclude that the results send a confused message. One possibility is that there are no physical effects at all of acupuncture, or that they are are so small that they are overlaid by far stronger psychological effects.
Alternatively, acupuncture does work, but it does not matter how well or badly it is done. Symptoms improve regardless of point selection or depth of needling.
Since all the participants had long-term back pain, it is reasonable to assume that all had experienced conventional treatment, which often fails. Low back pain is notoriously hard to treat, so the use of acupuncture would have been novel, and likely to bring the placebo effect into play.
That fake acupuncture appeared to have worked almost as well as true acupuncture supports this conclusion.
Straight to the point
–– In Oriental medicine, illness is said to be due to an imbalance of "vital energy" (Ch'i) which flows through the body along 12 pathways or meridians, each corresponding to one of the vital organs
–– The acupuncturist inserts very fine stainless steel needles at specific points to stimulate energy flow; patients report a tingling sensation
–– Trials have shown benefits in treating pain, nausea and headaches
–– There appears to be no scientific basis for the medical concept or placement of needles
–– It has been used in China since 3000 BC, with stone needles found in Mongolia
–– The Cochrane Collaboration, the most authoritative review of evidence, says that it is effective for low-back pain but no better than conventional treatment
Note to MODS: another short Acupuncture thread here -
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Justified and Ancient of the Mu Mu(The Jams)
Location: Scandinavia
Gender: Male
Posted: 14-10-2007 22:34
Post subject:
I can imagine it help prevent you from thinking about your original pain and instead think about the pain caused by the accupuncture.
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Great Old One
Joined: 01 Jul 2004
Total posts: 499
Location: Far enough from home
Gender: Unknown
Posted: 31-10-2007 22:44
Post subject:
Or maybe it reboots you like sticking a paperclip end in my old iMac used to do.
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Great Old One
Joined: 19 Aug 2003
Total posts: 137
Location: Arkham Asylum
Age: 43
Gender: Female
Posted: 01-11-2007 14:25
Post subject:
Or maybe it reboots you like sticking a paperclip end in my old iMac used to do.
You may well jest!! I have been having acupuncture for five years now, and I can honestly say that it has been a miracle.
Going back to the above quote, one of my acupuncturist's patients from many years ago had been suffering severe leg pains for a couple of years after an abdominal operation, which in Chinese terms had cut through the meridians. The acupuncturist inserted needles into the scar from the op and literally "re wired" the patient's Qi. The patient said that they experienced a weird electrical buzz, like a static shock and has never had a problem in the legs since.
I can only presume from that, that it is exactly like sticking a paperclip into an iMac!!!
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Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003
Total posts: 21842
Location: Dublin
Age: 0
Gender: Male
Posted: 13-05-2009 14:38
Post subject:
Some more stories about Acupuncture.
SPINE Trial Shows That Acupuncture Eases Chronic Low Back Pain
Acupuncture can help people with chronic low back pain feel less bothered by their symptoms and function better in their daily activities, according to the largest randomized trial of its kind, published in the May 11, 2009 Archives of Internal Medicine. But the SPINE (Stimulating Points to Investigate Needling Efficacy) trial raises questions about how the ancient practice actually works.
Real And Simulated Acupuncture Appear More Effective Than Usual Care For Back Pain
Three types of acupuncture therapy-an individually tailored program, standard therapy and a simulation involving toothpicks at key acupuncture points-appear more effective than usual care for chronic low back pain, according to a report in the May 11 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
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slightly warm
Joined: 07 Apr 2009
Total posts: 229
Location: Sitting on the porch of insanity with a nice Pimms don't you know?
Age: 47
Gender: Male
Posted: 13-05-2009 17:16
Post subject:
I've recently been having acupuncture for trapped nerves in my back causing severe neuralgia in my shoulder & arm.
My Physio, Ken, uses it in conjunction with traditional run of the mill physio techniques and I have to say, i've found it nothing short of a miracle.
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Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003
Total posts: 21842
Location: Dublin
Age: 0
Gender: Male
Posted: 05-02-2010 19:27
Post subject:
Study Maps Effects of Acupuncture on the Brain
When a patient receives acupuncture treatment, a sensation called deqi can be obtained; scientific analysis shows that this deactivates areas within the brain that are associated with the processing of pain. (Credit: iStockphoto)
ScienceDaily (Feb. 5, 2010) — Important new research about the effects of acupuncture on the brain may provide an understanding of the complex mechanisms of acupuncture and could lead to a wider acceptability of the treatment.
The study, by researchers at the University of York and the Hull York Medical School published in Brain Research, indicates that acupuncture has a significant effect on specific neural structures. When a patient receives acupuncture treatment, a sensation called deqi can be obtained; scientific analysis shows that this deactivates areas within the brain that are associated with the processing of pain.
Dr Hugh MacPherson, of the Complementary Medicine Research Group in the University's Department of Health Sciences, says: "These results provide objective scientific evidence that acupuncture has specific effects within the brain which hopefully will lead to a better understanding of how acupuncture works."
Neuroscientist Dr Aziz Asghar, of the York Neuroimaging Centre and the Hull York Medical School, adds: "The results are fascinating. Whether such brain deactivations constitute a mechanism which underlies or contributes to the therapeutic effect of acupuncture is an intriguing possibility which requires further research."
Last summer, following research conducted in York, acupuncture was recommended for the first time by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) as a treatment option for NHS patients with lower back pain. NICE guidelines now state that GPs should 'consider offering a course of acupuncture comprising a maximum of 10 sessions over a period of up to 12 weeks' for patients with this common condition.
Current clinical trials at the University of York are investigating the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of acupuncture for Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and for depression. Recent studies in the US have also shown that acupuncture can be an effective treatment for migraines and osteoarthritis of the knee.
The York team believe that the new research could help to clear the way for acupuncture to be more broadly accepted as a treatment option on the NHS for a number of medical conditions.
Story Source:
Adapted from materials provided by University of York.
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Great Old One
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
Total posts: 188
Location: melbourne australia
Gender: Unknown
Posted: 06-02-2010 06:47
Post subject:
I don't understand all the fuss about whether acupuncture ,or biofeedback, hypnosis, iridology or whatever it's called, homeopathy, etc., is 'fake' or not. (And I'm not talking about validating sleazoids who sell miracle cures to desperate people, by the way.) If the results aren't fake (i.e., relief from pain), how can it be a problem? If Blinko Glick got results (congratulations by the way), I say it's not fake.
I mean, I once bought a knockoff designer watch; when I took it to the jeweller for a new battery a year later he sniffily told me it was a 'fake watch'. I just as sniffily told him if it told the time it was a real watch.
Maybe mainstream doctors are the sniffy jewellers of this world.
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Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003
Total posts: 21842
Location: Dublin
Age: 0
Gender: Male
Posted: 23-02-2010 17:38
Post subject:
During Pregnancy Acupuncture Found To Lessen Depression Symptoms, Stanford Study Shows
23 Feb 2010
Acupuncture appears to be an effective way to reduce depression symptoms during pregnancy, according to a first-of-its-kind study from Stanford University School of Medicine researchers.
The study authors, led by Rachel Manber, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, said they hope the results will raise awareness of the problem of depression during pregnancy and provide patients and physicians an alternative to antidepressants. "This standardized acupuncture protocol could be a viable treatment option for depression during pregnancy," they wrote in a paper that will appear in the March issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.
Up to 14 percent of pregnant women may have major depressive disorder, a condition characterized by feelings of dread, gloom and hopelessness, and a loss of interest in normally pleasurable activities. Some women suffer from depression before becoming pregnant, stop taking their medication and then experience a relapse; in other women, pregnancy itself may cause depression.
Clinicians aren't exactly sure how pregnancy leads to the disorder, but an influx of hormones could be the culprit. Some women might also feel overwhelmed by the major changes in their life, which could trigger depression. "Pregnancy just by its nature can bring out some underlying psychiatric and emotional issues," said co-author Deirdre Lyell, MD, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology.
Depression, if left untreated, can pose risks to both mother and baby. The mom-to-be could stop taking care of herself or her fetus, and might even engage in self-destructive behavior. Studies have also linked depression during pregnancy to poor birth outcomes and postpartum depression. "Treatment of depression during pregnancy is critically important so that a woman can maintain her sense of well-being and take good care of herself, her fetus and, someday, her child," said Lyell.
The use of antidepressants during pregnancy doubled between 1999 and 2003, according to a 2007 American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology study, but many women avoid taking medication because of safety concerns. In fact, Manber said, 94 percent of the depressed women involved in her study expressed reluctance to take antidepressants.
"Because there's this concern about medication among pregnant women and their physicians, it's important to find an alternative," said Manber.
For this study, the researchers recruited 150 women whose pregnancies were between 12 and 30 weeks gestation and who met the criteria for major depressive disorder. The women were randomized to receive one of three treatments: acupuncture specific for depression; control acupuncture, during which needles were inserted in points not known to help alleviate depressive symptoms; or massage. All of the women received eight weeks of therapy and were assessed for depression at the four- and eight-week marks by an interviewer who was unaware of the treatment each woman received.
The researchers found that women who received the depression-specific acupuncture experienced a bigger reduction in depression symptoms than the women in the other groups. The response rate - defined as having a 50 percent or greater reduction in symptoms - was 63 percent for the women receiving depression-specific acupuncture, compared with 44 percent for the women in the other two treatment groups combined.
The researchers weren't surprised by what they found - a pilot study yielded similar results, and other studies have shown acupuncture is an effective treatment for depression in the general public - but they were pleased with the results.
"I don't think that one-size-fits-all treatments are appropriate for everyone, but acupuncture should be considered as an option," said Lyell. "I hope that people will respect the rigorous methodology used in this blinded, randomized, controlled trial and accept the result: Traditional acupuncture was associated with a significant improvement in depression."
Both Manber and Lyell said they plan to continue their research on women's health during pregnancy and postpartum. Lyell recently presented work showing that practitioners under-identify and under-acknowledge depression during pregnancy, and she's now analyzing birth-outcome data to look for correlations between depression, treatment and obstetric outcomes.
This study was funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality. Other Stanford authors on the study include Rosa Schnyer, DAOM; Andrea Chambers, PhD; Maurice Druzin, MD; Erin Carlyle; Christine Celio; Jenna Gress; Mary Huang; Tasha Kalista and Robin Martin-Okada.
Michelle Brandt
Stanford University Medical Center
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Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003
Total posts: 21842
Location: Dublin
Age: 0
Gender: Male
Posted: 01-04-2010 12:33
Post subject:
Acupuncture may be an effective treatment for post-viral infection loss of smell
Traditional Chinese acupuncture (TCA), where very thin needles are used to stimulate specific points in the body to elicit beneficial therapeutic responses, may be an effective treatment option for patients who suffer from persistent post- viral olfactory dysfunction (PVOD), according to new research in the April 2010 issue of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery.
Olfactory dysfunction can arise from a variety of causes and can profoundly influence a patient's quality of life. The sense of smell determines the flavor of foods and beverages and also serves as an early warning system for the detection of environmental hazards, such as spoiled food, leaking natural gas, smoke, or airborne pollutants. The loss or distortions of smell sensation can adversely influence food preference, food intake, and appetite.
Approximately 2 million Americans experience some type of olfactory dysfunction. One of the most frequent causes of loss of smell in adults is an upper respiratory tract infection (URI). Patients usually complain of smell loss following a viral URI. The smell loss is most commonly partial, and reversible. However, occasionally patients may also present with parosmia (a distortion of the sense of smell), phantosmia (smelling things that aren't there), or permanent damage of the olfactory system.
To date, there is no validated pharmacotherapy for PVOD, but attempts have been made to establish a standardized treatment. In the literature, systemic and topical steroids as well as vitamin B supplements, caroverine, alpha lipoic acid, and other drugs were used to treat patients. The researchers point out that in addition to these treatments, complementary and alternative medicines are currently being employed by many patients on their own, and that exploration into their usefulness by traditional Western medicine should be validated.
In the current study, 15 patients presenting to an outpatient clinic with PVOD were treated by TCA in 10 weekly 30-minute sessions. Subjective olfactometry was performed using the Sniffin' Sticks test set. Treatment success was defined as an increase of at least six points in the sticks test scores. The effects of TCA were compared to matched pairs of people suffering from PVOD who had been treated with vitamin B complex. Eight patients treated with TCA improved olfactory function, compared with two treated with vitamin B complex.
The authors acknowledge that their study is limited by its size, and that further studies should be conducted in a larger population. However, the authors write "…the observed high response rate of about 50 percent under TCA was superior to that of vitamin B complex or that of spontaneous remission, and offers a possible new therapeutic regimen in postviral dysosmia."
Provided by American Academy of Otolaryngology
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Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003
Total posts: 21842
Location: Dublin
Age: 0
Gender: Male
Posted: 26-04-2010 11:34
Post subject:
Why acupuncture aids spinal recovery
* 11:18 26 April 2010 by Wendy Zukerman
Aiding recovery (Image: Garo/Phanie/Rex Features)
Aiding recovery (Image: Garo/Phanie/Rex Features)
Rats with damaged spines can walk again thanks to acupuncture. But it's not due to improvements in their energy flow or "chi". Instead, the ancient treatment seems to stop nerve cell death by reducing inflammation.
Acupuncture's scientific credentials are growing. Trials show that it improves sensory and motor functions in people with spinal cord injuries.
To find out why, Doo Choi and his colleagues at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, South Korea, damaged the spines of 75 rats. One-third were given acupuncture in two locations: Shuigou – between their snout and mouth, and Yanglingquan – in the upper hind leg. Others received no treatment or "simulated acupuncture".
After 35 days, the acupuncture group were able to stand at a steeper incline than the others and walk better. Staining their paws with ink revealed that their forelimb-hindlimb coordination was fairly consistent and that there was very little toe dragging, whereas the control groups still dragged their feet.
Inflamed spines
The rats in the acupuncture group also had less nerve cell death and lower levels of proteins known to induce inflammation after spinal cord injury and make neural damage worse.
One explanation is that sharp needles prompt a stress response that dampens down inflammation. In humans, the inflammation that follows spinal cord injury is known to be responsible for nerve cell death.
Zhen Zheng of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia says the results are "very encouraging". But she says we don't yet know if the results will apply to humans.
For example, the acupuncture treatment on the rats was given almost immediately after injury, but most patients don't seek acupuncture until at least three months after damage to their spines.
Journal reference: Neurobiology of Disease, DOI: 10.1016/j.nbd.2010.04.003
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Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003
Total posts: 21842
Location: Dublin
Age: 0
Gender: Male
Posted: 02-05-2010 14:00
Post subject:
Study Supports Acupuncture Effects In Pain Control
02 May 2010
The scientific validity of traditional Chinese medicine for pain treatment of pain received a nod of support in the May issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia, official journal of the International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS).
Dr. Philip Lang and colleagues of the University of Munich used quantitative sensory testing to identify changes in pain sensitivity with acupuncture in 24 healthy volunteers. After applying acupuncture to the leg, the researchers found that pain thresholds increased by up to 50 percent. Effects were noted in both the treated leg and the untreated (contralateral) leg.
Tests Show Measurable and Specific Effects of Acupuncture on Pain
Quantitative sensory testing is used clinically to help physicians understand specific injuries in nerve fibers associated with chronic pain. It includes tests of both thermal perception (heat and cold), and mechanical perception (pressure applied to the skin). The patterns of response provide diagnostic information in patients with nerve injury regarding the type of nerve involved, and possible treatments.
The results pointed to two nerve fibers-the "A delta" pain fibers and the "C" pain fibers-as being specifically affected by acupuncture. Although the effects were modest, the researchers believe they provide the basis for future studies in individuals with chronic pain, where the effects might be more dramatic.
The study also supported the effects of three different forms of acupuncture: manual acupuncture needling alone and with the addition of high-frequency and low-frequency electrical stimulation. All treatments were performed by an experienced acupuncturist, applied to acupuncture points commonly used in pain management.
The results provide a scientific background for the ancient practice of acupuncture, according to Dr. Dominik Irnich, Head of the Multidisciplinary Pain Centre, Department of Anesthesiology, University of Munich, and the study's leading author. Additionally, Dr. Irnich notes, "Our results show that contralateral stimulation leads to a remarkable pain relief. This suggests that acupuncturists should needle contralaterally if the affected side is too painful or not accessible-for example, if the skin is injured or there is a dressing in place."
Dr. Steven L. Shafer, Editor-in-Chief of Anesthesia & Analgesia and Professor of Anesthesiology at Columbia University, views the results as an important preliminary finding. "Reproducible findings are the cornerstone of scientific inquiry," Dr. Shafer comments. "The authors have clearly described their methodology, and their findings. If other laboratories can reproduce these results in properly controlled studies, then this provides further support for the scientific basis of acupuncture. Additionally, the ability of quantitative sensory testing to identify specific types of nerves involved in pain transmission may help direct research into the mechanism of acupuncture analgesia."
About Anesthesia & Analgesia
Anesthesia & Analgesia was founded in 1922 and was issued bi-monthly until 1980, when it became a monthly publication. A&A is the leading journal for anesthesia clinicians and researchers and includes more than 500 articles annually in all areas related to anesthesia and analgesia, such as cardiovascular anesthesiology, patient safety, anesthetic pharmacology, and pain management. The journal is published on behalf of the IARS by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW), a division of Wolters Kluwer Health.
International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS)
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today
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Joined: 27 Jun 2008
Total posts: 7
Location: Scotland
Gender: Female
Posted: 08-05-2010 13:33
Post subject:
I usually treat alternative medicine with a dose of skepticism however I have to admit that I am willing to give acupuncture the benefit of the doubt.
25ish years ago my Dad started having these blinding headaches that kept him bedridden. He went to the doctor who prescribed all sorts of painkillers and nothing worked. He was then sent to a specialist who after finding nothing wrong announced that it was 'all in his head' and advised his doctor to prescribe him anti-depressants
Luckily his doctor knew the kind of man my Dad was and knew that he was in actual pain so in a last ditch effort suggested that he try acupuncture. Now my Dad had never heard of this before but he was desperate for relief so he went south and he said that the guy checked him out and diagnosed him with a trapped nerve in his neck area. He said that during the first appointment he felt a slight relief in the pain and after all the treatments were done the pain was gone, which pretty much made a believer out of him.
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Clean Energy
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Posts Tagged 'punk'
Antrim Returns, and Other News
September 18, 2014 | by Dan Piepenbring
- John Jeremiah Sullivan on Donald Antrim and his new collection of short stories, The Emerald Light in the Air: "That last story ['The Emerald Light'] does something special, something very quiet that demands extremely close brushwork, something that exceedingly few writers can do … The technique is one of illusion and happens at the level of the text itself. It's a way of rendering permeable the surface lens that divides the underworld of fantasy from the 'painful realism' hovering above it, so that writer and reader at moments seem joined in not being totally certain whether what's happening on the page should be taken literally and naturalistically or as mythical, otherworldly."
- "It is almost unheard-of for the same writer to have a byline on the lead item in rival newspapers. But it has happened in Britain today—to a man who last picked up his pen in 1796." (Hint: think New Year's Eve.)
- Apple's iOS 8 includes QuickType, a predictive typing feature that suggests words you might want to type next. Followed to its extremes, it takes one's sentences to strange and arguably poetic lands: "I have a great way of saying the government has ordered a pizza./ Yes, you do that for the rest of the day before I go to sleep."
- Ben Lerner and Ariana Reines in conversation: "For me, the cow is a real modernist figure. I feel like after God died, the cow became the onlooker in great works of modernism. It's the witness in Joyce, it shows up again and again—for me, it's like the residue of the divine in the twentieth century."
- In the eighties, Michael Chabon had a punk band in Pittsburgh. They were called the Bats. One of his bandmates said, "I just remembered being very impressed with his stage presence, like he'd been waiting all his life to do this."
The Zines of ABC No Rio
August 21, 2014 | by Dan Piepenbring
"Zines + the World of ABC No Rio," an exhibition on display through September 27 at the Center for Book Arts, draws from the extensive zine library at ABC No Rio, a social center founded on the Lower East Side in 1980.
ABC No Rio is maybe best known for its punk and hardcore collective—until recently, they hosted matinee punk shows on Saturday afternoons, and these were originally curated with the intent of avoiding the violence, racism, and homophobia that had come to dominant punk as it was practiced up the road at CBGB. But ABC No Rio was conceived as an art space; it has a darkroom, a silk-screening collective, and—no mean thing, back in the day—a computer lab.
The zines on display at the Center for Book Arts span more than two decades, and speak to the curious diversity of the medium, to say nothing of its endurance. As the Center explains:
By its straddling the line between functional brochure and works of art realized in book form, the zine has retained its popularity even as the internet has largely become the preferred method of self-publishing … [a zine] is usually a cheaply-made and priced publication, often in black and white, mass-produced via a photocopier, and bound with staples. The exhibit presents and explains a range of these self-same printed materials, mixing both artists' original creations with items from the ABC No Rio zine library archives, covering subject matter from arts-community history to political commentary.
Above are fourteen highly various examples—between them, they feature stray bullets, quests for enlightenment, impromptu jaunts to Chattanooga, mosh pits, camo jackets, Aladdin, "dumpster insurgence," and more.
The Decline and Fall of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and Other News
July 17, 2014 | by Dan Piepenbring
- A new project, "The Archaeology of Reading in Early Modern Europe," catalogs and digitizes marginalia from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. "These notes reveal a largely unvarnished history of personal reading within the early modern historical moment. They also embody an active tradition of physically mapping and personalizing knowledge upon the printed page."
- How will Woody Allen's latest film fare in light of the allegations leveled against him earlier this year? "Allen dismissed the possibility that lingering outrage could affect the public's interest in Magic in the Moonlight. 'No thoughts like that occur to me … They only occur to you guys,' " said Allen, who, as coincidence would have it, is referred to as a "major-league fantasist" elsewhere in this piece.
- Nathan Rabin has apologized for inventing the phrase "Manic Pixie Dream Girl": "I'm sorry for creating this unstoppable monster. Seven years after I typed that fateful phrase, I'd like to join Kazan and Green in calling for the death of the 'Patriarchal Lie' of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope. I would welcome its erasure from public discourse."
- The art collector George Costakis devoted his life "to unearthing masterworks of the Russian avant-garde … but his enthusiasm met with obstacles: the difficulty of tracking down the works, the neglect they had suffered, the disbelief of widows ('What do you see in them?'). In a dacha outside Moscow he found a Constructivist masterpiece being used to close up a window; the owner wouldn't part with it. He dashed to the city to fetch a piece of plywood the same size, ferried it back to the dacha, and swapped it for the painting."
- "The history of punk is, above all, the story of the traumatic loss of its elusive essence: that brief moment in time when a new sensibility was beginning to coalesce … Punk died as soon as it ceased being a cult with no name."
Grrrl, Collected
July 30, 2013 | by Lisa Darms
A few years ago, I started a collection at NYU's Fales Library & Special Collections to document the feminist Riot Grrrl movement in its formative and most active years, from 1989 to 1997. Originally a reaction against the failures of punk to extend its DIY model of empowerment to women, Riot Grrrl encouraged young women to form their own bands, self-publish personal stories and revolutionary agendas in zines, and carve out safe spaces in a violent, misogynist culture. Riot Grrrl was not a centralized movement, and many of the donors to the collection never called themselves "riot grrrls." I never did, even though I went to the shows, read the zines, and identified as a punk and a feminist. Looking back, I see Riot Grrrl as descriptive of a moment as much as a movement: one that many young people now seem to want to study, learn from, and revivify. This summer, the Feminist Press published The Riot Grrrl Collection, my book of almost 350 pages of selections from the collection. Below are a few of my favorites.
This flyer, a pre–Riot Grrrl "manifesto" that was later repurposed for the minizine Riot Grrrl, is the first image in the book. Kathleen told me she made it in 1989, when she was volunteering at Safeplace, Olympia's long-lived domestic-violence shelter and advocacy organization. Designed so that it could be folded up into a small rectangle with the word trust on top, this flyer was both a secret invitation and a public announcement, much like Riot Grrrl itself. Read More »
Punk Love
May 8, 2013 | by Jason Diamond
At the age of fourteen, one year removed from the forced tribalism brought on by being a bar mitzvah–age Jewish boy, I decided I wanted to define myself by something besides my recent readmission into the Chosen. Your typical suburban weirdo, I started to use the rudimentary sewing skills passed down by my grandparents to attach silkscreened patches to my L. L. Bean backpack and zip-up hooded sweatshirts. I bleached my hair, and quickly hid my CDs by contemporary "alternative" groups like Third Eye Blind and the Smashing Pumpkins, replacing them with albums by bands like Minor Threat, Bad Religion, and, my favorite, the Descendents.
I was punk; at least, I thought I was punk, until an even older punk asked me if I actually knew what punk was, thus sparking a volatile internal dialogue inside my head. This was my first experience with the Talmudic-like discussion that surrounds punk: What did punk actually sound like? Was punk a philosophy? When did punk start? Did it start in America or England? Was Emma Goldman punk? Were the Situationists punks? Was the Velvet Underground punk? Were the hippies in the 1960s actually punks before punk was a thing? Was garage rock the original punk? I meditated on these questions and made very little headway, until one evening when I saw a kid at a punk show wearing a shirt with "Jesus was the first punk" scrawled on it in Magic Marker, and I had to admit the very act of wearing that shirt seemed pretty punk, even though I wasn't ready to confirm punk's existence. I also had to admit to myself, as I looked around the Chicago bowling alley-turned-venue, that for the most part, for a bunch of nonconformists, us punks all looked pretty much the same.
Questions of what punk is aside, it's difficult to deny that, other than the crude beauty of the Ramones, the noisy dirges of bands like Flipper, or the shouts that "Civilization's Dying" by the Indianapolis band Zero Boys, punk is best explained by its style. It's hard to say whether somebody thinks like a punk, but if you see somebody with a red Mohawk and a bullet belt, chances are you will make assumptions as to which subculture that person best relates. And while people who might identify as punk will probably tell you they aren't into high fashion, it is hard to ignore the profoundly impactful relationship between punk and fashion, intertwined since Dame Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren turned their Kings Road boutique into the iconic SEX store in 1974. And now everything that Westwood, McLaren, Johnny Rotten (née Lydon), Richard Hell, Patti Smith, and a host of other punks wore, and everything that followed, is getting the high-art treatment with the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition PUNK: Chaos to Couture. Read More »
"Every Adoption is a Ghost Story": An Interview with Jennifer Gilmore
April 25, 2013 | by Amy Benfer
I first knew of Jennifer Gilmore as the author of two ambitious, warm, hilarious novels (Golden Country, 2006, and Something Red, 2010) that, placed side by side, provide an admirably thorough and thoroughly amusing take on the some of the most interesting ideas, inventions, characters, and past-times of the twentieth century—television, immigration, two-in-one cleaning products, radical politics, Joseph McCarthy, cults, and Ian MacKaye.
I first met Jennifer Gilmore on an early spring day nearly two years ago when we both went to meet the same writer friend for a late afternoon drink at the same Brooklyn bar where another writer friend bartends every Tuesday. We soon discovered that we are around the same age, live one Brooklyn neighborhood apart, and have many more than two friends in common. That spring, Jennifer was working on her third novel, told from the perspective of a woman trying, and mostly failing, to adopt a child through the byzantine process of domestic open adoption. I was about to go back to my twentieth high school reunion, during which I planned to visit the school for pregnant teenagers run by the Salvation Army where I spent the spring of 1989 believing I would release my own daughter to another couple through domestic open adoption. Jennifer and her husband, like the fictional couple in her novel, The Mothers, released last Tuesday, had already imagined themselves into the lives of many mothers and their children, only to find that the mother had chosen another couple, or decided to parent her own child, or, in the most outrageous cases, was not even pregnant at all. In 1989, I became that kind of mother when, two days after my daughter's birth, I told the couple I had chosen to be her parents that I planned to do it myself instead.
Jennifer had read some of the stories I had written on my own failed adoption when they had appeared in Salon (where I was once an editor, and to which both of us have contributed essays). Although we had been on opposite sides of the story, our mutual fascination with what we sometimes referred to as "The Topic" was one of the reasons we became friends. We had both read and thought and obsessed over the tangle of race, class, and politics throughout the institution's history. We both knew about orphan trains and maternity homes and the Hague Adoption Convention. We also both knew well how sometimes the end of the story could feel like just plain dumb grief all around.
Last month, Jennifer and her husband brought home their son. Last week, Jennifer and I met for a late afternoon drink on a early spring day at Lavender Lake, the Brooklyn bar with the name that references the exotically colored Gowanus canal that connects our two neighborhoods, to discuss her new novel, first person vs. omniscient narrators, open adoption and all the intellectual, political, and emotional issues it raises that should be fascinating to anyone at all.
Your first two novels were sprawling, multi-generational social sagas: Your first novel, Golden Country, took place in your grandparents' era and covered, among other things, the Jewish-American immigrant experience, World War II, the World's Fair, and fortunes built on mob life, cleaning products, and the invention of television. Your second novel, Something Red, which takes place at the end of the seventies inches closer to your own childhood. That novel dealt with radical politics, the Cold War, and the D.C. straight-edge punk rock scene.
The Mothers is totally different: it is your first novel narrated in the first-person, and your narrator, Jesse, along with her spouse, is trying to adopt a child through domestic open adoption, as you have also done. You also wrote the novel while you were going through the process of trying to adopt. After so many years of writing your fictional characters from a certain distance, what like to write a character whose experiences veer so closely to your own?
If I was going to come closer to myself in this particular trilogy of history, I wouldn't have chosen this particular book. Given the situation, I just wanted to make my life interesting to myself, as opposed to wanting to blow my head off.


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How is it even possible to make laws stating that you can't go ring someone's doorbell past a certain age? If someone isn't comfortable with the trick-or-treaters, they can just not go to the door, just like with anyone else. What about the kids that develop early? You get boobs and you aren't allowed to go?
12 seems really young to set as a limit. That's right when kids get to the age where they need something innocent to do for fun - especially on holidays like Halloween.
The last time I went (other than taking my nephew out) was when I was 15 (I motherf*cking love Halloween.) We actually had a cop stop and talk to us, because some sh!t had gone down and they were trying to figure out if it was us. My BF at the time and maybe a couple other guys with us had black trench coats on, but hey, this was pre-Columbine era! (Jesus, I feel old.)
But he didn't tell us we were too old for trick-or-treating. It was a small town, and nothing else to do. What could we have said if he had told us to bug off? "Okay, officer, we'll just go back to playing truth-or-dare in the woods. You know, last time someone ended up giving themselves a blow job! You know how silly kids are, who knows what sort of sex acts might happen if we get bored for long enough. We already went through the cigarettes, but we know where we can score some weed."
And really, I was a good kid. There were much naughtier kids that I know went trick-or-treating, so I'd hate to think of what they would have done with less to do.
I know they don't really enforce these laws, but come on...
Thoughts? How old was everyone when they stopped trick-or-treating?
How old is too old for trick-or-treating?.
by Mira Jacob, Shine staff
Have you ever looked out your peephole and felt scared of a trick-or-treater? You're not alone. Mayor Mark Eckhert of Belleville, Ill., says he's heard a ton of complaints from frightened single mothers and senior citizens who are less than happy about the 6-foot-tall kids that ring their doorbells on Halloween. His solution: To create an ordinance banning high-school teenagersthat is, anyone over the age of 12from trick-or-treating.
"When I was a kid my father said to me, 'You're too damn big to be going trick-or-treating. You're done," Eckhert told ABC News. "When that doesn't happen, then that's reason for the city governments to intervene."
Intervening, in this case, means putting an age limit on trick-or-treaters, and threatening the over-12 set with a $100 fine for those who ignore the lawthough, according to ABC, that fine has rarely, if ever, been actually meted out. And while some residents of Belleville have complained about the ordinance, it seems that many more are relieved. Trick-or-treat age limits have also been popular in townships in South Carolina, Mississippi, Maryland, and Virginia.
However comforting these restrictions may be to some, we can't help but wonder: Are laws the right way to go when we're teaching kids about becoming better adults?
Because, honestly, many of usmyself included were teenage trick-or-treaters. How it happened for me is probably less important than why (I can try to blame other factors, but the truth is, I just loved free candy). You know when you're aware that you are doing something wrong, but you do it anyway, hoping that you'll pass unnoticed? Well, I quickly learned I couldn't: You gotta be kidding, one neighbor said, staring sadly at my baby costume, slamming his door, and providing a necessary behavior adjustment all in one swift move.
While I learned my lesson through good, old-fashioned (and effective) humiliation, Eckhert and others believe that creating laws takes the guesswork away from those unclear about when they are no longer eligible for receiving treats. But not everyone is convinced that excluding teens from the relatively tame activity of trick-or-treating is a great idea. "Trick-or-treating in a large part is embraced in this country because it serves to cut down on teenage vandalism," University of North Dakota history professor and early traditions expert, Hans Broedel, told ABC News. "Certainly telling teenagers they can't go trick-or-treating isn't going to stop them from going out on Halloween and doing whatever."
What do you think? Should overage kids be legally banned from trick-or-treating? And how old is too old for trick-or-treating?
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Prairies and Lakes Activities - Teachers and Parents Page
Teacher Directions:
- Make an Armadillo K-2 Art: Students use corrugated cardboard to make this eye-catching craft.
- Multiplying Armidillos Grade 4 Math: Students use a chart and multiply by 4 to determine how many armadillos one female can produce after a certain number of litters.
- Dinosaur Division Grade 4 Math: Students compare the weight of dinosaurs with the weight of cars.
Additional Resources:
- Blackland Prairie Poster You may print and use this for personal and classroom use.
- Texas Treasures: Wetlands (PDF 1 MB)
- Other Regional Activities
- Teacher Tool Kit
Field Trip Destinations:
Student Pages for Prairies and Lakes:
Big Kids: (Upper Elementary)
Little Kids: (K - 2)
- Fun Activities for Prairies and Lakes (Student version)
- Color Prairies and Lakes Animals Simple coloring pages of animals found in Prairies and Lakes. These are web pages. Choose "Print Friendly" at the top for best results when printing.
- Texas Dinosaurs pages
More Student Pages About Texas
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- Coloring, activity books and Learn About Texas books Download full versions here for classroom and personal use. (pdf)
- Texas Symbols
- Color Texas Animals Larger list of coloring pages of Texas animals. These are web pages. Choose "Print Friendly" at the top for best results when printing.
- Outdoor Kids Template for a student journal, activity ideas for nature and history study as well as recreation opportunities.


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Home / View from Pope's Hill /
A Wonderful Birthday and Remembering a Dear Friend
"And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies"
"Passionate Shepherd to His Love"
by Christopher Marlowe.
Hubby and I could easily make a bed of roses with our own roses this year. The climbing rose bush on the trellis is covered with deep red blooms. The lighter red rose rosebush next to the climber has bigger blossoms. Between the two, there is a pretty little pink rosebush that has just finished flowering. The two rose bushes still sitting in water in a bucket on our front porch are now in bloom. One is a gorgeous yellow tea rose; the other, a vivid orange tea rose. They look beautiful together although we should get them into the ground very soon.
Over the past few weeks, our family has had several wonderful celebrations. The first was the 80th birthday celebration for Hubby's sister Peg. It was held on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend at the home of Peg's son David, his wife Mary, and their daughter Renee, in Whitman. Hubby and I had been in Canton earlier on that beautiful day at the County Mayo Mass. We thought we knew the way from Canton to Whitman but we made a few wrong turns along the way. We arrived a little late but, thank goodness, we made it before the birthday gal came. Peg knew nothing of this party because already we had a small birthday party on March 20, two days after her actual birthday. No one had a home big enough to hold all those who wanted to come to the party so the kids decided to hold a bigger party when the weather was much warmer and we hopefully could have it outside.
We were delighted to see that Peg's and Hubby's brother John, his wife Joe Ann, and their two daughters Beth and Gina were already there. John and Joe (who is named for her grandfather) came from Virginia; Beth, from Arizona, and Gina, from South Carolina. Peg's oldest son Jim and his wife Roberta arrived a few days early from Washington state. Peg's son Ed came from San Diego, CA, with his buddy Walter. Son Steve, his wife, Judi, their children Steve Jr., and Ashley, with her boyfriend Kurt, and Judi's Mom Sheila were there from Attleboro; so was Peg's daughter Terri, also from Attleboro. Peg's niece Helen and her husband Rhett were present. All of us McDonoughs were there: our son Paul and his wife Alex; our daughter Sue; and our daughter Jeanne, her husband David, and the World's Greatest Grandchildren, Brendan and Erin.
It was so much fun to chat with the out-of-"state-rs." (Sorry to say: we don't see them often enough because they live so far away.) Beth's and Gina's kids are now big so these two Moms were able to come to Boston for the celebration and a mini vacation. Ed and Walter were not only here for the party, they wanted to taste the Boston clams at the Clam Box on Wollaston Beach. "You can't get clams like theirs in San Diego," said Ed. There were so many of us attending the party that we had to have two big grills going full speed. Host David manned one; Steve, the other. The food was terrific. (The wonderful smell of peppers and onions filled the air.) My cheeseburger was even better with the peppers and onions.
Peg cut the sheet cake, which was plenty big enough for our large group of people. She then opened her gifts. She received some additions to her Pandora bracelet, which thrilled her. Everyone had time to chat. David, since we had last been to his home, had built a fire pit. It was positively beautiful. (What a wonderful craftsman he is!) As the air chilled, more of us gathered around the pit. It was perfect. As it came close to 7 p.m., the mosquitoes came out in full force. Before we all left, we took lots of photos: Peg with her kids; then we added the grandkids; Peg with her brothers John and Hubby; and then we took one of us "older" relatives with Peg. Then we took photos of each individual family. God bless the new digital cameras. They make taking photos so easy. Everybody's camera was working full time that afternoon.
On Tues., June 25, Hubby and I were in Braintree to see my orthopedic doctor, Dr. McGuirk, on the one-year anniversary of my knee-replacement surgery. Because Hubby was going to be sitting in the waiting room during my appointment, he went next door to a convenience store and bought a copy of that day's Patriot Ledger to read while waiting. I am so glad that he did get the Ledger because there was an obit in that paper that meant a great deal to us. Dr. John Bowers, a noted pediatrician, had passed away on June 5. Dr. Bowers was the doctor who saved our younger daughter Jeanne, not once, but twice. Jeanne was an "RH" baby, who was very jaundiced when she was born. She had to be taken at seven months via Caesarean section because she was so sick. (I have pure negative blood and Jeanne has positive blood like her Dad's so my body fought hers.) When Jeanne was born at St. Margaret's Hospital, Dr. Bowers, with the assistance of an intern, gave her five blood exchanges, plus an additional blood transfusion. During the final procedure, Jeanne's heart stopped. Luckily, the intern who was monitoring Jeanne's vital signs, caught the stoppage quickly and Dr. Bowers restarted her heart. During Jeanne's two-month stay at St. Margaret's Hospital, her chances for survival were precarious. I left my hospital bed on a lower floor each morning and took the elevator to the preemie nursery to make sure she had survived the night. We were able to take her home when she finally reached five pounds at two months old. Nowadays, an RH mother is given an injection of RhoGAM, which stops the mother from being sensitized by the baby's RH positive blood.
Jeanne thrived on an iron-rich formula and Dr. Bowers was very pleased at her progress and blood-test results at every check-up. During April school vacation, however, when Jeanne was just 10 months old, she developed a fever and was very irritable. Because this behavior was unlike her, I called Dr. Bowers. I can still remember his words, "I'd like to check her out because she had such a rough birth." He told Hubby and me to bring her over to St. Elizabeth's Hospital as quickly as possible and told me where he was working in the hospital. My aunt took the other two kids while we flew out the Pike to St. E's. It was still cold outside so I had put Jeanne in her snowsuit. The nurses took her from me and began taking off her snowsuit. It was then that Jeanne took a convulsion. She was a very sick baby. A spinal tap proved that she had bacterial meningitis. (Hubby thinks she contracted the meningitis because he caught her biting on a shopping cart handle about a week before.) After several more weeks in the hospital, with IVs in her little legs and head, Jeanne finally came home from the hospital. Thank goodness Dr. Bowers told us to bring her to St. E's. I am sure that time was of the essence in her starting treatment. Jeanne has some hearing loss, probably from the meningitis. Thank goodness she wasn't harmed any further. If treatment had been delayed, the outcome from the deadly disease could have been much worse. I hadn't thought of this traumatic time in our lives in a long time. Dr. Bowers' obit brought it all back to me. By the way, Jeanne has come along beautifully over the years. I am proud to say that she is the nurse in our family.
Although I didn't know Mildred Swain very well, I know that she was well thought of in our St. Ann's neighborhood. I was, therefore, sorry to see that she passed away on May 27. Millie was the administrative assistant to the secretary treasurer at the Boston Building and Construction Trades for 22 years. I send my sympathy to her husband Thomas and to their children: Geanine Sullivan, Barry, and Tommy.
I was also sorry to read of the death of Frank "Gus" Thompson on May 30 at age 85. Frank was the husband of Hubby's and my classmate from State Teachers' College in Boston, the late Joan Young. He was also the husband of the late Jean (Donovan). Frank owned Thompson Electric for more than 40 years. He was a member of the McKeon Post and the Old Dorchester Post. We send our sympathy to their twin sons Mark and Paul, their wives and the grandchildren.
Please remember that the "GotBooks" container is located on Rita Road, just outside St. Brendan's School. You may put used books, CD's, DVD's VHS tapes, and audio books in the container. The school is compensated each time the container is filled. We have brought many books to the container and are pleased that we are helping the school.
I noticed, in the Lowe's ad, that the company will accept used plastic plant pots, trays, and tags. Put them in the return carts at the store and they will recycle them, creating new pots, trays and tags. There is a new Lowe's store in Quincy, a short drive from our area.
I loved this saying by Thomas Jefferson: "I cannot live without books."
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2008 OPEN FORUM Abstracts
Introduction: The accurate documentation of vital clinical information is essential when examining patient outcomes. The tracking of patient safety indicators, as the incidence of clinician compliance to reduce the rate of ventilator-associated pneumonia, or the trending the incidence of accidental extubations can be time consuming or less than accurate. With the advent of electronic documentation the ability to recall data is possible with limited chance of error. We examined the rate of accidental extubations and the reporting of the proper documentation of reporting of this patient safety indicator after the implementation of electronic charting.
Methods: Prior to electronic data collection, tracking extubation data was minimal to non-existent. Ventilator days were manually collected, with many variables for error (i.e. missed data due to inconsistent collection - lack of weekend data collection, missed and/or varied qualifying ventilator data, incorrect tracking of ventilator days). Discipline-specific parameters were created to delineate responsibility and continuity of care, which enhanced patient safety. The data must still be entered by the clinician at the bedside, but the use of the electronic charting has now reduced the time for recovery by eighty-percent of the time.
Results: Historically, our failed extubation rate and self-extubated rated varied from 0% to 15% with some months data not collected from all areas of the institution. Results over the last six months since our electronic implementation have shown our self extubation rate to be at an average of 1.55% and our failed extubation rate to be at 5.4%. Paper charting results lacked a consistent and reliable method of collection. The retrieval of this data now comes in the form of a quicker and more efficient process.
Conclusion: The use of electronic charting has now given us another tool to use in the quality of care we provide for our patients. As we continue to move forward we have made the stepping stones for the use of electronic charting in quality patient care. It clearly demonstrated the need to formulate collaborative, uniform data collection, with attention to protocol and defined outcome goals throughout the entire organization.


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Anointed worship, Bible teaching, and local Missions in Carrrick, Pittsburgh
We are a Charismatic/Pentecostal Church with a strong emphasis on contemporary Christian Worship, fellowship, and Solid Bible Teaching for all ages. … Read More
In the early Autumn of 1991, a group of 8 people began praying together and seeking the Lord about starting a church. After many months of praying and planning, and then meeting for a short time in … Read More
Sundays 10:00 AM
Wednesdays 7:00 PM
2019 Brownsville Road
Pittsburgh, PA 15210
Phone: 412-886-1864
Fax: 412-882-6249
Copyright © 2014 Zion Christian Church


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Venice Beach Bungalow Rental Photos and Description
Venice Beach Bungalow/House, 1 Bedroom + 1 Bath , (Sleeps 2)
Modern Luxurious Venice Boutique Bungalow, located in the heart of Venice.
Spacious open floor plan. 750 square feet with a large kitchen and living room area and high vaulted ceilings. Bungalow includes a Private sunny deck that extends from the bedroom.
This charming Bungalow fuses classic sophistication and contemporary chic to create a thoroughly modern and uniquely luxurious Venice boutique home away from home.
This Bungalow was given a modern twist with contemporary design in 2012. The Bungalow is flooded with tons of sunshine from the skylights that give it a very open, light, bright feel.
Whether for business or pleasure, experience exceptional beach community living in the heart of Venice. Luxe accommodations, exquisite dining & shopping options nearby and the finest amenities at this centrally, quiet & safe located Venice Beach Bungalow.
Bungalow includes:
Private Parking
Cali King size Bed
Jacuzzi bathtub
Gas fireplace
Flat screen TV with HBO
Washer / Dryer
Full Kitchen
Fios High Speed Internet
Bose Sound System
Yoga Mats
- Suitability:
- pets considered
About Marc Joines
We are Venice Locals. Call us or email us anytime if you have any questions.
Marc & Alyson.
Marc Joines purchased this bungalow in 2011
Why Marc Joines chose Venice Beach
You will love Bungalow 14
Guestbook comments from the owner
Those are the top three words that describe this house. Everything is brand new and very chic. It is cleaner than any four star hotel room I have seen. The back yard is excellent, quite large actually. The street is filled with great neighbors and cute houses. The owners were not only instantly available for anything I needed, but they are fantastic concierges. Who better to ask for hiking and dining recommendations that the locals who you can see have such good taste? I stayed here for over two months while I was looking for a permanent place in Los Angeles. The search was difficult because this house is sooo much nicer than 99% of the rental houses around. I didn't want to leave the squeaky clean bathroom and kitchen, or the most comfy bed, or the cozy living room. Not to mention the three great dining locations. If you want to stay somewhere close to everything but away from the crowds of tourists, this is the vacay rental for you. It is a quiet and peaceful place, with a most happy vibe to it. Just don't forget to go out by the back fence and see if the tomatoes are ripe enough for dinner.


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Welcome to the website of Los Osos, California based nature photographer, Donald Quintana. Visit his Galleries and experience the natural world through his eyes. To see what he's been up to with his photography, visit the My Blog area of his site. But most of all, enjoy his images. Contact him if you would like to use one of his images in a publication, project, or to buy a print. We are continually uploading images so stop by often and see what's new. Scroll down and connect with me on flickr or Facebook.
Connect with me
Recent Posts
- Spring is in the air!
- One glimpse of these baby kit foxes and you'll be hooked on their story
- How to take great bird photos in your backyard
- SLO New Times and Santa Maria Sun Winning Images 2013
- "The Birds of San Luis Obispo 2012 (Part 2)" by Dave Keeling. Monday, October 21, 7:00pm. Photo signing included!
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Jared Smith, Peter Casazza, Greg Bennett and Joel Pollack of Big Planet Comics have written this letter to Universe/Rizzoli, the new publishers in English of the classic Corto Maltese volume by Hugo Pratt, The Ballad Of The Salt Sea. And they are not happy.This is an open letter we are writing to express our extreme displeasure with the terrible edition of Corto Maltese: The Ballad of the Salt Sea you have just released. We are the co-owners of Big Planet Comics, a group of comic book stores in the Washington, DC area. Hugo Pratt is one of our favorite artists and we have read, collected and sold numerous works by him, including earlier editions of The Ballad of the Salt Sea.Previous versions of the comic had been criticised for poor translations. But in comparison, it may be worth diving back to the nineties...
The art has been scanned at a low resolution, leading to pixelization that obscures or erases the smoothness of the fine and precise art of Hugo Pratt. In some cases, it seems to have been printed at an even worse quality, the most egregious example being the middle panel on page 136, where the thin lines denoting the rays of light look like they were drawn with a skittering giant marker.
The reformatting of the panels of each page so that only about two-thirds of each original page is on each page of your edition jumbles the intention of Hugo Pratt, so that the flow of story from panel to panel is interrupted or changed, and the natural break point, or pause, at the end of each original page is now mixed haphazardly through your layout.
Most offensively, the original panels of Hugo Pratt's art have been resized, cut, and cropped to fit this amateurish new layout scheme, in some cases removing over a third of each panel, or splitting a panel into two new panels. Some panels appear to have been zoomed in, resulting in further loss of quality and removing more of Hugo Pratt's art.
These terrible mutilations of Hugo Pratt's art are insulting enough, but there are numerous panels where someone has taken upon themselves the hubris to fill out the gaping holes in the modified panels by adding to the art itself.
Also, your description of the book on your webpage at http://www.rizzoliusa.com/book.php?isbn=9780789324986 incorrectly claims this is the first time Ballad of the Salt Sea has been available in English. In fact, it has been released in English at least twice: once by The Harvill Press in 1996, and once by NBM Publishing in 1997.
This book is the first encounter we have had with any division of your publishing house. Your edition cannot claim in honesty to represent an unadulterated replication of Hugo Pratt's work. Whoever approved such a hatchet job on this classic piece of art should be ashamed of themselves. We would appreciate an apology and explanation.
We, and many of the employees at our stores, were very excited to sell Corto Maltese to our customers. We are disappointed we will not be able to recommend that any customer buy your edition.
Jared Smith
Peter Casazza
Greg Bennett
Joel Pollack
Big Planet Comics
Washington, DC
Bethesda, Maryland
College Park, Maryland
Vienna, Virginia


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Children & Adults
VFC Program
International Travel
State Registry (NESIIS)
Forms and Brochures
Find a Clinic
2014-2015 Influenza Season
Each licensed day care program in Nebraska is required to keep the immunization history of each child enrolled in its program on file. Parents or guardians must present one of the following documents to the day care provider to verify immunization status.
Measles, mumps, rubella
Diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis
Haemophilus influenza type b (Hib)
Hepatitis B
Varicella (Chicken Pox)
Below are forms in PDF and MS Word format
Documentation of Varicella (Chicken Pox) Disease Documentation of Varicella (Chicken Pox) Disease (MS Word)
Refusal of Immunization for Medical Reasons Refusal of Immunization for Medical Reasons (MS Word)
Refusal of Immunization of Student for Religious Reasons Refusal of Immunization of Student for Religious Reasons (MS Word)
These documents must be presented to the day care provider within 30 days of enrollment and must be updated periodically.
Child care providers and parents need to be aware that unvaccinated children are not the only ones at risk for contracting disease. When parents choose not to immunize, their decision affects their own child as well as every other child in the home or center. These children, if they become ill, can expose all the other children to disease as well. Child care facilities usually care for children of different ages and the younger children must rely on the older children to be immunized so that they are safe. Even babies who are up-to-date on their shots must rely on the rest of the children to be immunized because some immunizations, like measles and chickenpox, cannot be given until a child is one year old. Other immunizations require multiple doses before a child builds up full immunity.
Contact Information
Immunization ProgramPO Box 95026Lincoln, NE 68509-5026Phone: (402) 471-6423 or (800) 798-1696FAX: (402 471-6426Email: email@example.com
Documents in PDF format require the use of Adobe Acrobat Readerwhich can be downloaded for free from Adobe Systems, Inc.


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At GlowMama styling 'Mum's to Be' is our speciality. We aim to provide you with outstanding customer service and a great selection of maternity clothes and accessories. Each season we bring you the most stylish maternity clothing we can find. We not only search Australia but the whole world and pick out the pieces we know our customers will love!
Visit our Brisbane boutique and we will be happy to take you through the extensive collection, suggest outfit options or just leave you to browse. If you choose to shop online we aim to provide you with helpful assistance by outlining the features of each product. Browse our collection of fashion, basics, workwear, lingerie and formal maternity wear. We also offer breastfeeding clothes including nursing tops and nursing dresses, and recovery clothing such as the SRC Recovery Shorts. If you require assistance, we are always more than happy to discuss your requirements with you by telephone or email.


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Seismic Audio Speakers, Inc.
Changing the Way Musicians Buy Their Gear
After researching the pa speaker and floor monitor market, it became very clear that consumers were swayed by the marketing tactics of big brand name DJ speaker companies. Yes, these big pa speaker companies make great products. However, they charge big money in order to make big profits and pay for their big marketing campaigns. Our goal is to prove to the consumer that quality pro audio speaker equipment can be affordable and that the $1.00 logo found on the front of a band speaker does not mean it is the best speaker on the market. We want consumers to receive superior pa speakers and not pay for well marketed brand names.
Seismic Audio offers a variety of unique speaker cabinets and music related gear at affordable prices. Don't let the prices deceive you. Just because we are less expensive than the big brand name speaker companies, does not mean quality has been compromised. We eliminate other expenses that the big companies carry. We are strictly an Internet based pro audio company. By dealing on the Internet, we are able to eliminate the expenses a traditional business would have. When buying from Seismic Audio you are buying directly from the owner of the brand. We have no middle man and are able to offer our speakers at wholesale prices.
How Seismic Audio Started
|Steve started selling audio parts from his apartment in 2000 on eBay.
|Introduced first line of complete passive speakers in 2001.
|Designed first line of Rack Cases and launched a Guitar and Bass Guitar Line of Cabinets. Hired first two part time employees in 2003.
|In 2004, we moved to a 6,000 square foot facility and introduced our first line of snake cables.
|Moved to an 11,000 square foot facility and hired 3 new full time employees.
|In 2008, we launched our own website, seismicaudiospeakers.com and also began selling on Amazon.
|By 2009, we had over 500 unique items, including powered PA speakers, powered sub woofers, and amps.
|Moved to a 30,000 square foot compound and hired 7 full time employees. In 2011, We began offering products on rakuten.com, newegg.com, and sears.com.
|By the end of 2012, we carried over 1000 unique items and had 11 employees. In December, we signed a contract to offer items on bestbuy.com.
|Much more to come in 2013! We plan to add upwards of 300 new items We have signed on to offer items on shop.com ....... Stay Tuned!


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Celebrity Central / Top 25 Celebs
Credit: PPNY/GSNY/Splash News Online
Published: Friday August 31, 2012 06:00 AM EDT
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"I was like 'Hey, I was on Alias.' She's like, 'Nope.' I'm like, 'Wedding Crashers?'"– Bradley Cooper, on how rescue dog Charlotte was unfazed by his star status, on Live! with Kelly
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