The Social Security Administration (SSA) uses a screening tool called the Listing of Impairments to identify claimants who are so severely impaired that they cannot work at all and thus immediately qualify for benefits. In this report, the IOM makes several recommendations for improving SSA's capacity to determine disability benefits more quickly and efficiently using the Listings.

If you suffer from or are at risk for heart disease, surgery and invasive procedures are not your only options. There is a noninvasive, safe, and painless treatment that is clinically proven to be more successful in reversing the effects of the disease, improving blood circulation, and strengthening the cardiovascular system, all for a fraction of the medical costs. This groundbreaking procedure is called enhanced external counterpulsation (EECP), and it has been the best-kept secret in medicine-until now.Doctors have discovered that invasive procedures that treat specific artery blockages offer only a short-term fix for the underlying problem: poor blood flow. Using blood pressure cuffs to help push blood through the body, EECP promotes the development of new blood vessels to naturally bypass coronary blockages, restoring the flow of healthy, oxygenated blood to the heart. As a result, EECP reduces or eliminates symptoms such as chest pain, fatigue, and shortness of breath; increases energy and stamina; and returns heart patients to activities they thought they had given up forever. In HEAL YOUR HEART WITH EECP, Dr. Debra Braverman dispenses critical information about this revolutionary treatment.EECP patients are less likely than bypass, angioplasty, and stent patients to have a heart attack or require hospital stays.EECP is the ideal weapon in the fight against heart disease for patients battling obesity, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, and more.EECP brings none of the risks of surgery or invasive procedures and is provided in an outpatient setting.EECP is approved by the FDA and Medicare and covered by most private insurers, and it is appropriate for nearly all heart disease sufferers, regardless of age, size, or other medical conditions.

This new bedside manual guides you through all the practical aspects of managing patients following cardiothoracic surgery and critically ill cardiology patients. Primarily designed to use in cardiothoracic intensive care units and coronary care units, it covers the perioperative management for the full range of cardiothoracic surgical procedures, the management of complications, and related issues. Core topics in cardiothoracic critical care, such as hemodynamic instability, arrhythmias, bleeding, and mechanical cardiac support, are afforded broad coverage. Also included are sections on advanced ventilatory techniques and veno-venous ECMO for treating severe respiratory failure, as well as nutritional support, treating and preventing infection, renal failure, and care of the dying patient. Concisely written and featuring liberal use of illustrations as well as an integrated, tightly edited style, and a limited number of key references, this volume will become your reference of choice for the care of of cardiothoracic surgery patients and critically ill cardiology patients. Find information quickly with concisely written text. Get a more complete picture with extensive illustrations. Focus on just the information you need using a a limited number of key references. Navigate the complexities of critical care for a fulll range of cardiothoracic surgery patients with in-depth coverage of perioperative care, management of complications, and more.

Emphasizes the research activities of Germany’s Nauheim Institute of the Max Planck Society and its group of investigators both past and present, in the field of collateral artery growth. Incorporates a multidisciplinary in vivo approach to the study of arteriogenesis that includes molecular approaches with classical physiology and immunohistochemistry. Full color throughout and well illustrated.

This book is an extensive survey and critical examination of the literature on the use of expert opinion in scientific inquiry and policy making. The elicitation, representation, and use of expert opinion is increasingly important for two reasons: advancing technology leads to more and more complex decision problems, and technologists are turning in greater numbers to "expert systems" and other similar artifacts of artificial intelligence. Cooke here considers how expert opinion is being used today, how an expert's uncertainty is or should be represented, how people do or should reason with uncertainty, how the quality and usefulness of expert opinion can be assessed, and how the views of several experts might be combined. He argues for the importance of developing practical models with a transparent mathematic foundation for the use of expert opinion in science, and presents three tested models, termed "classical," "Bayesian," and "psychological scaling." Detailed case studies illustrate how they can be applied to a diversity of real problems in engineering and planning.

This comprehensive reference work provides a detailed overview of shockwave therapy, a relatively new clinical specialty in modern medicine. It follows the evolution of Extracorporeal Shockwave Therapy (ESWT) from its initial stage as the gold standard for the disintegration of kidney stones to its regenerative effects in biological tissues. Starting with the basic principles of shockwave treatment, the book goes on to review its application in musculoskeletal disorders, including osteonecrosis of the hip, tendinopathy, fracture treatment, and treatment of sports related injuries. The application of ESWT in cardiovascular diseases is discussed. This includes preclinical and clinical applications for ischemic cardiovascular disease and effects on angiogenesis and anti-inflammation-molecular-cellular signaling pathways. The treatment of urinary diseases and erectile dysfunction by ESWT is elaborated. The book concludes with a discussion of future prospects of the shockwave therapy. Scholars and research fellows interested in shockwave medicine will benefit greatly from this work. It is also a useful clinical resource for nephrologists, urologists, cardiologists, and orthopedists.