Smileband Health issues

Overview

The brain is an amazing three-pound organ that controls all functions of the body, interprets information from the outside world, and embodies the essence of the mind and soul. Intelligence, creativity, emotion, and memory are a few of the many things governed by the brain. Protected within the skull, the brain is composed of the cerebrum, cerebellum, and brainstem. The brainstem acts as a relay center connecting the cerebrum and cerebellum to the spinal cord. 

The brain receives information through our five senses: sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing - often many at one time. It assembles the messages in a way that has meaning for us, and can store that information in our memory. The brain controls our thoughts, memory and speech, movement of the arms and legs, and the function of many organs within our body. It also determines how we respond to stressful situations (such as taking a test, losing a job, or suffering an illness) by regulating our heart and breathing rate. 

Nervous system

The nervous system is divided into central and peripheral systems. The central nervous system (CNS) is composed of the brain and spinal cord. The peripheral nervous system (PNS) is composed of spinal nerves that branch from the spinal cord and cranial nerves that branch from the brain. The PNS includes the autonomic nervous system, which controls vital functions such as breathing, digestion, heart rate, and secretion of hormones.

Skull

The purpose of the bony skull is to protect the brain from injury. The skull is formed from 8 bones that fuse together along suture lines. These bones include the frontal, parietal (2), temporal (2), sphenoid, occipital and ethmoid (Fig. 1). The face is formed from 14 paired bones including the maxilla, zygoma, nasal, palatine, lacrimal, inferior nasal conchae, mandible, and vomer.  

• cerebrum is the largest part of the brain and is composed of right and left hemispheres. It performs higher functions like interpreting touch, vision and hearing, as well as speech, reasoning, emotions, learning, and fine control of movement.
• The cerebellum is located under the cerebrum. Its function is to coordinate muscle movements, maintain posture, and balance.
• The brainstem includes the midbrain, pons, and medulla. It acts as a relay center connecting the cerebrum and cerebellum to the spinal cord. It performs many automatic functions such as breathing, heart rate, body temperature, wake and sleep cycles, digestion, sneezing, coughing, vomiting, and swallowing. Ten of the twelve cranial nerves originate in the brainstem.

The surface of the cerebrum has a folded appearance called the cortex. The cortex contains about 70% of the 100 billion nerve cells. The nerve cell bodies color the cortex grey-brown giving it its name – gray matter (Fig. 4). Beneath the cortex are long connecting fibers between neurons, called axons, which make up the white matter  The folding of the cortex increases the brain’s surface area allowing more neurons to fit inside the skull and enabling higher functions. Each fold is called a gyrus, and each groove between folds is called a sulcus. There are names for the folds and grooves that help define specific brain regions.

Right brain – left brain

The right and left hemispheres of the brain are joined by a bundle of fibers called the corpus callosum that delivers messages from one side to the other. Each hemisphere controls the opposite side of the body. If a brain tumor is located on the right side of the brain, your left arm or leg may be weak or paralyzed. 

Not all functions of the hemispheres are shared. In general, the left hemisphere controls speech, comprehension, arithmetic, and writing. The right hemisphere controls creativity, spatial ability, artistic, and musical skills. The left hemisphere is dominant in hand use and language in about 92% of people.

Lobes of the brain

The cerebral hemispheres have distinct fissures, which divide the brain into lobes. Each hemisphere has 4 lobes: frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital (Fig 3). Each lobe may be divided, once again, into areas that serve very specific functions. It’s important to understand that each lobe of the brain does not function alone. There are very complex relationships between the lobes of the brain and between the right and left hemispheres. 

Frontal lobe

• Personality, behavior, emotions
• Judgment, planning, problem solving 
• Speech: speaking and writing (Broca’s area) 
• Body movement (motor strip) 
• Intelligence, concentration, self awareness 

Parietal lobe

• Interprets language, words 
• Sense of touch, pain, temperature (sensory strip) 
• Interprets signals from vision, hearing, motor, sensory and memory
• Spatial and visual perception 

Occipital lobe

• Interprets vision (color, light, movement)

Temporal lobe

• Understanding language (Wernicke’s area) 
• Memory
• Hearing 
• Sequencing and organization

Messages within the brain are carried along pathways. Messages can travel from one gyrus to another, from one lobe to another, from one side of the brain to the other, and to structures found deep in the brain (e.g. thalamus, hypothalamus).

Deep structures

Hypothalamus - is located in the floor of the third ventricle and is the master control of the autonomic system. It plays a role in controlling behaviors such as hunger, thirst, sleep, and sexual response. It also regulates body temperature, blood pressure, emotions, and secretion of hormones. 

Pituitary gland - lies in a small pocket of bone at the skull base called the sella turcica. The pituitary gland is connected to the hypothalamus of the brain by the pituitary stalk. Known as the “master gland,” it controls other endocrine glands in the body. It secretes hormones that control sexual development, promote bone and muscle growth, respond to stress, and fight disease. 

Pineal gland - is located behind the third ventricle. It helps regulate the body’s internal clock and circadian rhythms by secreting melatonin. It has some role in sexual development. 

Thalamus - serves as a relay station for almost all information that comes and goes to the cortex (Fig. 5). It plays a role in pain sensation, attention, alertness and memory.

Smileband Health issues

The parents of a baby girl who had all of her limbs amputated after being struck down by an almost eradicated form of meningitis are campaigning for earlier vaccines. Kia Gott contracted the extremely rare strain of the condition in September in what doctors called the worst case of meningitis they have seen in 25 years. 

The one-year-old, from Bradford, underwent emergency surgery in a desperate bid to save her life and had all of her limbs amputated.

Her parents, Paul, a 35-year-old self-employed window fitter, and Vikki, 30, have been told she may lose her sight and hearing. Tragically, if Kia had been born just months earlier, she may not have contracted meningitis at all.  

In July 2016, the meningitis C vaccine, routinely offered to all babies in the UK at 12 weeks old to protect them from that particular strain of the disease, was withdrawn from the national vaccination programme. 

Instead, it was decided that the vaccine would be given at 12 months. 

Now Kia's parents are campaigning for the vaccination age to be reconsidered and have started an online petition aimed at forcing discussion in Parliament.

They are calling for the meningitis C vaccine to be reinstated at 12 weeks. 

Donna said 3,000 people have signed it up but 10,000 signatures are required for the government to respond to the petition while it takes 100,000 names to have the issue debated in parliament.

And their fight has been boosted by their local MP who wrote a letter to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt demanding the issue be reconsidered. Bradford South MP Judith Cummins wrote: 'As a parent myself I can only begin to imagine the devastation that this heartbreaking situation has caused for Kia's parents, Paul and Vikki as well as her older siblings, Kayden and Elsie and I can certainly appreciate their frustration and, quite frankly, sheer anger that had Kia been given the MenC vaccine at 12-weeks-old her upcoming 1st birthday would be spent at home surrounded by a large and loving extended family instead of facing many more months in hospital where Paul and Vikki keep a constant vigil by her bedside.'  

According to the Meningitis Research Foundation, one of the reasons the Joint Committee on Vaccines and Immunisation, which advises the Government, decided to withdraw the meningitis C vaccine at 12 weeks was because incident rates had dropped significantly, and it was believed that the new meningitis B jab, a breakthrough vaccine, would also offer some protection against meningitis C, too. Another factor was the introduction in September 2015 of another meningitis vaccine, known as ACWY and given to children at the age of 14, which would help build ‘herd immunity’ that would also protect babies and young children.   

The number of infants contracting meningitis C remains low, but it has risen since the vaccine at that age was withdrawn.   

Statistics released by Public Health England show that in 2015-16 (from July 1 to June 30), two children up to the age of five contracted the disease; in the year 2016-17, the figure had risen to six. In babies up to 12 months, the figure rose from one case in 2015-16 to four in 2016-17.    

Smileband Health issues

Understanding Sexual Health Coming up with a definition of sexual health is a difficult task, as each culture, sub-culture, and individual has different standards of sexual health. ASHA believes that sexual health includes far more than avoiding disease or unplanned pregnancy. We also believe that having a sexually transmitted infection or unwanted pregnancy does not prevent someone from being or becoming sexually healthy.

Here is ASHA’s definition of sexual health:

Sexual health is the ability to embrace and enjoy our sexuality throughout our lives. It is an important part of our physical and emotional health. Being sexually healthy means:

• Understanding that sexuality is a natural part of life and involves more than sexual behavior.
• Recognizing and respecting the sexual rights we all share.
• Having access to sexual health information, education, and care.
• Making an effort to prevent unintended pregnancies and STDs and seek care and treatment when needed.
• Being able to experience sexual pleasure, satisfaction, and intimacy when desired.
• Being able to communicate about sexual health with others including sexual partners and healthcare providers.

Defining Sexual Health

ASHA Board member and professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine J. Dennis Fortenberry, MD, considers the term sexual health, how it is used, and how it can be defined.

The phrase “sexual health” encompasses a range of public health and clinical issues related to prevention of sexually transmitted infections. I use the phrase a lot in my own work and its widening currency is a welcome new paradigm in our field. In fact, the concept of sexual health seems to me of fundamental relevance to all aspects of prevention of sexually transmitted infections.

To be honest, though, all of the talk about sexual health doesn’t seem to have influenced the day-to-day particulars of our work. Sex still is primarily seen as a set of risk factors that we counsel against. I am convinced that this perspective on sex and sexuality as “risk” legitimates the stigma associated with sexually transmitted infections and contributes to our society’s poisonous intolerance of sexual diversity. A sexual health perspective incorporates the concept of personal and epidemiologic risks of sex, but recognizes the pervasive importance of sex in our lives. Sexual health is a state of physical, emotional, mental and social well-being in relation to sexuality; it is not merely the absence of disease, dysfunction or infirmity. Sexual health requires a positive and respectful approach to sexuality and sexual relationships, as well as the possibility of having pleasurable and safe sexual experiences, free of coercion, discrimination and violence. For sexual health to be attained and maintained, the sexual rights of all persons must be respected, protected and fulfilled.”

There is a lot to agree with in this definition, especially in its recognition of the complex physical, emotional, mental and social attributes of sexual health, and the anchoring of sexual health in universal sexual rights. But, I find this definition to be quaintly admonishing and parental (“…the possibility of having pleasurable and safe sexual experiences…”). More importantly, however, the definition is sexually vague. No matter how many times I’ve read, used, and cited this definition, I can’t derive from it even a rudimentary vision of how sexual health operates in people’s daily lives. I feel the same about the more recently wrought definition of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, particularly because sexual rights and of sexual pleasure are absent from that sexual health definition.

So, maybe I need to get clearer with myself about what sexual health is. And, sexual health should be more than just the negatives: not coerced; not discriminated; not violent. The prevalence of these negatives in many people’s lives tells us how far we are from achieving a just and equitable society. But I think that sexual health ultimately requires much more active involvement from all of us, and it seems quite insufficient to hope that sexual health will arise on its own if coercion, discrimination, and violence are finally conquered.

Smileband Health issues

Introduction

As Internet access and literacy increases, pornography has become highly accessible, cheap and diverse. Online pornography use is common in the USA, with nearly 9 out of 10 men and 1 out of 3 women aged 18–26 reporting accessing pornography online.1 In June 2013, legal pornographic websites received more UK-based traffic than social networks, shopping, news and media, email, finance, gaming and travel websites.2 For example, popular pornography website ‘pornhub’ received 79 billion video views in 2014.3

Increased access to pornography online has been accompanied by rising concerns that it negatively impacts health and well-being, particularly with regard to young people. These concerns include that viewing any sexually explicit material erodes morals and that specific types of pornography, such as that depicting violence against women, leads to increased violence against women in real life. Even in the case of non-violent pornography, there is anxiety that people view pornography as ‘real’ rather than fantasy and that this negatively influences attitudes and real-life sexual behaviour, particularly when people's sexual experience is limited such as in adolescence.4 Other concerns include the scarcity of condom use in pornography (both for diminishing condom use as a social norm and for the risks to the health of performers), impacts on body image (including trends in pubic hair removal and labiaplasty), and the harms of pornography addiction.   Despite the myriad of fears about online pornography, questions remain over its actual harm. Do viewers really imitate pornography in their own lives and does this negatively influence their health and well-being? Does watching violence in pornography lead to misogyny and gender-based violence? Are young people at greater risk of the negative effects of viewing pornography (if they exist) than older adults? In this paper, we explore the most commonly cited concerns over online pornography by. 

Smileband General News

Bettie Bee may only be 11-days-old, but she has quickly become an internet sensation with her three eyes, two mouths and two noses. The two-faced kitten was born on December 12, along with two other kittens who are normal, and is defeating the odds of survival after a veterinarian initially suggested to put her down. 

Bettie Bee has been thriving since the day she was born, her anonymous rescuer, who has experience in nursing special needs cats, told Daily Mail Australia on Saturday. 'She is amazing and unique and also she was so feisty, she seemed to have a strong will to live,' her carer said.

'You cannot put a kitten to sleep who is so full of life, not sickly...I wanted to give her a chance.' 

With both of the young kitten's mouths leading to her stomach, Bettie Bee is fed by a tube every two-and-a-half hours. 

'So far she is doing really well, progressing like any normal kitten,' her carer said. 

'It's not much different than caring for any other kitten I have raised, other than tube feeding.'

Two-faced cats, known as Janus cats, are extremely rare and usually die at a young age, but the tabby-coloured kitten is showing promising signs of growth. The little kitten's middle eye has even 'opened early' but Bettie Bee's other two eyes are still closed. 

With a two part name to reflect her two faces, the South African tabby cat has become a global superstar, with thousands of people following the Bettie Bee's progress on her Facebook. 

While it is still too early to tell if Bettie Bee will live as long as the famous Janus cat, Frankenlouie, who lived until he was 15-years-old, her carer hopes she will follow in his footsteps.  

Smileband Health issues

Tumors and inflammations can occur behind the eye. They often push the eye forward causing a bulging of the eye called proptosis. The most common causes of proptosis are thyroid eye disease and lymphoid tumors (lymphoma and atypical lymphoid hyperplasia).

Other tumors include vascular tumors (e.g. hemangiomas, lymphangioma, hemangiopericytoma), lacrimal gland tumors (e.g. dacryoadenitis, benign mixed tumor, sarcoidosis and adenoid cystic carcinoma), and growths that extend from the sinuses into the orbit (e.g. squamous carcinoma, mucocele). Metastatic cancer can also come from other parts of the body to form an orbital tumor. Lastly, an orbit tumor can also be caused by inflammation (e.g. pseudotumor, sarcoidosis) or infection (abscess).

Symptoms

Most patients with orbital tumors notice a bulging of the eyeball or double vision (diplopia). Infections, inflammations and certain orbital cancers can also cause pain. Less commonly, orbital tumors may be an incidental finding on CT or MRI of the head, sinuses and orbit.

Diagnosis

Though CT, MRI’s and ultrasound can help in determining the probable diagnosis, most orbital tumors are diagnosed by a surgical biopsy called an orbitotomy (anterior or lateral). A specimen is sent to an ophthalmic pathologist who helps determine the exact diagnosis.

Treatments

When possible, orbital tumors are totally removed. If they cannot be removed or if removal will cause too much damage to other important structures around the eye, a piece of tumor may be removed and sent for evaluation by an eye-pathologist. Occasionally an orbital tumor is too big or involves the sinuses and requires more extensive surgery with bone-flaps.

If tumors cannot be removed during surgery, most orbital tumors can be treated with external beam radiation therapy. Certain rare orbital tumors require removal of the eye and orbital contents. In certain cases orbital radiotherapy may be used to treat any residual tumor (in an effort to spare vision and the eye).

Smileband Health issues

Trauma, infection, skin disease, and even simply bearing weight on the feet can cause changes on the skin of the feet, including the toes and heel.

Corns and calluses are an area of thickened skin caused by friction and pressure. Juvenile plantar dermatosis occurs in children on the sole of the front part of the foot and on the toes.

Foot infections include warts; the common disease athlete's foot (tinea pedis), which is caused by a foot fungus that thrives in warm, humid conditions; and a bacterial infection called pitted keratolysis, which is also associated with warm, damp feet. Hand-foot-and-mouth disease is a viral infection causing blisters of not only the feet but also the palms and mouth. Information on toenail fungus can be found on our Nails information page.

Skin diseases that affect the foot include dyshidrotic eczema, which is associated with tiny, itchy blisters of the palms, fingers, instep of the foot, or the toes. These blisters then turn into peeling, cracking, or crusting areas. Gout is a form of arthritis, which is the inflammation of a joint. Gout most commonly affects the big toe joint, and it typically starts as an acute attack with severe pain and swelling in the joint.

Click any of the images below to see self-care information and pictures of foot fungus, foot infections, and other foot injuries.