Equine Cushings disease is caused by a tumor in the pituitary gland, which is responsible for the production and regulation of hormones. Symptoms include a long, shaggy coat that does not shed, excessive drinking and urination, laminitis, a tendency for recurring infections in the hoof (foot abscesses), and a loss of muscle mass, especially along the topline and rump.

At Eye of the Storm Equine Rescue, we’ve discovered what appears to be a cure for Cushings disease in horses. We’re not licensed nor are we doctors, but we know what has worked for our horses and for lots of others, so we wanted to share our experiences in case it helps cure your own horse of equine Cushings disease.

While looking through a nutritional healing book at Debra’s Natural Gourmet in West Concord, Mass., I came across a sentence that said “Chasteberry feeds the pituitary gland.” Chasteberry in recent times has been used mainly for “women’s complaints.” I know it works because it beats the crap out of PMS, you feel better in 20 minutes. “Hmm,” I say, “I like chasteberry, let’s see what it can do for our two Cushings horses.”

Bess, our 26 year old Shetland had obvious symptoms: long hair that didn’t shed and she was a sway back. Not as bad as some, but still obvious. I couldn’t wait for the vet to take some blood to find out her “numbers.” The results were positive for Cushings. I put her on one teaspoon twice a day, three weeks on and one week off. Though she began to shed her coat of “buffalo” hair almost immediately, she never was a very slick pony. But I was determined to keep her on the chasteberry one year before testing her blood again. If I saw results then, I would tell the world.

One year later, after Bess’ test results came back, the vet said, “I don’t know what you’re doing, but keep on doing it.” Bess’ numbers were down 33 points! I don’t know exactly what these numbers represent, but evidently this never happens in real life! After one year of feeding her pituitary gland, had I managed to reverse her Cushings disease? I was very excited as this ailment affects the lives of millions of old (and not so old) horses in so many negative ways. This disease is more common now than it has ever been in the past. No one really knows why, though I have my theories. That is another tale for another day.

I was getting whole chasteberry in one pound bulk bags from Natural Gourmet and running it through a coffee grinder. The seeds are very hard and I figured it would come out the other end the same way they went in, unless we knocked the shells off them. You run the grinder until most of the pinging of hard berries can’t be heard anymore. You cannot grind them up completely, but that’s okay. Horses are made to digest roughage. They handle the chunks just fine. You should have a grinder for this purpose only, as your coffee might taste funny if you use the grinder for both.

Right around the time I was ready to tell the world about this “cure,” another product came on the market called Hormonize. It is a liquid and costs around $45 per liter and lasts two weeks for your average size horse. That’s $90 per month to treat the horse. The developers of this product found it to be effective not only on mares in heat, but it also did some impressive things for Cushings horses, too. It is sold for this purpose as well. It is an all natural herbal remedy. A bit pricey, though.

I checked out the ingredients. It is a tincture of chasteberry! I think they call it vitex or monks pepper on the back. I’m not sure. It greatly saddens me that the treatment for such a devastating disease sells for so much.

Horses don’t need herbal tinctures. They can and do digest some pretty coarse stuff (have you ever tried to eat dry timothy hay?). They can not only digest the herb, but utilize it in that form beautifully.

Bess, unfortunately, died at age 28 when she decided her mission was accomplished, so we never got a third blood test from her. We have two other Cushings horses, and all of our older mares are on chasteberry as well. Junebug, who is 8 years old, was tested last year and we’ll test her again soon to see where her numbers are. Snowdrop was never tested, but all her symptoms have disappeared and she is doing well at 24 years old.

If any of you out there would like to try chasteberry, here’s what to do. Go to your local health food store and special order one pound bulk bag whole chastetree berry from the Frontier herb company (please mention Eye of the Storm Equine Rescue when you do). You might want to order more than one bag so that when you’re down to one you can reorder. One bag will cost you less than $20 and will last a couple of months per horse.

Run the berries through your coffee grinder and feed one teaspoon twice a day with feed. We give the same amount to horses and ponies. It works on both mares and geldings. Give it to them three weeks on and one week off all year round. It will even keep the mares from being quite so crabby in the spring.

We also give them all vitamin E in the evening, vitamin C in the morning, and MSM. No sugars or carbohydrates (not even a carrot). There are feeds out there that are low in both, such as Blue Seal Racer and some of the senior feeds (do some research). All in all, chasteberry is the answer. Even our two 30-year old mares don’t have Cushings, only Bess, Junebug, and Snowdrop, who came to us with the disease and it appears to be reversed. I never had horses of my own get Cushings. I have every horse in town that has Cushings on chasteberry and they’re all doing great! This is a cheap, easy, healthy remedy for Cushings disease.

Electric wheelchairs mobility for virtually any type of disability.

Innovations have made control of electric wheelchairs manageable for everyone. Today, manual and electric wheelchairs have become a physical extension of the rider. But it wasn’t until 1979, when an anti-trust suit was settled, that an era of competition and design innovation began resulting in better pricing and greater mobility in both manual and electric wheelchairs.

Today we can find lightweight, transport, ultra light wheelchairs along with ramps and lifts. Now sleek sports models are used in competition as formal leagues for basketball, tennis, racing and many other sports are developed for users of manual and electric wheelchairs.

An estimated 2 million Americans use mobility products and/or motorized scooters. For some, obstacles such as stairs, elevated curbs and rocky terrain may no longer pose such a steep challenge.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved what is being called the SUV of electric wheelchairs. The iBOT, priced at $29,000, can climb stairs, bound up curbs, and glide through gravel, sand and grass. It can even elevate a seated passenger to reach the top shelf at a grocery store.

You’ll be able to easily find manual and electric wheelchairs as well as sports model wheelchairs that support a variety of activities and lifestyles.

Comfort, quality and affordability are attributes that we know are important to users and that is what you’ll find as you shop for electric wheelchairs and wheelchair accessories in the online store.

Technology. We live in a grand time of technological development. Computers, the Internet, cell phones, digital cameras and DVDs. But the human body has not ‘kept up’ with technology. Human beings certainly shouldn’t eat technology! But that is happening today as a result of the onslaught of chemicals in our foods and environments, and with the impending threat of chemical warfare.

This very second, your physical body is mysteriously functioning internally exactly the way human bodies functioned 10,000 years ago. Because our bodies today are the same as in the past, it is critical to eat, drink, and live the same as in years past - centuries past. But modern societies are adopting one of the most unnatural lifestyles known to mankind. Cancer rates and cardiovascular disease in the United States alone are among the highest in the world as a result of technology interfering with our food supply and living environments.

SO WHY DETOX?

Have you ever washed greasy dishes without hot water or dish soap? The dishes don’t get clean, do they? When toxic metals and chemical food additives get inside your body, it takes a strong “cleanser” to scrub your body clean from the inside out. The combination of vitamins and minerals through detoxification work in this fashion to remove toxins from your body tissues and body organs, from your water stores, fat deposits, and within your bloodstream. Natural cleansing is critical to remove body toxins, and protects from re-depositing them somewhere else in the body.

Toxins such as lead, mercury, and the side effects of aspartame’s by-products of formic acid and formaldehyde, block nutrients from getting into normal body cells in the same fashion a lead shield blocks radiation during an x-ray.

If toxins are present within your body, oxygen and the body’s “food supply” cannot get inside your cells to supply needed nutrients, nor can the cells’ waste products get out. Diseases, such as cancer, now have an environment in which to form. When these body toxins are removed, your body can then restore a healthy balance.

IDENTIFY, REMOVE, AND RESTORE

The basic philosophy behind any effective detox program is to identify, remove, and restore.

Identify what toxins are at the root of your health problems.

Identify = hair analysis

Remove the toxins by cleansing your body.

Remove = detoxification

Restore lost nutrients.

Restore = nutritional supplements

Like pealing the layers off an onion, as each layer is removed through detoxification, the underlying layers reveal what’s really behind disease symptoms. The deeper you go toward removing the ‘core’ of the problem, healing becomes long-term reality.

TEN STEPS TO DETOXIFICATION

Begin with detoxing your body of all residual chemical toxins and see if any adverse health symptoms remain. Try these steps for yourself, and within 30 days your symptoms should improve if not completely disappear.

The Ten Steps:

Quality, dependable Medical Equipment is an important component of every medical practice. It can’t be overstated that while the practice of medicine is an art, Medical Equipment is the science behind the implementation of that art.

Increasingly, patients are becoming more sophisticated in their understanding of the medical supplies and Medical Equipment that is being used to treat them. This means that a health care provider needs to know and understand not only how their equipment operates, but also have confidence that the Medical Equipment they use is of the highest quality.

Your Medical Equipment needs to be reliable and of a high quality.

The tools of your profession, whether it’s a stethoscope or a nebulizer, can now all be ordered online over the internet, generally at substantial savings. This means an easier approach to Medical Equipment management.

Both the professional and home health consumer are now ordering many of their Medical Equipment and medical supplies right from their computer. Prices are low and the quality is excellent. If you work in the health care field you’ll need medical supplies to help you with your work. Quality products that you know you can depend on will give you greater confidence during stressful situations.

When you search online for Electric Wheelchairs, like any other things, you will face a situation, where you will need to choose a provider out of so many companies that offer the service. The search engines will bring you thousands and thousands of results when you type the phrase “Electric Wheelchairs.” Which vendor or provider to choose? It is important that you make an informed decision.

Things to look for when choosing an Electric Wheelchair:

First, it is good to check the company’s track record and make sure that the company, which provider Electric Wheelchairs is a very good company to do business with. When I buy big-ticket product from a company that I don’t know of, I always check the company’s record with the Better Business Bureau. You can do that by going to www.bbb.org .

While large companies may offer a great service, our experience has been that with the smaller or midsize companies you get a more personalized attention. For example an unknown company such as Jaki Med, based in Charlotte, NC, (Tel. 866.569-7877, they also provide other related supplies) may offer a better service than a large company who will run continuous ads on your TV screen. Why, because you get a personalized service, and a small company will try to do a better job to put a good word out there about its services.

A good company will also offer a free transportation during the product delivery and will service is free for a reasonable time. Ask the company if they could provide you with few previous customers with whom you could speak directly and find out what experience they had with your possible Electric Wheelchair provider. You might also want to ask from the company, to get some references that they have from the doctors for whose patients they have provided Electric Wheelchairs in the past.

A good company that provides Electric Wheelchairs should be able to assist you while doing the paper work for an insurance coverage.

Those are few things, but not all, that you might want to consider when choosing an Electric Wheelchair provider. You definitely want that the user of the Electric Wheelchair enjoy his or her way of mobility and enjoy life fully.

When Dorothy followed the yellow brick road, she was told to do so by those who wanted her to get where she wanted go. Well as humans when we blindly follow recommendations even by individuals who have good intentions, it may not always be your best option. So I’m preparing this article to compare and contrast what are known as traditional treatments vs. complementary or alternative treatments for back pain. Remember there is rarely only one reason for your back pain and almost never one silver bullet fix? you may need to try several approaches till you find what works for you.

So when reading this article and thinking back on your visits to medical professionals, did you have the big picture or were you just following that yellow brick road? If you have been down that road, or if you are just starting to suffer from back pain it’s never too late to seek out new and more encompassing information about your condition when trying to find a solution that works for you. Don’t say you’ve tried everything because you haven’t… your solution is out there and you just have to find it!

Orthopedic Care

One of the first places many people go when they experience back pain is the orthopedic specialist (surgeon) and a visit usually last 5-10 minutes. They will typically look at the problem/symptomatic area and often fail to look at the body as a whole. If you’ve been to an orthopedic specialist for your back pain, did they do a full body physical evaluation (takes 30 mins. or more)??? Not likely.

Here are some of the common treatments used / prescribed by orthopedic specialists:

Cortisone Shots

Cortisone is a catabolic steroid which is intended to reduce inflammation by killing off the tissue in the inflamed area? now let me ask you, does that make any sense to you at all?

Not only are these injections quite painful, but they rarely result in any pain relief and if they do it is short lived, usually 1-2 weeks if at all. Plus, it does NOTHING to identify or address the cause of the pain? it is only intended to treat the symptom. It’s for those reasons that we do not recommend them.

Anti-inflammatory Drugs

Just the name should scare you away? just like cortisone shots, anti-inflammatory medications do not identify or address the cause of your pain and for many people, they deliver little pain relief. These medications also deliver serious side effects! The main reason they are prescribed is money? and if you don’t believe me, do the research and you’ll see for yourself. The drug industry is huge and unfortunately, they have a huge influence on the whole medical community, including the doctors.

I challenge you to find a drug that will fix your back problem? you’ll be looking forever because there is no way a medication can fix a physical problem so avoid medications at all costs!

Back Surgery

Surgery for back pain is very common and more often than not, the individual still has pain afterwards (or it returns within weeks) and sometimes even new problems! Very rarely is a surgery the answer…

for example, many people have surgery for herniated discs. The logic behind the surgery is if you remove the piece/portion of the disc that is putting pressure on the nerve the problem is solved. Unfortunately, the same forces that forced that disc to protrude or bulge will likely force more of the disc out, or another disc out.

Surgery should always be the last resort… and even then I’d question it!

Physical Therapy

Physical Therapy is traditionally the next step after seeing an Orthopedic Doctor. That is if surgery is not recommended. So what should you expect? The process will start with an evaluation and here may be the start of the problem? here is why?. the doctor has to write a prescription with a diagnosis on it. You give the prescription to the PT and he or she will perform an evaluation… chances are the PT will simply confirm the diagnosis from the doctor, however the hope should be that they take the extra step to look for the root cause of your pain. They may but chances are they have several other clients in the office at the same time and simply do not have the time.

So without a comprehensive evaluation to identify the root cause of you pain they will simply treat your symptoms. We have just identified the second problem. The health care industry is required to show improvement with each and every session so the push is to reduce your symptoms to show progress in order for them to get paid. The long and short of it is that yes your pain can be reduced but the root cause rarely gets addressed, meaning that the pain and your suffering will return again and again.

So what should you do? When selecting a Physical Therapy office you may want to ask how many patients the office sees in a day and how many PTs they have on staff… then ask how many patients can a PT work with in an hour. Do not be surprised to hear that a PT can see up to three patients in an hour. That’s you and two others at the same time. Do you think you will get the attention and proper treatments you need? I doubt it.

There is a little joke in Physical Therapy when treating patients and it has to do with what course of modalities you will get. The joke is called Shake and Bake and it refers to everyone gets the same treatment protocol? that way it can be timed so that your PT can see other people simultaneously. What goes into a shake and bake treatment? It may start with a spin on a stationary bike or a trot a treadmill than you will get a 3 to 5 minute Ultrasound over the effected area followed by Electrical Stimulation to the area with a little Ice strapped to your body and to finish off your session you will get a hand out with exercises you should do at home. Certainly not a recipe for success!

Chiropractic Care

One of the most common treatments for back pain is Chiropractic Care. The approach consists of physical manipulations of bones and joints in an attempt to line things back up and it’s recommended typically 2-3 times per week.

The problem with this approach is that the same forces (muscles, tendons, and ligaments) will likely pull the bones and joints right back out of place again. Also, most (not all) chiropractors will spend 15 minutes with you if your lucky.

Ask people who see a chiropractor how long they’ve been going? I hear of people who have been going for 10-15 years and still don’t have a healthy back. Look, the fact is chiropractic care is lacking?

Unless the chiropractor combines the two approaches, it doesn’t make sense?

The ONLY way chiropractic care makes sense is if you are addressing the muscle imbalances that are pulling the bones and joints out of place to begin with and that requires strengthening and stretching exercises that are chosen specifically to correct your muscle imbalances.

Alternative Treatments for Treating and Eliminating Back Pain

Massage Therapy

Massage therapy, if done correctly can work wonders for people with back pain. This is not to say that it is the best choice and that it will work for everyone? however, most people will get great results from it if the massage therapist has a good understanding of muscle imbalances and how to work on them.

NOTE: Not all massage therapists are the same! Just like any profession, there are varying degrees of training and qualifications. When selecting a massage therapist please check to see if they are licensed and insured in the state where you will be seeing them. You should also ask the massage therapist if they have training in one of the following areas: Orthopedic massage, Medical massage, St. Johns technique and/or has a comprehensive knowledge of muscle imbalances relating to back pain. With that said the benefits are as follows. The root cause will be identified, your discomfort will be addressed and you root cause will be corrected all in an attempt to make you pain free and give you the tools you need to keep you that way. What to expect when you see a massage therapist.

All massage sessions are one on one allowing you the opportunity to converse with the therapist as well as get the attention you need to get results. You can ask questions about how you compare to other people. Feel free to ask the therapist what approach they will be taking so that you know what to expect. The massage therapist has many different techniques they can use when to dealing with you back pain and some are better than others. On the down side sometimes a therapist can get distracted with other problem areas, it is in your best interest to keep them focused on you back and associated problem areas. Like anything else you may need to try several different therapists before finding the one that works best for you and with you.

Post-rehabilitation Fitness Training

Another overlooked form of treatment that is very effective is post-rehabilitation fitness training. This includes targeted strength and flexibility work to correct / improve the individuals muscle imbalances. This service can only be performed by certified post-rehab fitness trainers and there are limitations to what they can do for you. For example, they can not diagnose a condition, prescribe any medications take x-rays, etc? however, if they are well trained they can pinpoint your muscle imbalances quickly and get you started on a fitness program that will restore balance to your body and likely eliminate your back pain.

Often times this can be combined with massage therapy and/or manual physical therapy for a total solution. If you decide to go this route, which I recommend you do, be sure to thoroughly check out the fitness trainer and ask to see their certification, insurance, references, etc.

Manual Physical (muscle) Therapy

Manual Physical Therapy is NOT the same as regular physical therapy? there are some major differences and here are just a few:

1. Manual therapy consists of hands on muscle work primarily whereas traditional physical therapy consists of heat, ice, ultrasound, electrical stimulation, etc

2. Manual therapist will typically perform a much more thorough physical evaluation

3. Manual therapists will usually be able to spend more time with each patient

4. Manual therapy is more holistic in it’s approach and focuses the body as a whole unit? something lacking from nearly all traditional treatments for back pain.

So before you say, “I’ve already tried physical therapy”? did you try manual physical therapy? They are two very different treatment approaches and I highly recommend you consider manual physical therapy.

Conclusion

As you can see traditional treatments are the main stay of modern medicine? not necessarily for the patients benefit, but it’s just how the system works best for itself. The system will not change until the system is confronted with a very powerful competitive force. That force may well be complementary or alternative care from the likes of Personal Trainers, Acupuncturists, Massage Therapists, Manual Physical Therapists, and the like.

So that’s what we’ve tried to do? force change. The traditional treatments that people have been receiving for decades just doesn’t work, and we have found a combination approach that not only works the best, but it’s safe, natural, and inexpensive. Check out our “Lose the Back Pain” video now? it will show you how to identify the cause of your back pain and the show you the exact combination of steps to take to eliminate it.

If you have tried other treatments with little or no relief/improvement, you owe it to yourself to try this approach? so take charge of your health and get started now working towards not only a pain free back, but a healthy and balanced body! Only you can fix your back? all you need is the right approach!

Warning: This article is not intended to be medical advice however its intent is to make you a better, smatter and more informed client. The more you know and understand about your medical condition the better off you will be when it comes time to make the hard choices. As well as communicating with medical professionals…. believe me it will make a world of difference.

Resperate is natural and powerful and it puts you in control of your blood pressure.

Resperate is a new device and is revolutionising the nature of blood pressure treatment. Blood pressure sufferers throughout the world are catching on to the amazing potential of Resperate and their lives are changing because of it. Those with high blood pressure are able to reduce or stop their blood pressure medication and some with low blood pressure are able to get rid of low blood pressure symptoms.

Resperate uses biofeedback to control your blood pressure and the idea behind the Resperate device is not new.

Biofeedback has been used for decades to change internal body functions such as heart rate, bowel speed and adrenaline release. Yoga students and martial arts experts say they can control blood pressure by focus and medidation. Resperate brings that ability to us all. If you learn to use Resperate then you might not need drugs or blood pressure medications. At the least, you will be able to reduce the number of tablets you need to take each day.

So how does Resperate work?

Well, in very simple terms, the Resperate device teaches you to control your own blood pressure. If you devote about twenty minutes a day to practicing with the machine you’ll quickly notice a big difference. And it really does work - not just in lowering blood pressure but in reducing overall stress and tension levels. High blood pressure isn’t known as “Hyper - Tension” for nothing!

The makers say that Resperate takes around eight weeks to have its effect, but some research studies show that it acts more quickly than that. It works by bringing blood pressure control to a conscious level and, because of that, you can use Resperate to reduce high blood pressure or to treat low blood pressure.

If you have low blood pressure problems then Resperate can truly be a godsend because there are few other effective treatments available.

Research studies have shown that Resperate can reduce blood pressure by about twenty points on the scale. For most patients this is very significant and will benefit their health enormously. Reducing medication will also make most blood pressure patients feel better because many effective blood pressure tablets have problematic side effects.

Resperate retails for around three hundred dollars. As a one off cost it’s not cheap but in the longer term it may save you many times that amount.

Resperate works. If you have high blood pressure or low blood pressure then you really ought to take a close look at what it has to offer.

We’ve all seen patients who were far beyond the reach of medical treatment suddenly defy the odds and recover. We’ve also seen patients who were well on the road to recovery, take a turn for the worse for seemingly no reason at all. No matter what the technology or how terrific we are at our jobs, sometimes medicine just isn’t enough.

Case in point, a few years ago, I saw a woman in her sixties after she had had a moderate CVA. No matter what her doctors did for her, she still wouldn’t regain consciousness ? defying explanation. Her daughter was thousands of miles away at the time and when the doctor reached her, he told her that her mother mighty not live long enough for her to get to her side. After several minutes, the daughter finally convinced the head nurse to put a phone up to her mother’s ear, so she could talk to her. The nurse put the phone by the patient’s ear and could hear her daughter talking to her, telling her that she was on her way and that everything was going to be fine. The moment her patient heard her daughter’s voice, the nurse watched in amazement as her vitals stabilized, her eye lids began to flutter and her eyes opened, looking straight up at the nurse! Two weeks later, she was out of the hospital and on her way to rehab.

That’s the miracle of communications.

Whether a family member, a friend or just a familiar face, our patients need to have the people they love surrounding them, when they’re ill, in pain, or afraid. As caregivers, it’s part of our job to realize that patients might be too ill or physically unable to initiate the contact they so desperately need, on their own.

I wish that were the end of the story. A few years later, the same woman was injured after a bad fall and taken to a different hospital. Despite being in stable and then good condition, a few days later a lack of the most basic medical care caused the woman to spiral into critical condition. When the hospital called her daughter to notify her of her mother’s hospitalization days later, she learned that her mother was now unconscious and may not survive. While trying to get a flight back, she begged the nursing staff to put a phone next to her mother’s ear, so she could talk to her, possibly for the last time. But at this hospital, the nurses and doctor refused. In fact her doctor said that she was suddenly opening her eyes and looking around. But despite her daughter’s pleas to let her talk to her mom while she could still hear her, he tells her that he has no way to get a phone to an ICU patient. “We’ll try and figure something out in the morning,” he says. Unfortunately the patient didn’t have that much time and she died hours later, never again hearing her daughter’s voice.

The next time you’re caring for a patient with compromised communication ability, take a moment to see their surroundings from his perspective.

When an unconscious patient arrives in the ED, every hospital agrees that timely next of kin notification is vital. Not only is it important to have a family member present to comfort the patient, but to make informed decisions for his care and provide the medical history that can make the difference between life and death. From a liability standpoint, as we know all too well, having a family member making medical decisions, often means that if complications do arise, the family will be much less likely to sue, than if they hadn’t been in attendance.

Although most hospitals make notification calls quickly, between personnel shortages and overworked staffers, that call can often be delayed or forgotten.

That’s exactly what happened to Elaine Sullivan, a very active seventy-one-year-old woman, who slipped and fell, while getting into the bathtub. When paramedics arrived, they realized that injuries to her mouth and head had made her unable to communicate, or as the hospital later discovered, to give informed consent for her own care.

Although stable for the first few days, she began to slip into critical condition. On the seventh day, Elaine died. But that tragedy was soon overshadowed by another. Despite having her daughter’s phone number and contact information clearly indicated on the front of her chart, the hospital failed to notify her family that she’d been hospitalized until six and a half days after her admission, only hours before she died, unnecessarily and alone.

Elaine Sullivan was my grandmother.

In her case, placing that phone call right away, would have saved her life. Not only would my mother Janet and I have had the time to fly back to Chicago to be at her bedside, but we would have made sure she received the care she needed. We also would have been able to give the physicians treating her, the medical history they needed to prevent the complications and drug interactions, responsible for her death.

After researching our own case and others like it, we realized that failing to notify a patient’s next of kin wasn’t an isolated problem ? it’s something that’s been experienced by countless families nationwide. According to the CDC, nearly one million patients come into the ED every year unconscious or physically unable to give informed consent. And with the growing number of emergency room admissions and baby boomers turning into senior citizens, the problem is only going to escalate. We began meeting with medical and trauma professionals, to create an easy-to-implement solution to this growing problem, by bringing together the best practices of successful trauma teams from hospitals nationwide. The result is the Seven Steps to Successful Notification System.

The complete system is presented in The Seven Steps Information Kit, which is available for download, free of charge, on the NOKEP web site. It’s filled with tools your staff can use on the patient care floor to identify and locate your unconscious patient’s family or surrogate decision makers, identify John Does and improve patient care and satisfaction by locating patient’s medical histories quickly and easily, while complying with HIPAA standards.

Even better, following the Seven Steps system provides the facility with a documentation of the steps taken to find the patient’s next of kin, make the notification, and the staff members responsible for making it. This releases you from subsequent liability, while providing proof that your facility has met its statutory responsibility.

Here is a quick look at the Seven Steps.

Step 1: Patient status confirmed

The moment that your staff realizes that an ED patient is unconscious or physically unable to give informed consent, and that there is no family member or surrogate decision maker in attendance, a nurse or physician is tasked with following the notification process through to completion. The staff member indicates the patient’s status on his chart along with the time, date and the staffer’s initials.

Step 2: Examine the patient’s personal effects for emergency contact numbers

If the patient doesn’t have emergency contact information in his or her wallet, the staff member looks for it in the patient’s personal effects. The System has a comprehensive checklist of places to locate this information, from the usual to the downright creative.

Step 3: Retrieve patient’s home number

If the patient doesn’t have emergency contact information, the staff member then looks for the patient’s home number, going to step five if they find it and four if they do not.

Step 4: Seek other sources for contact information

Next, the staff member looks for the patient’s emergency contact information or home phone number on records from previous admissions at the facility, or by calling his personal physician’s office, or other locations on the checklist. If the staff member finds the information, he proceeds to step five ? if not, step seven.

Step 5: Oversee or make the notification call

When a contact has been identified, the staffer places a call to make the notification. They note on the chart when the call was placed, whom they contacted, the phone number and the result.

Step 6: Need to follow up? Recall main contact or second number

If a message had to be left for the contact, or the contact doesn’t come into the hospital within two hours, the staff member places one more call, to the first or a secondary contact. If no one is reached, the staff member proceeds to step seven.

Step 7: Shift to social service or police

When no contact name or number can be located, or if the staff member doing the notification, is unable to speak directly to the contact, they give the information to the social service department or to the local police department, as per your facilities’ policy, for follow up.

Along with the Information Kit, the non-profit Next of Kin Education Project has created patient chart pages and notification worksheets using the Seven Steps, that you can purchase and customize to use as part of your own charting system. You’ll find them on the NOKEP web site along with reminder products like mouse pads, posters and coffee mugs, to keep the Seven Steps at your staff’s fingertips.

Just as doctors, nurses, and staffers from every department make up a team to improve the health of the patients in their care, family and friends can play an important part in contributing to the patient’s well being. As a medical professional, you are a diagnostician, a caregiver and a healer. But most of all, you are the patient’s advocate. And so is his family. This Kit contains tools that will help you and his family work together to increase his care, trust and take patient satisfaction to a whole new level.

All medications, which include prescriptions, over-the-counter preparations, vitamin and mineral supplements, and herbal preparations, are potentially dangerous. Following some simple rules will not only reduce your chance of having a problem, but should reduce your cost as well.