A Special Father's Day Gift to Show You Care

A Gift from the Heart for the Heart

A Special Father's Day Gift to Show You Care
"Health is the Greatest Gift and Happiness the Greatest Wealth"
1. Print the card and cut along the grey outer border.
2. Fold the card in half. It's about the size of a business card.
3. Place wallet size photos on the blank side of the card.
4. Optional Gifts to place inside:
    Lottery Ticket, Dinner at his Favorite Restaurant, a Day at the Beach,
    Voucher to Wash His Car, Family Picnic, Tickets to a Sporting Event,
    Time Together

Your father will carry around photos of loved ones with health reminders.
A perfect gift for a Special Father.

Sample Outside

Checklist to Stay Healthy

Sweet Danger: The Hidden Risks of Candy-Lookalike Medications

There are many types of pills that can look like candy, especially for children. Some examples include Chewable and gummy vitamins or supplements: Chewable vitamin tablets can often look and taste like popular chewable candies, such as Runts, Sweet Tarts, and candy necklaces. Gummy vitamins or supplements can look and taste like gummy bears, fruit snacks, or other gummy treats.

Cannabis edibles: As more states legalize cannabis, cases in which children accidentally eat food or drinks that contain cannabis are on the rise. Cannabis edibles can be especially tricky because they don’t just look like food — they often are food products with cannabis as an added ingredient.

Chewable antacids: Many antacids come in fruit or mint flavors and can look and taste like Sweet Tarts or Mentos.

Some antacid chews can also look and taste like a piece of bubble gum or taffy.

Tablets with a smooth outer coating: Many medications, such as conjugated estrogens (Premarin), iron supplements, and over-the-counter (OTC) ibuprofen (Advil), come as tablets with a smooth outer coating. It’s there to make tablets easier to swallow, among other effects. But it can also make them look very similar to various candies, such as M&M’s, Skittles, and Tic Tacs.

Chewable Vitamins: These often come in bright colors and fun shapes, making them look similar to gummy candies.

Antacid Tablets: Some antacids are colorful and round, resembling small hard candies.

Cough Drops: With their shiny, often brightly colored exteriors, cough drops can easily be mistaken for hard candy.

Birth Control Pills: Packaged in circular or rectangular formations with colorful coatings, they can appear candy-like.

Pediatric Medications: Liquid medicines or chewables designed for children are sometimes flavored and brightly colored, much like liquid candy or gummy treats.

It’s important to note that even over-the-counter medications, such as vitamins or antacids, can be dangerous if taken in large amounts. Parents and caregivers should take steps to store medications away from children and educate them on when it’s safe to take medication and from whom.

Poison Control
Call 1-800-222-1222

Medication Safety Week

Medication Safety Week: Draws attention to this health problem as the 6th leading cause of death. The Women's Heart Foundation started a Medication Safety Week, offering communities strategies to reduce risk while raising awareness.

1. Clean Out Your Medicine Cabinet

Discard outdated medicines and old prescriptions. Store medicines in their original containers and in a cool, dry place. Locate medicines away from children and pets and from those who do not understand.

2. Know Your Medicines

Make a list of your medicines and know what each is for. Learn to identify each pill size, shape and color by name. Note times to take, drug action and any side effects. Know both the generic and trade names of your medicines and what each is for. This may prevent inadvertently double-dosing. Include in your list over-the-counter medicines, birth control pills, patches, and supplements. Keep the list updated and keep it with you at all times. Don't mix medicine with alcohol - a combination that can be lethal.

3. Read Medicine Labels Carefully

Are you taking what your doctor ordered and the way he ordered it? Note precautionary stickers on the label.

4. Organize Your Medicines

Keep an updated record listing all medicines and supplements you are taking. Use of a medicine organizer box may be helpful, especially for those taking more than one pill several times a day, however, a medicine organizer box requires close monitoring, especially when there is a change in medicines.

5: Transitional Care Aware

Changes in care (i.e. being moved from one hospital floor to another, being transferred from one care facility to another, being discharged home) all require intense coordination of services and good communication amongst health providers. When there are lapses, you are at risk of an adverse event or hospital readmission. One study estimated that 80 percent of serious medical errors involve miscommunication during the hand-off between medical providers.

6: Know Your Individual Risk before Starting a New Rx

Talk to your pharmacist. Discuss your possible risk of a serious side effect to occur.

7: Better Communication with Health Professionals is Key.  Share information with all your prescribing practitioners and with your pharmacist about every medicine and supplement you are taking. Discuss all risks and benefits with your prescribing practitioner. Discuss expected effects and possible side effects.

Resource:
Women’s Heart Foundation: Medication Safety Week 

World Health Day April 7, 2011

Antimicrobial Resistance and its Global Spread

World Health Day 2011 is dedicated to antimicrobial resistance, a major threat to patient care and disease control throughout the world. Antimicrobial resistance is a significant obstacle to success in controlling HIV, malaria and tuberculosis—three of the world's leading infectious killers. This serious problem also makes it more difficult to treat hospital-acquired infections, facilitates the emergence of "superbugs" that are resistant to major antibiotics, and creates the need for new, more expensive and more complex treatments.

For World Health Day 2011, WHO launchs a worldwide campaign to safeguard these medicines for future generations.

In recent decades, the development and spread of antimicrobial resistance has dramatically accelerated. This situation is related with the increased use of antimicrobials. An estimated half of the antimicrobials employed are used improperly. They are often prescribed to treat other health problems, which don't need antimicrobials, the treatment is not completed as indicated or the quality of the medicines is not adequate. World Health Day 2011 seeks to raise awareness of factors that contribute to antimicrobial resistance, to build commitment to common solutions across diseases, and to encourage the implementation of policies and practices that can prevent and contain antimicrobial resistance.

We live in an era of medical breakthroughs with new wonder drugs available to treat conditions that a few decades ago, or even a few years ago in the case of HIV/AIDS, would have proved fatal. Antimicrobial resistance and its global spread threaten the continued effectiveness of many medicines used today to treat the sick, while at the same time it risks jeopardizing important advances being made against major infectious killers.

Antimicrobial Resistance:
World Health Day 2011

The Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr Margaret Chan, in a video statement to mark World Health Day 2011 and the theme, Combat Drug Resistance, has warned that "In the absence of urgent corrective and protective actions, the world is heading towards a post-antibiotic era, in which many common infections will no longer have a cure and, once again, kill unabated." The video statement was released to coincide with the launch of new WHO policy package and a call for action on antimicrobial resistance. For more information visit  http://www.who.int/world-health-day/2011/en/index.html