Health Articles

RSS

Dupuytren's Contracture (Palmar Fibromatosis)

Dupuytren's contracture is a condition that impacts the fingers and the hands, causing at least one finger, and possibly several, to bend toward the palm of the hand. Also known as Dupuytren's disease, the condition can affect both hands, including the thumbs.

18 Jul 2017

Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM)

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is a condition that affects the heart’s ability to pump blood effectively due to the thickening (hypertrophy) of the heart muscle which becomes stiff as a result. The condition is very common and affects around one in 500 men and women in the UK. It can affect people at any age and, among young people, it is a common cause of sudden cardiac death.

18 Jul 2017

Genetics of Hitchhiker's Thumb

Hitchhiker's thumb is otherwise known as distal hyperextensibility of the thumb. This is because of the genetic traits that make a person bend his thumb backward while stretching.

18 Jul 2017

Powassan Virus Prevention and Research

Powassan is a genus of viruses from the family Flaviviridae. It has RNA (ribonucleic acid) as its genetic material. The West Nile virus, dengue virus, tick-borne encephalitis virus, yellow fever virus, and Zika virus, among others, are viruses in the same class as Powassan virus. The Powassan virus was initially discovered in Powassan, Ontario, Canada in 1958. It is not curable.

18 Jul 2017

Powassan Virus

Powassan is a genus of viruses from the family Flaviviridae. The West Nile virus, dengue virus, tick-borne encephalitis virus, yellow fever virus, and Zika virus, among others, are viruses in this class. The Powassan virus was initially discovered in Powassan, Ontario, Canada in 1958. It does not have a cure.

17 Jul 2017

What Causes Hyperelastic Skin?

Skin that is stretched beyond the normal level is known as hyperelastic skin.

17 Jul 2017

Treatment of Genital Mycoplasmas

The term “mycoplasma” is used to refer to any microorganism that belongs to the class Mollicutes. Among them, genital mycoplasmas are primarily sexually transmitted (albeit they may also be transmitted to infants in utero or during birth). They have the smallest genomes among known free-living microorganisms, and they may give rise to various clinical syndromes.

17 Jul 2017

Diagnosis of Genital Mycoplasmas

Members of the genus Mycoplasma under the class Mollicutes are parasitic bacteria that are omnipresent in nature. They are significant causes of mucosal infection in humans, and species that are linked to urogenital tract pathology are known under the group designation “genital mycoplasmas”.

17 Jul 2017

What are Genital Mycoplasmas?

Mycoplasmas are considered to be the smallest free-living organisms known, characterized by an outer membrane that consists of three layers, as well as a total lack of cell wall (which renders these organisms insensitive to beta-lactam antimicrobial drugs). As certain species specifically infect the human genital tract and may even affect pregnancy outcomes, it is important to acknowledge their importance in human pathology.

17 Jul 2017

Genetics of Asparagus Smell in Urine

The urine of people who have recently eaten asparagus is known to have an unpleasant odor.

17 Jul 2017

When to Get Help for Social Anxiety

Social anxiety is a widely prevalent disorder. Ninety percent of cases of social anxiety are misdiagnosed as panic, schizophrenic, or other depressive disorders. The most probable reason is that the symptoms or signs of social anxiety are so subtle in most cases that they are simply accepted as variants of normal.

17 Jul 2017

Phobias in Children

Phobias are a type of anxiety disorder. Children who suffer one or more phobias constantly have anxiety.

17 Jul 2017

Newborn Hearing Screening

Newborn children were not usually screened for hearing deficiency in the past. This was primarily because the technology to do so did not exist as yet. This resulted in lifelong problems with speech and language skills, usually translating to poor performance in school, inability to interact well socially with peers and elders, and a number of emotional problems related to this issue.

6 Jul 2017

How do Contact Lenses Work?

Contact lenses are explicitly designed optical devices that can be worn directly on the cornea of the eye. People with poor eyesight wear contact lenses, which helps to refocus oncoming light rays on the retina to achieve a clear vision. Contact lenses increase or decrease the focusing potential of the cornea, and thereby directly project light onto the retina and aid in treating refractive errors.

6 Jul 2017

Genetics of Tongue Twisting

The term tongue-twisting comprises rolling, folding, rotating, adjusting, and turning of the tongue.

6 Jul 2017

Causes of Webbed Fingers and Toes

Syndactyly, an infrequent condition in human beings, is a state where fingers or toes are joined together. The existence of such condition is normal (connected only by skin) in terrestrial mammals such as kangaroos, dogs, and cats, in many water-habitat birds, like ducks, and in amphibians like frogs. However, the similar condition is rare in human beings and it is even rarer for the fingers or toes to be connected by bones. In only 1 among around 3000 children, this condition occurs.

6 Jul 2017

Is Walking Pneumonia Contagious?

Pneumonia is an inflammation of the lung tissue caused by an infection. This may be a bacterial or viral infection. Walking pneumonia is a milder version of the disorder caused by Mycoplasma pneumoniae, and sometimes Chlamydia or Legionella. This is a bacterial infection that can affect children and adults.

6 Jul 2017

Lithotomy Positioning

The lithotomy position is a commonly used position in urologic, gynecologic and proctologic examinations and procedures, but is most well-known because of its widespread adoption in obstetrics. The name of the position goes back to its original use to visualize the perineal area in order to make incisions in this region to gain access for bladder stone extraction.

4 Jul 2017

Genetics of Earlobes

Similar to the human eyes, nose, and lips, the earlobes also have special features.

4 Jul 2017

Natural Childbirth

Natural childbirth is a term coined by the English healthcare practitioner Grantly Dick-Read, who published a short book treating of labor pain in women in 1933. It is not merely a technique of pain relief during labor, but should be seen as a philosophy of life itself, which emphasizes the physiological nature of childbirth rather than the event as an illness.

4 Jul 2017