Y S Teo Family Clinic & Surgery

The Pneumococcal Vaccine for Adults is recommended by the Singapore Ministry Of Health’s Expert Committee on Immunisation (ECI) in May 2003 for the following groups of people:

1.  Adults with chronic conditions such as Diabetes Mellitus, Hypertension, Hypercholesterolaemia, Stroke, Chronic Lung Diseases (Chronic Bronchitis, Emphysema), Heart Diseases, Kidney Failure, chronic liver diseases etc i.e. your elderly parents & relatives.

2.  Adults who have weak immune systems e.g. post-splenectomy (those with their spleens removed), HIV patients, Cancer, Leukaemia etc

3.  Adults staying at long-term care facilities or institutions.

Background information

1.  Pneumococci (aka Streptococcus pneumoniae) can cause non-invasive infections (less serious) such as otitis media, sinusitis and bronchitis, and invasive infections (much more serious) such as pneumonia, meningitis and febrile bacteremia.

2.  The average number of cases of invasive Pneumococcal disease over the period 1995-2004 was 67 per 100,000 among the elderly aged >65 years.  For comparison, the rates were 12.4 per 100,000 for children aged 5-14 years, and 4.5 per 100,000 for teens and adults aged 15-64 years.

3.  The highest case fatality rate was 8.4% occurring in the elderly above 75 years of age.

4.  Treatment of Pneumococcal infections is getting more difficult with increasing resistance of the bacteria to even strong antibiotics.  This means that the old adage, prevention is better than cure is particularly true for Pneumococcal infections.

5.  Don’t wait any longer, get your elderly parents and relatives vaccinated today!

Please call us at 6258 6096 to confirm availability of Adult Pneumococcal Vaccine before coming down to the Clinic.

According to the US book How To Get Out of Hospital Alive, the 10 things you can do are:

1. Make sure all your known allergies are clearly marked on your chart, wrist band, or on a piece of paper taped above your bed.
2. Mark the area of your body to be operated on with a felt-tip pen.
3. Never eat or drink anything before surgery, even if the nurse brings you a food tray.
4. Tell your anaesthesiologist if you’re on any type of medication.
5. Have a reliable advocate with you as often as possible throughout your hospital stay.
6. Write your name prominently on a piece of paper and tape it to the wall above your bed.
7. Always ask the nurse to check the name and dosage of any medication he or she is about to give you.
8. Don’t let anyone bully you.
9. Don’t hesitate to get a second — or third — opinion.
10. Trust your instincts.

 Think the above makes a lot of sense…. do take note

Nope.  Its not what you think.

The article is here.

According to the article: 1. children with TVs in their room watch 9 hrs more TV.  2. Parents do not really know how much and what programs their children are watching.  3. It is difficult to remove the TV sets from their children’s room, even if they want to.

The consequences of watching more TV in their own rooms are: higher risk for obesity (with its attendant risk for Chronic Diseases), scoring significantly and consistently lower on math, reading and language tests, more sleep problems, and also apparently higher risk of smoking.

Fortunately, its not all bad news.  Reducing the viewing time of children by 50% leads to lower BMI i.e. these obese children lose weight.  This is because of a decrease in caloric uptake i.e. they snack less.

Now that Singaporeans are becoming more affluent, it is quite common to have mutiple TV sets in one household.  Some food for thought where these TV sets should be placed then.