Health Check Qatar - December 2015

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ISSUE 21

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

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SCH Launches the National Healthy School Program THE SUPREME COUNCIL OF HEALTH (SCH) ANNOUNCED THAT THE NATIONAL HEALTHY SCHOOL PROGRAM WILL BE LAUNCHED IN THE SECOND TERM OF THE CURRENT ACADEMIC YEAR.

T

he current health programs will be integrated into a national comprehensive program with a view to establishing healthy school communities.

This initiative aims to adopt a comprehensive and unified health awareness program in order to fulfill the school needs and to boost school communities in particular and community health in general.

The program also focuses on acquiring knowledge, developing skills and promoting health habits among school communities as well as motivating the students to effectively participate in the

activities of school health promotion.

The SCH organized on Monday, December 7th, a coordination meeting to introduce the program with the participation of representatives from the Supreme Education Council (SEC), Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC), Qatar Olympic Committee, Aspetar, Weill Cornell Medical College, Qatar Olympic Academy and directors of independent schools.

In his speech on the sidelines of this meeting, Sheikh Dr. Mohammed bin Hamad Al Thani, Director of Public Health Department at the SCH, said the meeting aims at launching at the National Healthy School Program, in

collaboration with other key stakeholders, and introducing the program’s goals and outcomes.

Dr. Mohammed said that the SCH took this initiative four months ago in last September, in collaboration with the Supreme Education Council (SEC), to set a strategic plan aims at unifying the current health programs to be integrated into a comprehensive national healthy school program.

We hold a number of meetings with other stakeholders in the various corporations with a view to formulating a plan on the restructuring of health programs in all schools in Qatar, said Dr. Mohammed.

(Continued on page 2...)

SINGING HITS A HIGH NOTE FOR FOLKS WITH EARLY DEMENTIA Study finds that mood improves, too

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ere’s something to croon about: Singing can boost the brain function and mood of people with early stage dementia, Finnish researchers report.

The study included 89 people with mild to moderate dementia. For 10 weeks, they were either coached in singing, listened to familiar songs, or received standard care from their caregivers.

Those in the singing group showed improvements in memory, thinking skills and the ability to find their way around. This was especially true for those younger than 80 with mild dementia, the study found.

Listening to music provided these

benefits only to those with more advanced dementia, the study authors said.

Both singing and listening to music helped reduce depression in patients, especially those with mild Alzheimer’s disease, the researchers said.

Whether a person had sung or played a musical instrument earlier in life did not influence the benefits of the music therapy, according to the study published Dec. 10 in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.

“Given the increasing global prevalence and burden of dementia and the limited resources in public health care for persons with dementia and

their family caregivers, it is important to find alternative ways to maintain and stimulate cognitive, emotional, and social well-being in this population,” said study leader Teppo Sarkamo, of the University of Helsinki.

“Our findings suggest that musical leisure activities could be easily applied and widely used in dementia care and rehabilitation,” Sarkamo said in a journal news release. “Especially stimulating and engaging activities, such as singing, seem to be very promising for maintaining memory functioning in the early stages of dementia.”

(Source: Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, news release, Dec. 10, 2015)

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SCH LAUNCHES THE NATIONAL HEALTHY SCHOOL PROGRAM

Sheikh Dr. Mohammed bin Hamad Al Thani Director of the Public Health Department He noted that the team of Health Promotion and Non-Communicable Diseases at the SCH, headed by Sheikha Dr Al Anoud bint Mohammed Al Thani, has prepared a study on growth charts for students aged from 5 to 19 years old.

The study shows some health issues among the students such as obesity and weight gain from 16 % to 22 % of school students in the primary to secondary stages due to lack of awareness and knowledge on the right and healthy habits such as healthy diet and physical activity.

Dr. Mohammed added that the National School Healthy Program is identifying priority health issues and developing unified interactive educational system in order to enrich the knowledge of students, teachers and parents about health issues.

Dr. Al-Anoud Mohammed Al-Thani, Manager, Health Promotion said that the program aims to create a friendly, healthy and safe school environment and to strengthen school employee’s health as well as the ideal use of human and financial resources in addition to enhancing the communication and cooperation between

the various health promotion related parties to pave the way for implementing health awareness programs targeting other society groups.

“The targeted outcome of that the program is to improve students’ health on all levels physically, psychologically and socially and make the best use of the educational process as well as other benefits, for the staff working in educational system, including the improvement of their health and psychological status so that they can efficiently deliver their message,” said Dr. Al-Anoud.

She noted that a team will be formed and headed by the SCH to follow up the program implementation in addition the exerted efforts by other health promotion relevant entities which in turn they carry out school healthy programs.

Manager, Health Promotion added that the physical and activity program strongly helped in monitoring the major health issues of the students particularly obesity and weight gain as well as weight loss and stunting in primary schools.

Dr. Al-Anoud Mohammed Al-Thani Manager, Health Promotion “On the commencement of the program, teamwork will visit all independent schools to make a questionnaire among the students and hold verbal session with them to know more about their health issues and their visions as well to improve their health and physical activity,” said Dr. Al-Anoud.

She pointed out that in the end of this stage a guideline directory will be developed and every school has to abide by it noting that the school evaluation office will assess the extent to which the program is being implemented and integrate the outcomes into the annual school assessment.

It is worth noting that the National Healthy School Program consists of several elements, most importantly, health education, healthy school environment, health services, nutrition services, physical education, psychological health, guidance and the care about school neighboring communities.

The program is carried out by SCH, Supreme Education Council, Primary Healthcare Corporation, Qatar Olympic Committee, Aspetar and Weill Cornell Medical College.

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Wednesday, December 30, 2015

... MEDICAL NEWS ...

SUDDEN CARDIAC ARREST MAY NOT BE SO SUDDEN WHILE A HEART ATTACK RESULTS FROM ARTERIAL BLOCKAGE THAT CUTS OFF BLOOD FLOW TO THE HEART, A CARDIAC ARREST OCCURS WHEN THE HEART’S ELECTRICAL ACTIVITY GOES AWRY AND THE HEART STOPS WORKING

S

udden cardiac arrest may not be as sudden as doctors have thought, researchers report.

Roughly half of cardiac arrest patients experience telltale warning signs that their heart is in danger of stopping in the month preceding their attack, new study findings suggest.

Those symptoms can include any combination of chest pain and pressure, shortness of breath, heart palpitations, and flu-like sensations (such as nausea, back pain and/or abdominal pain), the researchers said.

The problem: less than one in five of those who experience symptoms actually reach out for potentially lifesaving emergency medical assistance, the investigators found.

“Most people who have a sudden cardiac arrest will not make it out alive,” warned study co-author Dr. Sumeet Chugh, associate director of the Heart Institute and director of the Heart Rhythm Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. “This is the ultimate heart disease, where you die within 10 minutes. And less than 10 percent actually survive,” he said.

“For years we have thought that this is a very sudden process,” Chugh added. “But with this study we unexpectedly found that at least half of the patients had a least some warning signs in the weeks before. And this is important, because those who react by calling their loved ones or calling 911 have a fivefold higher chance of living. So, this may open up a whole new paradigm as to how we may be able to nip this prob-

lem in the bud before a cardiac arrest even happens.”

Chugh and his colleagues published their findings in the Jan. 5 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Though many people use the terms interchangeably, cardiac arrest is not the same as a heart attack. While a heart attack results from arterial blockage that cuts off blood flow to the heart, a cardiac arrest occurs when the heart’s electrical activity goes awry and the heart stops working.

Upwards of half of all heart-related deaths in the United States occur as the result of cardiac arrest, killing 350,000 Americans every year, the study authors noted.

The new study focused on nearly 840 patients, aged 35 to 65, whose symptoms were tracked prior to experiencing a cardiac arrest between 2002 and 2012. Three-quarters were men, and all were enrolled in an ongoing study in Oregon.

The result: 50 percent of men and 53 percent of women experienced at least some warning symptoms before their hearts stopped.

Chest pain, said Chugh, was the most common symptom among men, while shortness of breath was the most common among women.

More than nine in 10 of those who had symptoms said they resurfaced 24 hours before their cardiac arrest, according to the study.

But only 19 percent called 911.

Those who did were more likely to have a history of heart disease or chest pain

that wouldn’t subside.

The upside: nearly one-third of those who called 911 survived, versus 6 percent among those who did not, the researchers reported.

“It’s not that everyone with chest pain is going to get a cardiac arrest,” stressed Chugh. “It could just be too much exercise or heartburn.”

But for people with a history of heart disease, it is more likely that these symptoms signal a real problem, he added.

“Still, this is our first foray into symptom identification,” Chugh said. “We cannot yet say what patients should do until we look into this further.”

Nevertheless, Dr. John Day, president of the Heart Rhythm Society and director of Heart Rhythm Services at Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Murray, Utah, described the study findings as a “wake-up call for patients and doctors.”

Day said that “the problem, of course, is that many of these symptoms may have other explanations. Flu-like symptoms, which can affect nearly everybody at some point during the winter, is a vague thing to really put your finger on and know that it’s about your heart. So it’s certainly challenging to find the right signal through all the noise,” he added.

“But these signs should not be ignored,” Day said. “Particularly if you have risk factors for heart disease, such as a family history of heart problems or high blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes or a known heart condition.”

(Source : HealthDay News)

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More Evidence That Time-toTreatment Is Crucial for Stroke

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troke patients have worse outcomes when delays occur in restoring blood flow to the brain, a new study says.

Dutch researchers looked at 500 people who suffered a stroke caused by blocked blood flow to the brain -- what’s known as an ischemic stroke, the most common form.

About half of the patients received intra-arterial treatment (IAT), which involves inserting a catheter into an artery to either remove the clot, to deliver clot-busting drugs near the site of the blockage, or both.

The other patients did not receive IAT. The study found that the average amount of time needed between the onset of a stroke and the moment the patient first received the catheter was about four hours and 20 minutes, and the average time it took for blood flow to be restored to the brain was five hours and 40 minutes.

There was a 6 percent lower chance of a good outcome for patients for every hour of delay in restoring blood flow to the brain, concluded a team led by Dr. Diederik Dippel, of Erasmus MC University Medical Center in Rotterdam.

“This study highlights the critical importance of reducing delays in time to IAT for patients with acute ischemic stroke,” they wrote. “Our findings imply that patients with acute ischemic stroke should undergo immediate diagnostic workup and IAT.” One expert in the United States agreed.

“Stroke is a medical emergency, and approximately 2 million brain cells are lost every minute that it goes untreated,” said Dr. Sanskriti Mishra, stroke fellow at North Shore-LIJ’s Cushing Neuroscience Institute in Manhasset, N.Y. “It is essential that people are aware of the symptoms of a stroke -- such as sudden onset of facial droop, arm weakness, speech difficulty -- so they can seek medical care urgently,” she said.

“This study shows that delay in treatment aimed at restoring blood flow in the brain reduces chances of recovery from stroke,” Mishra said. “Patients with stroke should undergo an immediate evaluation for lifesaving procedures if their arteries are blocked by a blood clot.”

The study was published online Dec. 21 in the journal JAMA Neurology (Source : HealthDay News)

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SURGERY MAY BEAT RADIATION FOR MEN WITH EARLY STAGE PROSTATE CANCER

M

en with prostate cancer that’s still confined to the organ are more likely to survive if they have surgery rather than radiation therapy, a new Canadian study suggests.

This type of “localized” prostate cancer is the most common form of the disease, accounting for about 80 percent of cases, said a team led by Dr. Robert Nam of the Odette Cancer Centre at Sunnybrook Research Institute in Toronto.

The most common treatments for localized prostate cancer are surgery and radiation therapy.

But which works best to keep the disease at bay?

To find out, Nam’s team looked over data from 19 studies that included a total of nearly 119,000 men with localized prostate cancer.

Findings from 15 of the studies showed that those who received radiation therapy were twice as likely to die from prostate cancer as those who had surgery.

Findings from 10 of the studies also showed that men who had radiation therapy were 50 percent more likely to die sooner of any cause, compared to those who had surgery.

The results of the analysis were published Dec. 14 in the journal European Urology.

“In the past, studies that have compared the success rates of surgery or radiation have been confusing because of their methods,” Nam said in a journal news release.

“We have evaluated all the good-quality data comparing surgery and radiotherapy, and the results are pretty conclusive; in general, surgery results in better mortality rates than radiotherapy.”

But prostate cancer treatment is never a one-size-fits-all matter, he added.

“There are times when radiotherapy may be more appropriate than surgery, so it is important that a patient discusses treatment options with his clinician,” Nam said.

He believes that “the important thing about this research is that it gives physicians and patients additional information to consider when making the decision about how to treat localized prostate cancer.”

Two U.S. experts came to somewhat different conclusions about the results.

“The results of this study point not only to the efficacy of surgery as a principal mode of treatment and first line of defense against prostate cancer, but also as a way to extend the life of men affected by prostate cancer,” said Dr. David Samadi, chief of robotic surgery at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

He said that surgical removal of the prostate “is the only option which removes the entire prostate, and therefore allows for more accurate staging and grading [of the tumor]. This means your doctor can create a better long-term plan of care for each individual patient.”

And Samadi stressed that “radiation is still possible as a secondary treatment after

surgery. So patients have yet another way of combating their cancer if necessary.”

But another expert had some reservations about the study. Dr. Jonathan Haas is chief of radiation oncology at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y. He said that the Canadian review may not have accounted for recent improvements in radiation treatment that could boost outcomes for patients.

According to Haas, what’s needed to answer the surgery-versus-radiation question is a “prospective randomized trial using state-of-the-art medicine.”

“Only then can the best conclusion be made,” he said. “Patients with this disease have many options including radiation, surgery, and possibly even surveillance.

Only by individualizing a treatment plan for an individual patient with their specific information can the best outcomes be obtained.”

(Source : HealthDay News)

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... WOMEN HEALTH ...

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HORMONES TIED TO UTERINE FIBROID RISK IN STUDY Having high levels of the hormones testosterone and estrogen in mid-life may boost a woman’s risk of benign tumors in the uterus

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aving high levels of the hormones testosterone and estrogen in mid-life may boost a woman’s risk of benign tumors in the uterus called uterine fibroids, a new study suggests.

“Our findings are particularly interesting because testosterone was previously unrecognized as a factor in the development of uterine fibroids,” study co-author Dr. Jennifer Lee, from Stanford University School of Medicine, said in a news release from the Endocrine Society.

The study included nearly 1,400 women who had their testosterone and estrogen levels checked nearly every year for 13 years.

Those with high levels of testosterone in their blood were 1.3 times more likely to develop uterine fibroids than those with low levels, and the risk was even greater in those with high levels of testosterone and estrogen, the

investigators found.

But while women with high levels of both hormones were more likely to have one case of uterine fibroids, they were less likely to develop them again than those with low levels of the hormones, according to the study published Dec. 15 in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

While testosterone is often called a male sex hormone, women also naturally produce small amounts of it, the study authors explained.

“Our research suggests women undergoing the menopausal transition who have higher testosterone levels have an increased risk of developing fibroids, particularly if they also have higher estrogen levels,” study co-author Jason Wong, from Stanford University School of Medicine in California, said in the news release.

Three-quarters of women develop uterine fibroids by age 50, according to Wong.

Lee added that “the research opens up new lines of inquiry regarding how fibroids develop and how they are treated. Given that managing uterine fibroids costs an estimated $34.4 billion in annual medical expenditures nationwide, it is important to identify new ways to better treat this common condition,” she said.

Problems related to uterine fibroids include irregular bleeding, pelvic pain, infertility, recurrent pregnancy loss and other reproductive complications.

While the study found an association between hormone levels and risk of uterine fibroids, it did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

(Source : HealthDay News)

Study Touts Benefits of Group Prenatal Care

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oung mothers and infants might get significant health benefits from group prenatal care, a new study indicates.

Group prenatal care includes all the same components as individual care. But it provides additional time for education and skill building, plus the opportunity to talk with other pregnant women and learn from their experience, according to the researchers.

“Few clinical interventions have had an impact on birth outcomes,” lead author Jeannette Ickovics, of the Yale University School of Public Health in New Haven, Conn., said in a university news release.

“Group prenatal care is related to improved health outcomes for mothers and babies, without adding risk,” she said. “If scaled nationally, group prenatal care could lead to significant improvements in birth outcomes, health disparities, and health care costs.”

The study, however, only found an association between better birth results and group prenatal care.

It did not establish a direct cause-and-effect relationship.

For the study, published online recently in the American Journal of Public Health, researchers compared outcomes among pregnant teens and women at

14 health centers in New York City who received either group prenatal care or traditional individual care.

Participants were lived in poor areas, but had no other known pregnancy health risks. The groups included eight to 12 women.

Compared to those who received individual care, women in group prenatal care were 33 percent less likely to have infants who were small for gestational age, the study found. They also had a lower risk of preterm delivery or low birth weight baby, and their infants spent less time in the neonatal intensive care unit.

The researchers also found that women in group prenatal care were more likely to wait an appropriate time before becoming pregnant again, reducing the risk that their next baby will be born prematurely.

Also, the more group prenatal care sessions pregnant women attended, the lower the risk of birth complications, the study authors determined.

Further research is needed to pinpoint why group prenatal care was associated with better outcomes for mothers and their babies, the researchers said.

(Source : HealthDay News)

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HOW EXERCISE MAY HELP US FIGHT OFF COLDS The study, which found that regular exercise strengthens the body’s immune system in part by repeatedly stressing it, was conducted in animals. But the results most likely apply to people, the researchers say, and could offer further incentive for us to remain physically active this winter.

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orking out could help us fight off colds and other infections, according to a timely new study.

The study, which found that regular exercise strengthens the body’s immune system in part by repeatedly stressing it, was conducted in animals. But the results most likely apply to people, the researchers say, and could offer further incentive for us to remain physically active this winter.

In broad terms, our immune system reacts to invading microbes through a variety of cells. Some of these cells don’t directly combat the infection but instead promote the development of inflammation. When we think of inflammation, we usually think of fever, swelling and redness. But inflammation can also be a good thing, helping the body to heal itself as it fights invading microbes.

The problem is that inflammation can easily get out of hand. If the inflammatory response to an infection or injury is too robust or indiscriminate, the inflammation can ultimately cause more tissue damage and lingering health problems than it prevents.

Scientists have long tried to determine why inflammation sometimes grows rampant in the body. One thing they’ve noticed is that fat cells are particularly adept at producing substances that promote in-

flammation, in part as a response to messages from the immune system.

But fat cells also often produce inflammatory substances in greater amounts than needed to fight germs, in some cases even when there is no actual infection. As a result, past studies have found, obesity in animals and people can lead to elevated levels of inflammation throughout the body and, interestingly, a weaker overall immune response to an infection or illness.

Because of these links between fat cells and the immune response, scientists at Chosun University in Gwangju, South Korea, and other institutions recently began to consider whether exercise might affect the body’s response to germs. Among the many effects of physical activity, exercise generally reduces the amount of fat in the body and also alters levels of inflammation.

So for the new study, which was published last month in Scientific Reports, they gathered 28 average-weight male laboratory mice and tested their blood and fat cells for markers of inflammation and other immune cells. They then had half of the mice begin a swimming regimen, during which the animals paddled around a warmish pool for 30 minutes, five days a week, for three weeks.

Mice aren’t natural or eager swimmers and tend to thrash in the water, so the exercise was moderately strenuous for them, the equivalent of what 30 minutes or so of jogging might be for us.

The other mice remained sedentary.

Throughout the three weeks, the scientists monitored all of the animals’ levels of inflammation and what was happening, if anything, to their fat cells.

As expected, the swimmers showed increases in markers of inflammation, especially in their muscles, as their bodies worked to heal the slight tissue damage that occurs during regular exercise. Overall, they displayed higher levels of inflammation than the unexercised animals.

Meanwhile, their fat cells were shrinking in size and number.

After three weeks, to test the animals’ immune response, half of the swimmers and half of the inactive mice were inoculated with Staphylococcus germs. In both mice and people, these germs cause skin infections and serious lung problems that resemble pneumonia.

Both the mice that had exercised and those that had remained sedentary began to grow ill from the Staph infections. But the differences in the animals’ immune responses proved to be considerable, the scientists found.

Inflammation rapidly blossomed in the sedentary, infected animals, as their immune systems pumped out high numbers of cells that promote inflammation. Many of these cells migrated to the animals’ lungs, suggesting that excessive inflammation was taking hold there.

Meanwhile, the infected swimmers had much lower levels of these pro-inflammatory cells, lower even than in the uninfected swimmers. The numbers of these cells in their lungs were particularly low. At the same time, the sickening

swimmers were producing far more of a potent type of antimicrobial immune cell that, like internal Purell, directly kills germs, especially in their lungs.

Overall, the infected swimmers did not become as sick as the infected sedentary mice. They also experienced much less lung damage.

Precisely how swimming had changed these animals’ immune systems remains somewhat unclear. But, said Dr. Yoonkyung Park, a professor of biomedical science at Chosun University who oversaw the new study, the exercise seemed to have had two signal effects.

Most obviously, it reduced fatness, which, in turn, lessened the often-excessive levels of pro-inflammatory substances produced by fat cells.

At the same time, however, the workouts caused small amounts of continuous tissue damage and inflammation. This process, the researchers said, seems to have familiarized the animals’ bodies with trauma and how best to initiate healing.

The swimmers, in effect, appeared to have developed a more refined and effective immune response. Their immune systems appear to have learned to produce a beneficial amount of inflammation, but not too much. So when germs invaded, the system could rely less on indiscriminate, blunt-force inflammation and instead turn to targeted, antimicrobial killers.

Of course, as we all know, rodents are not people.

But Park believes that the effects are likely to be similar in people. “We strongly believe that long-term, regular exercise can considerably improve the immune defense mechanism,” he said, including, thankfully, “against viral infections such as colds and the flu.”

(Source : NYT Syndicate)

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... PAEDIATRICS & CHILD HEALTH ...

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TOXIC CHEMICALS MAY WEAKEN INFANTS’ RESPONSE TO TB VACCINE E

xposure to toxic chemicals while in the womb or in early life may weaken a baby’s immune system response to the tuberculosis (TB) vaccine, researchers say.

The study focused on two common toxins: PCBs, an industrial chemical; and DDT, used in pesticides. These socalled “persistent” pollutants are not easily broken down and remain a health threat years after being banned.

PCBs were banned in the United States in 1979. DDT is banned in the United States, but is still used in some countries to control malaria-carrying mosquitoes, the study authors, from the University of Rochester in New York, said in a university news release.

The researchers analyzed blood samples and immune responses from 516 pairs of mothers and infants in an area of Slovakia heavily contaminated with environmental toxins.

Each baby received the tuberculosis vaccine in their first four days of life, and their immune system (antibody) response to the vaccine was assessed six months later.

Harmful chemicals were detected in more than 99 percent of the blood samples. But infants with the highest levels of PCBs and other chemicals had the lowest antibody response to the TB vaccine, the investigators found.

Those with the highest levels of PCBs had 37 percent fewer antibodies against TB than those with the lowest PCB levels. Exposure to DDT also was tied to reduced TB-antibody levels. And infants with exposure to both chemicals had the lowest levels of TB antibodies, the findings showed.

In addition, like many chemicals, PCBs and DDT cross the placenta and are passed from mother to child through breast-feeding, the authors said in the study published online Dec. 9 in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

The findings have much broader significance than how exposure to these two chemicals affects TB vaccine respons-

es, according to the researchers.

“There are thousands of pollutants similar to PCBs and DDT with unknown health implications,” study leader Todd Jusko, assistant professor in the departments of environmental medicine and public health services, said in the news release. “Our work provides a foundation for how these types of chemicals affect the developing immune system in infants around the world.”

It’s long been known that TB vaccine response varies

between people, but the reasons are unclear. The effect of chemical pollutants on an infant’s developing immune system is often overlooked as a possible cause, the researchers said.

But, while the study found an association between exposure to chemicals and reduced response to TB vaccines, it did not prove cause-and-effect.

(Source : HealthDay News)

How to Prepare Your Child for Surgery

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arents can do a number of things to prepare their children for surgery, experts say.

Children, especially younger ones, may experience separation anxiety and fear. They’re also likely to pick up on their parents’ feelings, according to Dr. Dorothy Rocourt, a pediatric surgeon at Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital.

“If the parents are super nervous, the children are just as nervous. When they are comfortable with what’s going on and with the provider, they send off those vibes or cues to their child,” Rocourt said in a hospital news release.

One way to relieve anxiety is to keep the child well-informed about the surgery. This can include specialists explaining the procedure in a way youngsters can understand, such as through playful interaction.

“Parents can use simple words to help their child understand why

they are going to the hospital or why they need surgery,” Ashley Kane, manager of the hospital’s Child Life Program, said in the news release.

Parents should be honest about going to the hospital and having surgery, and the situation should never be associated with doing something bad or punishment, she added.

“We want to make sure they understand that the doctors, nurses and staff are there to help them get better and not make it sound like the people a child meets in the hospital are mean or bad,” Kane said.

While in the hospital, items such as a child’s favorite stuffed toy, blanket, or sippy cup can be especially comforting, she suggested.

“It’s really important to have those familiar things along with them when they’re in a different environment and out of their norm,”

Kane said.

Additional measures are needed when children with special needs are having surgery.

“When we’re assessing them in the office, we take cues from the family on how to approach the subject with such kids,” Rocourt said.

At the Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital, additional reading materials are provided for parents and families with older children who have autism, and multi-sensory distraction machines provide soft music, water sounds, colorful lighting or images projected on the ceiling when youngsters awaken from anesthesia, according to the news release.

“It really helps with the children with autism because it sort of puts them on a different plain, in a different world; it puts them in that comfort zone,” Rocourt said.

Source: HealthDay News

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