Chronic Failures: Kidneys, Regimes of Care and the Mexican State is about Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) and the relentless search for renal care lived out in the context of poverty, inequality and uneven welfare arrangements. Based on ethnographic research conducted in the state of Jalisco, this book documents the routes uninsured Mexican patients take in order to access resource intensive biotechnical treatments, that is, different modes of dialysis and organ transplantation. It argues that these routes are normalized, bureaucratically, socially and epidemiologically, and turned into a locus for exploitation and profit. Without a coherent logic of healthcare access, negotiating regimes of renal care has catastrophic consequences for those with the least resources to expend in that effort. In carrying both the costs and the burden of care, the practices of patients without entitlement offer a critical vantage point on the interplay between the state, markets in healthcare and the sick body.

Chronic liver failure is a frequent condition in clinical practice that encompasses all manifestations of patients with end-stage liver diseases. Chronic liver failure is a multiorgan syndrome that affects the liver, kidneys, brain, heart, lungs, adrenal glands, and vascular, coagulation, and immune systems. Chronic Liver Failure: Mechanisms and Management covers for the first time all aspects of chronic liver failure in a single book, from pathogenesis to current management. Each chapter is written by a worldwide known expert in their area and all provide the latest state-of-the-art knowledge. This volume is specifically designed to provide answers to clinical questions to all doctors dealing with patients with liver diseases, not only clinical gastroenterologists and hepatologists, but also to internists, nephrologists, intensive care physicians, and transplant surgeons.

Needless Suffering offers a sociological examination of a complex medical problem: chronic pain and the inability of doctors and other health professionals to understand and manage it in their patients. People in pain, writes Dr. David Nagel, are the poor of the medical world. Like the poor, they are stigmatized and left at the mercy of powerful social actors who tend to work in their own self-interest, frequently at the expense of those they propose to serve. This leaves those who suffer with little control over their own destinies and creates a dysfunctional status quo that harms instead of helps. Drawing on his own experience witnessing his mother's chronic pain and numerous clinical stories from over thirty years' expertise as a pain management specialist, Nagel looks first at patients, their families, and their doctors (usually not trained in pain management), and then broadens his canvas to elaborate a pain power structure that includes the entire healthcare community, insurers, lawyers, government regulators, employers, politicians, law enforcement agencies, and painkilling drugs. Concluding with concrete reforms to create more effective and compassionate pain care, this book is designed for pain patients and their families, healthcare providers, legislators and other public policymakers, judges, personal injury and other attorneys, insurers, government regulators, law enforcement personnel, and health care businesspeople.

Clinical practice related to sleep problems and sleep disorders has been expanding rapidly in the last few years, but scientific research is not keeping pace. Sleep apnea, insomnia, and restless legs syndrome are three examples of very common disorders for which we have little biological information. This new book cuts across a variety of medical disciplines such as neurology, pulmonology, pediatrics, internal medicine, psychiatry, psychology, otolaryngology, and nursing, as well as other medical practices with an interest in the management of sleep pathology. This area of research is not limited to very young and old patientsâ€"sleep disorders reach across all ages and ethnicities. Sleep Disorders and Sleep Deprivation presents a structured analysis that explores the following: Improving awareness among the general public and health care professionals. Increasing investment in interdisciplinary somnology and sleep medicine research training and mentoring activities. Validating and developing new and existing technologies for diagnosis and treatment. This book will be of interest to those looking to learn more about the enormous public health burden of sleep disorders and sleep deprivation and the strikingly limited capacity of the health care enterprise to identify and treat the majority of individuals suffering from sleep problems.

For many years, there has been a great deal of work done on chronic congestive heart failure while acute heart failure has been considered a difficult to handle and hopeless syndrome. However, in recent years acute heart failure has become a growing area of study and this is the first book to cover extensively the diagnosis and management of this complex condition. The book reflects the considerable amounts of new data reported and many new concepts which have been proposed in the last 3-4 years looking at the epidemiology, diagnostic and treatment of acute heart failure.

Root Cause Failure Analysis (RCFA) is a method used by maintenance and reliability industry professionals as one of the key tools to drive improvement. This book offers a quick guide to the applications involved in performing a successful RCFA by providing a foundational view of maintenance and reliability strategies. It also highlights the practical applications of RCFA and identifies how to achieve a successful RCFA, as well as discussing common equipment failures and how to solve them. Case studies on topics including pump system failure analysis and vibration analysis are included. Suggests examples on how to solve common failure on many types of equipment, including fatigue, pumps, bearings, and mechanical power transmission Highlights practical applications of RCFA Identifies key elements for how to achieve a successful RCFA Presents case studies on topics including pump system failure analysis and vibration analysis The book is a must-read for any reliability engineer, particularly mechanical reliability professionals.

Getting the right diagnosis is a key aspect of health care - it provides an explanation of a patient's health problem and informs subsequent health care decisions. The diagnostic process is a complex, collaborative activity that involves clinical reasoning and information gathering to determine a patient's health problem. According to Improving Diagnosis in Health Care, diagnostic errors-inaccurate or delayed diagnoses-persist throughout all settings of care and continue to harm an unacceptable number of patients. It is likely that most people will experience at least one diagnostic error in their lifetime, sometimes with devastating consequences. Diagnostic errors may cause harm to patients by preventing or delaying appropriate treatment, providing unnecessary or harmful treatment, or resulting in psychological or financial repercussions. The committee concluded that improving the diagnostic process is not only possible, but also represents a moral, professional, and public health imperative. Improving Diagnosis in Health Care, a continuation of the landmark Institute of Medicine reports To Err Is Human (2000) and Crossing the Quality Chasm (2001), finds that diagnosis-and, in particular, the occurrence of diagnostic errorsâ€"has been largely unappreciated in efforts to improve the quality and safety of health care. Without a dedicated focus on improving diagnosis, diagnostic errors will likely worsen as the delivery of health care and the diagnostic process continue to increase in complexity. Just as the diagnostic process is a collaborative activity, improving diagnosis will require collaboration and a widespread commitment to change among health care professionals, health care organizations, patients and their families, researchers, and policy makers. The recommendations of Improving Diagnosis in Health Care contribute to the growing momentum for change in this crucial area of health care quality and safety.

Roughly one in ten adult Americans find their walking slowed by progressive chronic conditions like arthritis, back problems, heart and lung diseases, and diabetes. In this passionate and deeply informed book, Lisa I. Iezzoni describes the personal experiences of and societal responses to adults whose mobility makes it difficult for them to live as they wish—partly because of physical and emotional conditions and partly because of persisting societal and environmental barriers. Basing her conclusions on personal experience, a wealth of survey data, and extensive interviews with dozens of people from a wide social spectrum, Iezzoni explains who has mobility problems and why; how mobility difficulties affect people's physical comfort, attitudes, daily activities, and relationships with family and friends throughout their communities; strategies for improving mobility; and how the health care system addresses mobility difficulties, providing and financing services and assistive technologies. Iezzoni claims that, although strategies exist to improve mobility, many people do not know where to turn for advice. She addresses the need to inform policymakers about areas where changes will better accommodate people with difficulty walking. This straightforward and engaging narrative clearly demonstrates that improving people's ability to move freely and independently will enhance overall health and quality of life, not only for these persons, but also for society as a whole.

Julie Rehmeyer felt like she was going to the desert to die. Julie fully expected to be breathing at the end of the trip—but driving into Death Valley felt like giving up, surrendering. She’d spent years battling a mysterious illness so extreme that she often couldn’t turn over in her bed. The top specialists in the world were powerless to help, and research on her disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, was at a near standstill. Having exhausted the plausible ideas, Julie turned to an implausible one. Going against both her instincts and her training as a science journalist and mathematician, she followed the advice of strangers she’d met on the Internet. Their theory—that mold in her home and possessions was making her sick—struck her as wacky pseudoscience. But they had recovered from chronic fatigue syndrome as severe as hers. To test the theory that toxic mold was making her sick, Julie drove into the desert alone, leaving behind everything she owned. She wasn’t even certain she was well enough to take care of herself once she was there. She felt stripped not only of the life she’d known, but any future she could imagine. With only her scientific savvy, investigative journalism skills, and dog, Frances, to rely on, Julie carved out her own path to wellness—and uncovered how shocking scientific neglect and misconduct had forced her and millions of others to go it alone. In stunning prose, she describes how her illness transformed her understanding of science, medicine, and spirituality. Through the Shadowlands brings scientific authority to a misunderstood disease and spins an incredible and compelling story of tenacity, resourcefulness, acceptance, and love.

"From healthcare to workplace conduct, the federal government is taking on ever more responsibility for managing our lives. At the same time, Americans have never been more disaffected with Washington, seeing it as an intrusive, incompetent, wasteful giant. The most alarming consequence of ineffective policies, in addition to unrealized social goals, is the growing threat to the government's democratic legitimacy. Understanding why government fails so often--and how it might become more effective--is an urgent responsibility of citizenship. In this book, lawyer and political scientist Peter Schuck provides a wide range of examples and an enormous body of evidence to explain why so many domestic policies go awry--and how to right the foundering ship of state.Schuck argues that Washington's failures are due not to episodic problems or partisan bickering, but rather to deep structural flaws that undermine every administration, Democratic and Republican. These recurrent weaknesses include unrealistic goals, perverse incentives, poor and distorted information, systemic irrationality, rigidity and lack of credibility, a mediocre bureaucracy, powerful and inescapable markets, and the inherent limits of law. To counteract each of these problems, Schuck proposes numerous achievable reforms, from avoiding moral hazard in student loan, mortgage, and other subsidy programs, to empowering consumers of public services, simplifying programs and testing them for cost-effectiveness, and increasing the use of "big data." The book also examines successful policies--including the G.I. Bill, the Voting Rights Act, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and airline deregulation--to highlight the factors that made them work.An urgent call for reform, Why Government Fails So Often is essential reading for anyone curious about why government is in such disrepute and how it can do better"--