108 books match the query 'Diseases & Conditions' and 10 start with a

cover of A Life of Control: Stories of Living with Diabetes

A Life of Control

Stories of Living with Diabetes

Alan L. Graber

Vanderbilt University Press, 2010

Diabetes happens in a life that already has a story. This book, composed of nearly forty personal narratives, based on taped interviews, about the lives of actual patients with diabetes, draws upon the collective experience of an endocrinologist and two nurse practitioners who worked together for twenty-five years.


The people who describe their experiences with diabetes range from teenagers to physicians, immigrants, athletes, pregnant women, accountants, a prisoner, and a dairy farmer. They speak of the variety of ways they handle monitoring, diet, insurance coverage, sports, and fashion. Some talk of how they manage to drive trucks for a living or, for recreation, fly airplanes or go spelunking. Many speak frankly of their anxieties and frustrations.


The authors acknowledge that both the patient and clinician have a story about their relationship, and describe the richness and tension in their interaction. Families, too, are sources of both support and conflict. These relationships are acknowledged in the organization of the book, which is divided into sections defined by the main elements of diabetes control: patient self-determination, the role of the family, the social situation, and the patient-clinician encounter.


The book provides a wealth of information about diabetes, including material on prevention, complications, and new technology, as well as a superb glossary, but it is not intended as a textbook on diabetes or as a self-care manual for patients. Rather the book provides a textured account of the health professional's view of diabetes control and the perspective of the patient whose life is complicated by diabetes.

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cover of A Life of Control: Stories of Living with Diabetes

A Life of Control

Stories of Living with Diabetes

Alan L. Graber

Vanderbilt University Press, 2010

Diabetes happens in a life that already has a story. This book, composed of nearly forty personal narratives, based on taped interviews, about the lives of actual patients with diabetes, draws upon the collective experience of an endocrinologist and two nurse practitioners who worked together for twenty-five years.


The people who describe their experiences with diabetes range from teenagers to physicians, immigrants, athletes, pregnant women, accountants, a prisoner, and a dairy farmer. They speak of the variety of ways they handle monitoring, diet, insurance coverage, sports, and fashion. Some talk of how they manage to drive trucks for a living or, for recreation, fly airplanes or go spelunking. Many speak frankly of their anxieties and frustrations.


The authors acknowledge that both the patient and clinician have a story about their relationship, and describe the richness and tension in their interaction. Families, too, are sources of both support and conflict. These relationships are acknowledged in the organization of the book, which is divided into sections defined by the main elements of diabetes control: patient self-determination, the role of the family, the social situation, and the patient-clinician encounter.


The book provides a wealth of information about diabetes, including material on prevention, complications, and new technology, as well as a superb glossary, but it is not intended as a textbook on diabetes or as a self-care manual for patients. Rather the book provides a textured account of the health professional's view of diabetes control and the perspective of the patient whose life is complicated by diabetes.

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cover of A Plague on All Our Houses: Medical Intrigue, Hollywood, and the Discovery of AIDS

A Plague on All Our Houses

Medical Intrigue, Hollywood, and the Discovery of AIDS

Bruce J. Hillman

University Press of New England, 2016

A frightening new plague. A medical mystery. A pioneering immunologist. In A Plague on All Our Houses, Dr. Bruce J. Hillman dissects the war of egos, money, academic power, and Hollywood clout that advanced AIDS research even as it compromised the career of the scientist who discovered the disease. At the beginning of the worldwide epidemic soon to be known as AIDS, Dr. Michael Gottlieb was a young immunologist new to the faculty of UCLA Medical Center. In 1981 he was brought in to consult on a battery of unusual cases: four formerly healthy gay men presenting with persistent fever, weight loss, and highly unusual infections. Other physicians around the country had noted similar clusters of symptoms, but it was Gottlieb who first realized that these patients had a new and deadly disease. He also identified the defect in their immune system that allowed the disease to flourish. He published his findings in a now-iconic lead article in the New England Journal of Medicine—an impressive achievement for such a young scientist—and quickly became the focal point of a whirlwind of panic, envy, desperation, and distrust that played out against a glittering Hollywood backdrop. Courted by the media, the gay community, and the entertainment industry, Gottlieb emerged as the medical face of the terrifying new epidemic when he became personal physician to Rock Hudson, the first celebrity AIDS patient. With Elizabeth Taylor he cofounded the charitable foundation amfAR, which advanced public awareness of AIDS and raised vast sums for research, even as it struggled against political resistance that began with the Reagan administration and trickled down through sedimentary layers of bureaucracy. Far from supporting him, the UCLA medical establishment reacted with dismay to Gottlieb’s early work on AIDS, believing it would tarnish the reputation of the Medical Center. Denied promotion and tenure in 1987, Gottlieb left UCLA for private practice just as the National Institutes of Health awarded the institution a $10 million grant for work he had pioneered there. In the thirty-five years since the discovery of AIDS, research, prevention, and clinical care have advanced to the point that the disease is no longer the death sentence it once was. Gottlieb’s seminal article is now regarded by the New England Journal of Medicine as one of the most significant publications of its two-hundred-year history. A Plague on All Our Houses offers a ringside seat to one of the most important medical discoveries and controversies of our time.
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cover of A Planet of Viruses: Second Edition

A Planet of Viruses

Second Edition

Carl Zimmer

University of Chicago Press, 2015

For years, scientists have been warning us that a pandemic was all but inevitable. Now it's here, and the rest of us have a lot to learn. 

Fortunately, science writer Carl Zimmer is here to guide us. In this compact volume, he tells the story of how the smallest living things known to science can bring an entire planet of people to a halt--and what we can learn from how we've defeated them in the past.

Planet of Viruses covers such threats as Ebola, MERS, and chikungunya virus; tells about recent scientific discoveries, such as a hundred-million-year-old virus that infected the common ancestor of armadillos, elephants, and humans; and shares new findings that show why climate change may lead to even deadlier outbreaks. Zimmer’s lucid explanations and fascinating stories demonstrate how deeply humans and viruses are intertwined. Viruses helped give rise to the first life-forms, are responsible for many of our most devastating diseases, and will continue to control our fate for centuries. Thoroughly readable, and, for all its honesty about the threats, as reassuring as it is frightening, A Planet of Viruses is a fascinating tour of a world we all need to better understand.
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cover of A Strong and Steady Pulse: Stories from a Cardiologist

A Strong and Steady Pulse

Stories from a Cardiologist

Gregory D. Chapman, MD

University of Alabama Press, 2021

A seasoned cardiologist shares his experiences, opinions, and recommendations about heart disease and other cardiac problems.

A Strong and Steady Pulse: Stories from a Cardiologist provides an insider’s perspective on the field of cardiovascular medicine told through vignettes and insights drawn from Gregory D. Chapman’s three decades as a cardiologist and professor of medicine. In twenty-six bite-sized chapters based on real-life patients and experiences, Chapman provides an overview of contemporary cardiovascular diseases and treatments, illuminating the art and science of medical practice for lay audiences and professionals alike.

With A Strong and Steady Pulse, Chapman provides medical students and general readers with a better understanding of cardiac disease and its contributing factors in modern life, and he also provides insights on the diagnostic process, medical decision making, and patient care. Each chapter presents a patient and their initial appearance, described in clear detail as Chapman gently walks us through his evaluation and the steps he and his associates take to determine the underlying problem. Chapman’s stories are about real people dealing with life and death situations—including the physicians, nurses, medical students, and other team members who try to save lives in emergent, confusing conditions.

The sometimes hard-won solutions to these medical challenges combine new technology and cutting-edge research together with insights drawn from Chapman’s past experiences as an intern and resident in Manhattan during the AIDS epidemic, as a postdoctoral fellow at Duke University in the 1990s, and in practice in Nashville, Tennessee, and Birmingham, Alabama. Conditions addressed include the recognition and management of heart attack, heart failure, arrhythmia, valvular heart disease, cardiac transplantation, broken heart syndrome, hypertension, and the depression some people experience after a heart attack, as well as related topics like statin drugs, the Apple Watch ECG feature, and oral anticoagulants. Finally, the emergence of the COVID-19 virus and its disruption of normal hospital routines as the pandemic unfolded is addressed in an epilogue.

 

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cover of Alive with Alzheimer's

Alive with Alzheimer's

Cathy Stein Greenblat

University of Chicago Press, 2004

The confusion, losses, and devastation of Alzheimer's disease are familiar to the millions of Americans suffering from the disease and to their family members. Understandably, declining abilities and changing personal characteristics shape our picture of the disease, leading some to refer to the "double death" of Alzheimer's in which the sufferer drifts away long before his or her eventual physical end.

This small, tender volume of 85 photographs and accompanying discussion powerfully shows the limitations of this view. Cathy Stein Greenblat, an internationally respected sociologist and photographer, demonstrates in Alive with Alzheimer's that, while the ravages of the disease are real, Alzheimer's sufferers can do more than survive, they can thrive. Her images, interviews, and observations attest to the possibility of their being "alive" with Alzheimer's far beyond the expectations of the general public and even of many physicians with long experience with the disease.

Greenblat offers a new vision, taking us into a world of life-enhancing institutional care. Nursing homes and similar facilities don't have to be a last resort; as Greenblat shows, with a dedicated and experienced staff and an enriched environment (that includes respect, choices, pets, and music), extraordinary changes can be effected in Alzheimer's patients. Alive with Alzheimer's, the first photographic book on the disease, offers hope and inspiration. Moreover, its vivid, impressive evidence that ongoing stimulation in a good institutional setting can sustain Alzheimer's patients at a far higher level than is generally believed has significant implications for personal and policy decisions.

The new standard of care chronicled in Alive with Alzheimer's will provide hope and inspiration to those touched by the disease. As Dr. Enid Rockwell writes in her Afterword to Greenblat's moving book, "These photographs are extraordinary for practitioners, for family members, for everyone to see what's going on with these people. The stimulation pictured in this book is more powerful than any medication that we will have in our lifetime. . . . They so vividly show us that there are people inside these bodies, people with personalities, who experience emotion, and they show that there is life after Alzheimer's."
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cover of All God's Mistakes: Genetic Counseling in a Pediatric Hospital

All God's Mistakes

Genetic Counseling in a Pediatric Hospital

Charles L. Bosk

University of Chicago Press, 1992

In one case after another, Charles L. Bosk reveals the process by which parents, physicians and other health professionals come to guide decisions about pregnancies. A story of both extraordinary drama and ordinary routine, this is a pioneering case study of authority and control in a pediatric hospital, showing how genetic counselors work with colleagues and with parents to be, and how they deal with their powerlessness to control life-and-death decisions that they must address.
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cover of Alzheimer's and Dementia: A Practical and Legal Guide for Nevada Caregivers, Revised and Updated

Alzheimer's and Dementia

A Practical and Legal Guide for Nevada Caregivers, Revised and Updated

Kim Boyer

University of Nevada Press, 2025

Individuals or families receiving a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, or brain damage from a stroke face daunting questions: how to provide care when the patient can no longer manage his or her own affairs, how to protect their rights and property, where to go for help, and how to cope with the day-to-day challenges of fading memory and diminished cognition. First published in 2011, Boyer and Shapiro’s Alzheimer’s and Dementia offers a comprehensive guide to families and professionals taking on the role of caregiver. The newly revised and updated edition offers practical strategies for dealing with Alzheimer's or dementia, including new research and treatment updates.

The book, specific to Nevada, covers state laws including Medicaid planning, asset protection, guardianship, probate, advance directives, and patient rights. It also addresses estate and financial planning, and provides a detailed list of resources available to assist caregivers. Written by an elder law attorney and a gerontologist, Alzheimer’s and Dementiaoffers insights from two professionals who provide practical solutions to common obstacles faced by caregivers, helping them support the needs and overcome the challenges facing those coping with these diseases.

Boyer and Shapiro coauthored The Essential Eldercare Handbook for Nevada also available from the University of Nevada Press.
 
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cover of Alzheimer’s and Dementia: A Practical and Legal Guide for Nevada Caregivers

Alzheimer’s and Dementia

A Practical and Legal Guide for Nevada Caregivers

Kim Boyer

University of Nevada Press, 2012

            Individuals or families receiving a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, or brain damage from a stroke face daunting questions: how to provide for care when the patient can no longer manage his or her own affairs, how to protect their rights and property, where to go for help, and how to cope with the day-to-day challenges of fading memory and diminished cognition. Here is a comprehensive guide specifically for aging Nevadans and for family members, professional caregivers, and health care workers who help them.
The authors—an elder law attorney and a specialist in geriatric care management—offer readers useful advice from the perspective of Nevada resources and Nevada law, addressing such topics as the legal and financial steps that patients and their families can take to protect themselves and their assets, paying for long-term care, arranging for guardianship, and tending to the details that follow the death of a loved one.
 This edition, updated in 2011, includes information about recent changes in laws that affect seniors, new research and treatments, and a new guide to resources throughout the state that can provide assistance to people afflicted with these medical conditions.
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cover of An Epidemic of Uncertainty: Navigating HIV and Young Adulthood in Malawi

An Epidemic of Uncertainty

Navigating HIV and Young Adulthood in Malawi

Jenny Trinitapoli

University of Chicago Press, 2023

A decade-long study of young adulthood in Malawi that demonstrates the impact of widespread HIV status uncertainty, laying bare the sociological implications of what is not known.

An Epidemic of Uncertainty advances a new framework for studying social life by emphasizing something social scientists routinely omit from their theories, models, and measures–what people know they don’t know. Taking Malawi’s ongoing AIDS epidemic as an entry point, Jenny Trinitapoli shows that despite admirable declines in new HIV infections and AIDS-related mortality, an epidemic of uncertainty persists; at any given point in time, fully half of Malawian young adults don’t know their HIV status. Reckoning with the impact of this uncertainty within the bustling trading town of Balaka, Trinitapoli argues that HIV-related uncertainty is measurable, pervasive, and impervious to biomedical solutions, with consequences that expand into multiple domains of life, including relationship stability, fertility, and health. Over the duration of a groundbreaking decade-long longitudinal study, rich survey data and poignant ethnographic vignettes vividly depict how individual lives and population patterns unfold against the backdrop of an ever-evolving epidemic. Even as HIV is transformed from a progressive, fatal disease to a chronic and manageable condition, the accompanying epidemic of uncertainty remains fundamental to understanding social life in this part of the world.

Insisting that known unknowns can and should be integrated into social-scientific models of human behavior, An Epidemic of Uncertainty treats uncertainty as an enduring aspect, a central feature, and a powerful force in everyday life.
 
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