Dr. Josyann Abisaab

While staycations are great fun and a relaxing way to enjoy the summer, they can also be a recipe for disaster.  As emergency room doctors like Dr. Josyann Abisaab can attest, children are constantly brought to the emergency room with accidents that could have been avoided.

The home swimming pool can be just as dangerous as the vast ocean. As the Insurance Information Institute reports, each year about 43,000 people are injured in or near a pool and more than 600 people drown at their home pools or at public pool locations.

You should make sure that anyone who swims in the family pool knows how to swim well before being allowed to enter. No one should swim alone and there would be adequate lifesaving equipment near the pool.

In addition, all electrical devices need to be on dry surfaces and far away from the pool and other water sources.

One of the most common injuries seen in the ER is the ankle injury. Ankle sprains, breaks and fractures are most often a result of activities which require quick stops and starts, as well as abrupt changes in direction. Improper footwear is also a common cause of such injuries.
Emergency care doctors like Dr. Josyann Abisaab understand that it is important to:

• Do daily exercises to strengthen the ankles, as well as to increase their flexibility
• Strengthen and support old ankle injuries
• Wear the correct shoes for an activity such as hiking or soccer
• Avoid running on uneven surfaces.

ER physicians like Dr. Josyann Abisaab know that a new visitor to the emergency room is sometimes confused as to why the department sometimes treats patients who arrived after him instead of providing treatment in the precise order in which patients arrived. That’s why it is important to learn the concept of triage. Triage is generally a patient’s first stop in the emergency department. It is the site where a member of the ER team, usually a nurse, evaluates the patient’s condition and assigns him to one of three categories:

1.       Imminently life threatening

2.       Urgent, but not imminently life threatening

3.       Less urgent

As a result of triage, someone who arrives with a life threatening condition can be seen immediately, even if he or she was not the first to arrive. Conversely, this means that patients with less time-oriented problems may need to wait a bit longer, while still being of receiving the correct level of treatment.

Having a child with asthma can be very stressful. It is hard to know when an ER visit is necessary. Emergency care doctors such as Dr. Josyann Abisaab recommend you prepare for such a visit in advance, and become familiar with the symptoms that need emergency care. Some of them are:

• If your child’s coloring changes; blue or gray lips and/or fingernails
• If your child has difficulty talking
• If your child’s peak flow reading drops below 50% and does not improve with medication
• If your child repeatedly uses rescue medications for severe flare-up symptoms which do not go away after five or ten minutes, or return quickly.
• If the areas between the ribs, below the ribs and in the neck pull in dramatically while your child inhales

A very painful injury seen in ERs by doctors like Dr. Josyann Abisaab is an ACL tear. The ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) is one of the four main ligaments which control the motion of the knee. This injury usually occurs in “weekend warriors” who play only once or twice a week, and do not build up the required strength and flexibility in between games.

To prevent ER visits with torn ACLs, strengthen the area by doing lunges, squats, hamstring exercises and leg presses on a regular basis. This will help secure and brace the knee during games.

While Halloween is a fun and exciting holiday, there are certain dangers that parents need to be aware of. ER doctors like Dr. Josyann Abisaab can attest to the fact that Halloween safety tips should not be ignored.

Not only you and your children are exposed to these risks; pets and animals are as well. Chocolate contains caffeine and other chemicals that can be fatal for dogs. Be sure to clear the area around your house from any candy remnants, and if you are a dog owner yourself, make sure your children don’t leave their candy within easy reach of your dog. Candy wrappers and foil paper can cause your pet (or child) to choke, or get stuck in their digestive tract, which can result in illness or death. Be sure to keep the area clean of these, too.

Dogs’ tails can wag with a tremendous amount of strength when excited. Take care not to leave jack-o lanterns or candles in places where they can be knocked over by an excited dog or a curious cat. Not only can your pet get badly burned, but they could start a fire as well.

Animals can get nervous or aggressive if strangers keep showing up at the door, or if their house is full of guests in costume. Choose a quiet, spacious room at the back of your house and leave your pet there with food and water. It may frustrate them, but many uncomfortable or even dangerous situations can be avoided this way.

If you, or someone you know, have recently had Salmonella poisoning, it’s important to understand your various treatment options.  Many patients will come to the emergency room and receive treatment from the emergency room doctors, like Dr. Josyann Abisaab, while others will seek out their primary care physician.

Most people with salmonellosis recover on their own in four to seven days with no antibiotics or other treatments.  The main goal of salmonellosis treatment is to prevent dehydration. In order to prevent Salmonella infections, it’s very important to cook food thoroughly to prevent food poisoning and to wash hands carefully during food preparation.

Children should also know to wash their hands after handling a pet.  Don’t keep pet reptiles in the home if you have children under five, and monitor children at a petting zoo or farm.

Diabetes raises a person’s chances of having heat-related illnesses.  And yet, a new study shows that diabetics are not aware of the precautions they need to take to deal with these differences and issues.

The survey, entitled,  ”Diabetes in the Desert: What Do Patients Know About the Heat?” will be presented at The Endocrine Society’s 92nd Annual Meeting in San Diego.  Conducted by researchers from Mayo Clinic in Arizona, in collaboration with the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service, the survey looked at patients in a Phoenix diabetes clinic.

Leading researcher Adrienne Nassar, MD, said that the study shows that diabetics living in hot climates need increased awareness about how the heat may affect their disease.  Emergency room doctors such as Dr. Josyann Abisaab certainly see an increase in diabetic patients during the warm weather months.

“People with diabetes have an impaired ability to sweat, which predisposes them to heat-related illness, as do uncontrolled, high blood sugars,” Nassar said. “Many patients surveyed had suboptimal glycemic control during the summer, possibly increasing their risk of dehydration.”

If you enjoy using the treadmill as your main source for exercise, you can certainly gain many benefits from it.  This article helps you to learn exactly how to benefit the most from your treadmill regime and how to step it up to get the most impact from your time.  Learn more about using the treadmill and give your heart the exercise time it needs each day!

Certainly, while many of us have good intentions to stay in shape during the summer, the heat can often be quite taxing.  This article offers concrete ways to stay motivated during the summer and to keep your exercise routine in place no matter where you are.  Certainly, as doctors like Josyann Abisaab M.D. can tell you, exercise and proper diet are key ingredients to staying health – and staying out of a doctor’s care!