MakeUseOf » medicine

Give Yourself Or Your Kids A Hearing Test With Ear Test [Windows]

Ryan Dube — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 16:01:10 +0000

Recently, my wife and I started getting concerned because our eleven year old can never seem to hear us when we are talking to her. At first, we thought that it was just your average case of a kid ignoring her parents when they are telling her to clean her room or eat her vegetables. However, after suffering through several years of hearing “what?” from her, and having to constantly repeat ourselves, we’re starting to think that maybe there’s more to this phenomenon than selective hearing.

This concern led us to set up an appointment for a hearing test. Of course, always on the look-out for new opportunities to seek out and test interesting software, I decided to strike out on the Internet to seek out a free hearing test application that would let me check my daughter’s hearing myself.

Frequency & Volume Tests With Ear Test

Now, I’m a computer geek, not a hearing specialist. So, while I did discover a pretty cool program called Ear Test to conduct the hearing analysis, it did take a little bit of reading up on hearing tests to figure out the most accurate way to do a proper test.

Ear Test is a high-quality application written by Johannes Wallroth of Berlin, Germany. It essentially provides you with a tool that you can use to vary the frequency and volume of sound in order to test the entire range of human hearing.

Please note: Never use this test with the volume turned way up and wearing earphones, as you could actually cause ear damage. Keep the earphones off, and test the sound turned down. Then put on your earphones and test starting out at the lowest volume again. Carefully increase the volumes only slightly until you can just barely hear the frequencies.

Here’s how you can give someone a hearing test using this software. First, have them sit in a chair facing in the other direction, and let them put on earphones connected to the computer.

The first thing you want to do is slide the volume down all the way to “1″, and lower the frequency all the way down as well. If your frequency step is 100 (you can go as low as 10 if you want), then your bottom frequency will be 100Hz. The best way to get started is to turn the volume down to 1, and put the frequency at about 2000 Hz. This lets the person hear a sound at a safe volume. Now, keep lowering the frequency closer to 10 Hz until the person can’t hear the sound anymore.

Select the frequency, press start, and when the person says they can hear the sound in that ear, lower the volume until they can’t hear it anymore. When they can hear it again, click the “I can hear it!” button. This places a marker at that frequency and volume in the graph at the bottom of the window. Go all the way down the scale to 100 Hz or so, and keep going down until they can’t hear the low frequency sound regardless of volume.

Next, put the volume back down to 1 or 2, and go back to where you started at 2000 Hz. Now you’re going to work your way in the other direction, into the higher frequencies. Make sure the volume is set at the lowest level that the person can hear the sound, then increase the frequency. If they can still hear it, click “I can hear it!“

If they can’t, increase the volume by one. If they still can’t, increase by 1 again. When they can hear it, click “I can hear it!” and move on to the next, higher frequency. Once you get to the top end of the frequency range, you’ll find that you have to increase the volume more in order for them to hear anything. This will show up quickly at a certain high frequency and will degrade into the situation where no matter what the volume, they can’t hear anything at all.

Wherever your slider is located at that point, that is the person’s maximum frequency threshold for their hearing.

Don’t forget to perform the test all over again for the other ear so that you have a fairly good profile of how well the person can hear in each ear. The graph below shows my own hearing test results in my left ear. I apparently can hear a bit better in my left ear than I can in my right – the drop-off occurred much earlier in the my right ear.

Once you’re finished getting your frequency/volume hearing profile using the software and you’re not sure what to make of the results, I recommend EarInfo.com as a good place to go to get started understanding your hearing profile. The site has different charts that show you what a typical frequency/Db response looks like.

It also explains what to look for if you have “holes” in your hearing in very specific frequency ranges in that graph. What you really want to see is what my graphs look like above – the ability to hear all frequencies in the middle at a common volume level. Some people lose complete hearing of specific frequencies due to inner-ear damage, so if you see any of those in your own results, that’s all the more reason to get to the doctor quickly and have that looked at.

Give the Ear Test software a shot and let us know what you thought of the software and what you learned about your own hearing in the comments section below.

Top 10 RSS Feeds For Medical News & Alerts

Saikat Basu — Wed, 18 May 2011 15:31:30 +0000

Health is definitely one of those things we don’t notice till it starts to ebb away. Isn’t it also true that medical news is the last thing you like to read or see in newspapers and television? That is, if you do not have any illness in the family. I pray you don’t, but if you do then the web has always been a secondary source of some great information. The first source should always be your general practitioner and physician.

There is no harm in arming yourself with information when you need to talk to a doctor. A better informed patient (or a patient’s guardian) makes for a wiser decision maker. We are living on the cutting edge of great medical leaps. Medical news and alerts help us to keep pace with these leaps. Let’s look at some top websites for RSS medical news feeds and stay alert with the help of their feeds.

MedicineNet

MedicineNet.com is an encyclopedic medical website that looks at health information across the board. The site has five types of health and medical RSS feed channels – Daily Health and Medical News, Weekly Health and Medical News Digest, MedTerms Medical Word of the Day, Specialty topics, and 36 other channels on general topics. The link to the site takes you straight to the RSS page where the channel services are explained in more detail. Simply know that a topic with the RSS icon next to belongs to one of the channels and is available for subscription via your RSS Feed Reader.

WebMD

The site is closely allied to MedicineNet and provides medical news, features, reference material, and online community programs. The medical news site is very reader friendly and one of its best features are the communities that are grouped around health conditions. WebMD Health syndicates award-winning Medical News covering health-related events. Health care workers can also freely subscribe to the Medscape podcasts and reference content.

Medline Plus

Medline Plus is a public information service from the U.S. National Library of Medicine and its parent organization – The National Institute of Health. The site also culls global medical news from Reuters and Health Day (the health news syndication service), and more from the press announcements of major medical organizations. So when you subscribe to the RSS feed, you can expect the information to be reliable and update.

MedPage

MedPage is more for practicing physicians and medical specialists, so if you are either, you can benefit greatly from their coverage of breaking news in different medical fields. MedPage Today is a joint effort of The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the web company. News headlines via RSS feeds are grouped by topic and you can subscribe to the one of your interest.

Reuters

If it’s global breaking news, you can always see that Reuters is on the ground following it. The health section of the news website is always kept fresh with the latest studies, medical news, health issues, and any news on healthcare reforms that might be taking place. A lot of other health sites also collect their information from Reuters. So grab the feed by clicking on the small RSS icon that can be found towards the foot of the page.

OnMedica

Onmedica.com is a well regarded online medical publication for daily news, views, blogs and medical learning. The site says that the content is aimed at doctors, but it can also be a valuable resource for nurses, pharmacists, medical students, and other healthcare professionals. Grab the latest news on your feed reader by clicking on the RSS feed icon. You can also grab the feeds of the blogs and opinion pieces separately.

BBC Health News

The latest health news is just one of the many things the broadcasting corporation covers. While you are grabbing the RSS feed link, you might as well also catch the video & audio news feeds on health and medicine too.

Healthline

This well designed medical and health site empowers consumers with up-to-date, easy to digest information. Interactive maps and videos also help you to understand the basics of a medical condition. Catch the Healthline news daily with the help of their RSS feed.

New Scientist

New Scientist is one among the respected scientific magazines in the world. The magazine looks at scientific discoveries and how they impact us and our society. Health gets a section all of its own and you can read about the latest medical discoveries here. You can jump to the different Topic Guides that are made for deeper reading. Even better, with the RSS feed, you won’t have to visit this site daily and can catch up on all the latest medical news.

Yahoo Health

Google and Yahoo both aggregate RSS medical news feeds from other sources. I have a personal preference for Yahoo because of the page layout. You can browse the most common conditions from the list on the left, look at 3D body maps, watch videos, and catch the top health news stories on the site or via the RSS feed.

These ten medical and health websites show that if you care enough about your health, knowledge is not a problem. Then you have these three posts for some more –

5 Health Websites You Can Tap For Online Support On Depression
10 Nutritional & Health Websites For Kids To Help Improve Their Health
3 Sites to Get Your Medical Questions Answered by Experts for Free

Prevention is better than cure. Do you read up on medical news now and then? Tell us about your favorite RSS medical news feed.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

7 Free Online Medical Dictionaries for Some Word Aid

Saikat Basu — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 17:30:24 +0000

I just returned from the hospital. The consulting physician threw around words like “˜Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography’ without a stutter, but my brain hit a pothole. He went straight ahead to other words which made the health problem seem quite acute. Blame it on the medical words or blame it on my relative lack of medical know-how.

Of course, some doctors are patient enough to explain everything in layman’s terms, but then I don’t think many of them take the Hippocratic Oath for patiently educating the common masses about the arcane medical terminologies. That’s where a free online medical dictionary and encyclopedia can jump right in.

When it comes to health problems and their understanding, it’s the physician who should be the first port of call. But if you want to expand your knowledge, then the web is an information goldmine. A lot of quality medical reference websites exist. Online medical dictionaries are part of some. Here are seven you can check out for the words and terms that doctors skip past you.

Medline Plus

Webster’s medical dictionary is a top-notch spot for looking up medical terms and their meanings. MedlinePlus is the National Institutes of Health’s website for free health related queries and information. Along with the general search field, you also can look up a page which lists lots of words that go into explaining medical terminologies. There’s another page on common abbreviations. The Medline Plus search supports use of wild card characters.

MediLexicon

MediLexicon is a comprehensive database of medical abbreviations, terms, ICD9 codes, equipments, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, news, publications etc. The site has over 230,000 items in its database. The information can be accessed for free by professionals from the fields of pharmacy, biotechnology, agrochemicals, and healthcare. You can also use an alphabetical listing of medical words. Optionally, the search engine uses a fuzzy algorithm to supply variations to the keyword you enter. The dictionary is powered by Stedman’s Medical Dictionary.

MedTerms

You can get easy to understand explanations of nearly 16,000 medical terms as well as detailed articles as part of all resources on the MedicineNet.com site. Use the search box or the alphabetical listing. If you are not sure of the spelling, use wildcards to get a list of results to browse through. The advanced search options help to narrow down your search according to the choice you select from a dropdown.

WebMD

WebMD is a top-tier medical information website that has an entire suite of features on health and medicine. The dictionary, quite predictably gives you an alphabetical listing and a search box. The dictionary sources the meanings from Stedman’s Medical Dictionary. The meanings are short and concise.

The Free Dictionary

The medical dictionary of the Free Dictionary sources medical terms and definitions from The American Heritage Stedman’s Medical Dictionary, Second Edition and Dorland’s Medical Dictionary for Health Care Consumers, covering authoritative descriptions of medical conditions, medications, anatomical terms, noted medical personalities and more. The search box has the auto-suggestion feature enabled by default which also indicates the languages available for the meaning of a particular word. What are really useful are the audio pronunciations and selective illustrations of medical terms.

King’s Medical Library Engine

The meta-search tool accesses most of the known resources we have listed above. The site includes a medical dictionary, terminology, and abbreviation search. You can also search for drug related information links to medical articles and journals on sites like PubMed. The web engine is powered by Google and the site also pings most of the well known sites for definitions and illustrations.

Medic8

Medic8 gets medical terms and meanings from these publications – Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary, Mosby’s Medical Dictionary, Stedman’s Medical Dictionary, and Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary. Compared to some of the other medical dictionaries we have seen above, it is more of a content search engine rather than a pure dictionary as it gives you links to relevant articles on the site.

These seven free online medical dictionary sources are not only for laymen but also for those in the medical profession or on the verge of it. They can add these to some of the earlier ones we covered in The Best Reference Sites for Medical Students. Do you know of an online medical dictionary we haven’t covered here?

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6 Virtual Tours Of The Human Body For Free Interactive Anatomy Lessons

Saikat Basu — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 19:31:50 +0000

You can put your money on virtual reality and virtual worlds becoming part of our daily lives. One of its greatest impacts will be felt on education and health. You can already get hints of the value educators (and others) placed on 3D virtual tools from the success of virtual globes like Google Earth. Virtual worlds are now commonplace on things like flight simulators and massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs).

When it comes to interactive virtual views, we have gone to space and around the globe. So, it’s not surprising that we are also going within ourselves on a virtual journey of the human body. One of the finest tools available online is Visible Body. Unfortunately, it’s not free anymore. But you can see the beauty of it thanks to the free demo that allows you to explore the head and neck.

If you are disappointed that there aren’t any free interactive anatomy tools, worry not. Here are six:

Google Body

You can trust Google to take you everywhere. Google Body is as cool as any of their other visualization apps. On Google Body, you can view the underlying anatomical layers one by one using a slider, switch on labels to identity each body part, use the search box as a search engine for any body part (muscles, organs, bones etc), and what’s more, you can also share the exact scene you are viewing by copying and pasting the URL.

The Google Body browser is a Google Labs project that renders on Google Chrome and any other browser that supports WebGL (like Firefox 4 Beta). As a Lab project, it might be a bit error prone at times when rendering the views (see Directory mention).

MEDtropolis

The interactive website aims to educate entertain both kids and adult on bodily health; understanding the human anatomical structure is just part of the process. The Virtual Body takes you on four tours ““ The Human Brain, Skeleton, Human Heart, and Digestive Tract. Then there are some cool standalone tours within each.

For instance, check out the narrated tours on Virtual Body. There’s a game on the skeleton thrown in too that’s sure to make you rote up on the facts as you “˜build’ your skeleton. Also, don’t miss the animated heart section.

eSkeletons

eSkeletons isn’t only about understanding human anatomy. It is an interactive comparative tool that enables a student to view the bones of both human and non-human primates and to learn more about them from the site’s anatomical database. The views are powered by QuickTime and JavaScript. Selecting the human skeleton on the homepage starts the anatomical study. A mouseover on the skeleton selects a specific bone for a closer look. You can look into things like morphology and articulations. A QuickTime movie gives a 3D view of the specific skeletal part. eSkeletons is an University of Texas initiative.

DirectAnatomy

DirectAnatomy.com comes with an interactive interface that comes with four angles of view allowing you to browse through more than 1,200 annotated anatomy images. A clickable menu on the left displays the specific body part on the right. The human body tour also gives you an insight into the physiological and pathological makeup of our bodies.

BBC Human Body and Mind

The BBC’s webpage is a resource rich place to discover and play interactive games while learning all about the human body. The games include ““ Senses challenge, Organs Game, Skeleton Game, Muscle Game, and Nervous System Game. The games are superbly designed and mostly involve dropping a body part onto a human figure.

Artificial Anatomy

This one is not a fully fledged anatomical course, but a cool and short 10 question quiz on different body parts. It is a Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History resource. With a mouse rollover you have to match the thumbnail with its location on the skeletal structure named “˜Jerome’. You can also turn Jerome around for another view. “˜Jerome’ is actually a papier-mÃ¢chÃ© anatomical model preserved in the institute.

There’s no doubt that the visualization provided by these virtual tours are the quickest way to explore and learn. These browser based virtual tools aren’t just for fun’s sake but they do put the fun back into education. Let us know your take on this.

Image: Shutterstock

5 Health Websites You Can Tap For Online Support On Depression & Bipolar Disorder

Saikat Basu — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 18:31:49 +0000

It seems out of place bringing up such a serious topic on depression and bipolar disorder when the festivities are just around the corner. But it is one of those attacks that’s out there and doesn’t appreciate seasons. In fact, the socially busy holiday season can act as a catalyst.

Though there are many different types of depressions, what is common is that they usually occur in all ages. Of all the types, major depression and bipolar disorder are the ones that are highlighted more. NIMH says that 5.7 million people are afflicted in the U.S alone. Wikipedia cites a research study that says bipolar disorder is possibly the most costly category of mental disorders in the United States.

The good news is that these classes of depression are treatable. The doctors form the first line of defense always. And if you are looking for extra information and education, the web forms the second. Always consult a medical practitioner, but look up these five websites for any information on depression and bipolar disorder.

National Institute of Mental Health

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is a government body overseen by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The website is an authoritative resource on the understanding and treatment of mental illnesses. It also highlights the latest clinical research in the area of mental health. Mental health topics get specific pages like the one for depression or bipolar disorder. The well organized list of contents takes the reader through the stages from symptoms and treatment to how to find help.

You can also download detailed information booklets as free PDF files. The video and audios on the page talk about different areas of treatment and breakthroughs. NIMH also has a YouTube channel. If you are in the U.S, you can use NIMH’s Outreach Program to connect with the organization and interact firsthand with health advisors.

Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance

The DBSA is an online support group for bipolar disorder and depression. Participation is limited to 12 per group and it is strictly on first come first served basis with a free sign-up to the online chat. DBSA also runs more than 1000 peer-run support groups around the U.S. The community based support groups also have professional caregivers for education and treatment advice.

There’s also the online discussion board that you can actively take part in. If you are trying to search out psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health professionals in your area, the Find a Pro service is a more than useful search engine. Also check out the nicely laid out Facing Us Clubhouse and there’s quite a nice list of free PDF eBooks and eBrochures on bipolar disorder.

Child & Adolescent Bipolar Foundation

Bipolar disorder doesn’t discriminate when it comes to age. It does rear its head in childhood and adolescence. It becomes vital for parents to recognize and seek remedies in time. This website tailored for the young age group addresses these facts. Parents can connect to the online support groups on the site.

Then there are the forums and chat rooms to connect to other guardians and caregivers. You can watch out for upcoming expert chats given by doctors and mental health experts. Uniquely, transcripts of old chats are also freely available. Flipswitch is the podcast section and though it seems to have ended, you can still catch the old ones.

McMan’s Depression and Bipolar Web

This is a well compiled resource by John McManamy, an award-winning mental health journalist and author of Living Well with Depression and Bipolar Disorder. His insights come from being a sufferer of bipolar disorder for the last 11 years. Apart from the website, his blog is also a worthwhile read.

As he explains in his blog, he started it all as a means of coping with his own disorder. Initially, it was meant to be a platform for his own self education as he plowed through medical and psychiatric literature that was available on the subject. Lately, it has moved beyond medical diagnosis into brain and behavioral science. A section on the famous people from history who suffered from this ailment makes a revealing browse.

Depression Alliance

We have been U.S centric so far, but let’s check out this UK based charity that tries to tackle depression. If you are a first timer go over to their new section ““ What you should know about depression.

The website brings an online discussion forum, a nationwide network of self help groups, a quarterly magazine, and a matched pen friend confidential service. There’s also a small section where you can showcase any creative work (a story, a poem, an artwork etc).

When it comes to these ailments, there’s so much more to talk about. The positive thing is that the web is a great enabler when it comes to support and advice. Though it cannot replace a face to face conversation with a qualified doctor, it can prove to be a valuable tool for information and education. Do you agree? Point us to any other resources you know of.

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10 Websites To Help You Kick Your Smoking Addiction (and Improve Your Health)

Saikat Basu — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 17:30:36 +0000

“˜Kick the Butt’ is a banner one of my friends has stuck up on his wall. The banner has yellowed but the pile of butts in the ashtray hasn’t got any less. Welcome to the smoker’s eternal dilemma. If a survey were to be carried out (and I am sure there’s one somewhere), the quandary of wanting to quit but losing out to the urge of smoking would be true of most smokers.

Not surprising, when you consider that’s the stumbling block for many an addiction”¦ smoking included. The benefits of quitting smoking are too many ““ from increasing your energy to lessening your medical bills. And of course, making life just a bit easier for the passive smokers.

Perhaps I am compiling this list of the 10 websites that can help someone kick the smoking habit in vain. The defenses of an addicted smoker are unassailable if not insurmountable. Still, let me try to blow a bit of the smoke away.

QuitNet

QuitNet says it’s one of the largest communities of smokers and ex-smokers with more than 60,000 members from across the globe. It is definitely one of the oldest out there. The site offers a host of services from personal counseling to personal medical advice. These services aren’t free, but the support from the active community of smokers and non-smokers is. With the free services on the site, you can use tools like the Quit Date Wizard and the Quitting Guide. The Medication Guide is also a good read. If you want to some offline support, you can use the Smoking Cessation Programs finder to locate one near your area (U.S only).

Smokefree

U.S residents can use the free anti-smoking aids like the online step-by-step cessation guide or the telephone hotlines and the LiveHelp chat service (courtesy National Cancer Institute). From quizzes to interactive maps and “˜how to quit smoking’ downloads, this website is a rich source. Women smokers can also go straight to the gender specific sister site which addresses their unique issues. This website is a must if you are serious about quitting smoking.

Stop Smoking Center

The site says that you have four times the chance of quitting compared to going at it alone. Whether it’s true or not, can only be found out with a free sign-up to the Evolution Health Program. The online quit smoking program has a full fledged support group and lots of tools and interactive exercises. A downloadable quit meter and a craving’s diary with withdrawal symptom tracker are some a quitter can always us. The site gives out a limited number of memberships daily.

Quit Smoking Counter

The site is a blog that explores ways you can quit smoking. Apart from smoking cessation news and tips, the site also offers a commercial iPhone app which serves as an online counter that measures smoking cessation and the length of time the person has stopped smoking along with other data like money saved and life gained.

WeQuit

You can lean on the support of the social web when it comes to giving up smoking. WeQuit takes the help of Twitter and Facebook. The site is the handiwork of No Smoking Day, the charity behind the leading health campaign for smokers who want to stop. There’s a video channel with first person accounts and success stories. You can also put in a pledge that you will kick the habit; and there’s a Facebook app for that too. If you succeed, you can even walk away with a prize and towards a healthier life. But visit the Forum and check out feedbacks that have been arranged by time since quitting.

FixNixer

This online tool is a free, anonymous and customized quit-smoking program that helps you quit the habit in 21 days. With your smoking data, the site designs a personalized course. You also need to give regular feedback to your account as to the success or failure towards the goal. The site also has a community forum for social support, Quitblogs, and personalized text messages that help you stay away from tobacco dependency. The one drawback – the program is only available for Colorado (U.S) residents. (See Directory mention)

About.com (Smoking Cessation)

The hub is a nice resource for must reads on the how’s and why’s of smoking cessation. It is arranged around four main sections ““ Smoking cessation, Health Risks, How to Quit, and After Quitting.

QuitMeter

Quitmeter is a one-page simple non-smoking calculator that counts the days to the minute and the second since you quit smoking. It also calculates the numbers you haven’t lighted up and the dollars saved.

Quit-O-Meter

A Facebook community of ex-smokers and smokers who want to quit smoking. You can join up and use it as a support group and also share your success stories if you manage it make it beyond the cravings. A statistics page displays a “˜leaderboard’ to show where you stand among other fellow quitters.

NHS Quit Smoking

Okay, here we aren’t going to talk about the website but the free iPhone app. Though the health site itself is a fountain of information, the iPhone app is handy to carry around. It has useful features like real time counters which track daily cigarette consumption and cost. You have daily messages that encourage your struggles and also a direct line to the NHS Smoking Helpline.

More important than these ten websites is your own will power. These sites only serve as pillars on which you can lean on when self-restraint starts to waver. But do devour the information on why smoking is such an injurious habit. Let us know your success story.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

3 Sites to Get Your Medical Questions Answered by Experts for Free

Dean Sherwin — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 01:30:39 +0000

Going to the doctor can be expensive, especially if you don’t have a health plan. What’s annoying is discovering you could have gotten his or her advice for free within the comfort and privacy of your own home by having your medical questions answered free from professionals online.

Often, diagnosing illnesses and symptoms can be extremely simple. Learning more about the condition that you have educates you, so you can make an informed decision on whether or not you should then seek medical attention or deal with it yourself.

Of course, medical advice is something you want from a trusted source. And the Internet is often presumed to be a bad source for health apps and information. However, there are quite a few websites out there owned and run by healthcare professional providing free medical advice and answers to readers questions. Here are three great sites where you can have your medical questions answered for free.

Editor’s note: MakeUseOf is in no way advocating self-diagnosis and/or treatment. This is merely a source of information. If you require medical attention, do not hesitate to visit a healthcare professional.

Medical Questions Answered Free – Ask Medical Doctor

This is a simple site with thousands of answered questions already in its database. It’s really simple to use and is held in a very high esteem by its users. Along the top of the site there are various categories and links to the doctors’ profiles and recent questions. There is also a ticker tape running across the top of the screen with numerous conditions including everything from Autism to Cancer and STIs.

The homepage consists mainly of this question form which you enter your medical query into. The response time varies much in the same way replies to comments on a blog vary. Whenever there is a doctor on call, then your questions should be answered. 24 hours would be the maximum you’ll be waiting.

However, you may not need to even “˜ask’ your question. As I mentioned above, there are thousands already answered so performing a search or sifting through one of the categories along the top of the site may be quicker.

Med Help

MedHelp is a form of medical social network with over 9 million visitors per month. The community is made up of users and experts (experts are clearly marked). Registration is required to partake in the community. I think this is to keep you coming back and hopefully spread your own knowledge.

What I liked most about this site was that the community answers questions as well as experts. Obviously, the community could only answer general knowledge questions from their own experience. But with such a large amount of users there is bound to be someone there who went through it before you did. There is also user forums and dictionaries to look up medical jargon (this is very useful) and profiles of various health centres and treatments.

The community on MedHelp are supportive, mature and above all else, backed up by experts in their fields who keep the conversation accurate and dole out excellent advice to those who need it.

The site also offers numerous tools and web apps to help you keep fit and track recovery data. Ryan profiled those here a few months back.

MD Advice

This website is also great for having your medical questions answered. When you first log onto the site, click “˜Ask and Expert’ in the left-hand column. This will bring you to the a page where you can submit your question to the doctor and receive a reply via email.

There is also a vast library of previously answered questions, like the sites above. They also have loads of articles and information on the website such as “˜Drug Information’ and the “˜Health Library’.

The Health Library is the reason I chose MD Advice. It’s packed with loads of common injuries and illnesses such as sports injuries and pregnancy along with health advice and nutrition. Furthermore, there is a community message board and also live chat rooms for both the expert and the members.

Always remember though, information found on the Internet should only be secondary to that of a doctor who you can meet in person and have checks done. For medical emergencies and extreme cases with a sense of urgency, it’s best to visit your doctor.

So there you go. Before you rush off to the doctors next time, check to see if your symptoms are something which can be treated at home. Which online medical services do you use?

Image Attribution: Deadstar 2.0

3 Apps That Help You Find Ways To Stay Healthy

Dean Sherwin — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 20:00:26 +0000

Keeping in tip-top shape, or somewhere close to it is important for most of us. In fact, it’s in most Top 5 lists along with family, friends, love and work and so on. In one ear, we have the media telling us that we’ll die if we eat the salads in MacDonald’s; and in the other, your own heavy breathing as you gasp for air having jogged for 2 minutes. What to do”¦

Well, I’m no doctor but what I do know is that there are tonnes of web apps and tools that you can use to find ways to stay healthy and physically fit. We’ll look at the three main areas of health that affect us in our day to day lives which can be made easier by our web apps; sleep, nutrition and medication for when all else fails!

iSleepDiary

Any doctor will tell you that a good night’s sleep is extremely important. Sleep allows your body to perform at its optimum level whether you’re running a marathon or fighting off a nasty infection.

Basically, in iSleepDiary, you answer ten questions every day about how you slept the previous night. You can see an example in the screenshot where I was asked about how long and how well I slept and about my routines before I went to bed.

All of this is recorded over time and in a few weeks results start to appear as to whether or not you are getting enough sleep and whether you have a sleeping deficiency. This can all be printed out or simply viewed as an easy to read chart in your account.

TwoFoods

Many of us eat food that we think are healthy but in actual fact, they aren’t. This web app will show you the nutritional value in food that we eat every day and it will also compare them to one another. What’s more, it tells you the nutritional value of items without a label such as apples and fresh bread.

In the example above, we compared apple pie and spaghetti. You can see their calorie and other nutritional information displayed below the item. I found this app useful as it raised quite a few warning flags for me. It turns out that spaghetti isn’t healthy if you laze around afterwards! Who knew?

iPills

Everyone, at some point in their lives will be put on medication. It could be antibiotics, anti-depressants, birth control pills (can’t forget that one!) or something more specific to treating an illness. Normally, you’re given strict orders from your doctor to take them at a certain time each day – obviously one of the most important ways to stay healthy is to take your medicine.

iPills is an iPhone app that acts as your virtual pillbox. Instead of simply setting an alarm, your “˜pillbox’ contains all of the pills that need to be taken that day. When you take it, you simply tap the pill (which can be customized to look different to the others) and it goes into the “˜Taken’ box.

Your pills can be set up to re-occur daily, hourly etc. And because it involves almost no interaction other than tapping the pill you just, it’s easy to use and it eliminates the painstaking procedure of organizing it on your iPhone’s generic calendar.

I have selected the three apps above because they all have one thing in common; simplicity. Health issues target everyone, not just web savvy folks like ourselves. Using these apps will get you on your way to being a lean, mean fighting machine. Just remember to eat your apple-a-day!

Which apps do you use to keep yourself healthy and stay in shape?

3 Sites To Help You Identify Unknown Drugs

Guy McDowell — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:01:32 +0000

Really, I’m not sure how this topic came to mind. Perhaps it was listening to a story on talk radio about the scourge known as MDMA, also known as Ecstasy. Nasty stuff. Most of it is also filled with meth, in case you were wondering.

I guess that got me to thinking, “If I found a pill in my kid’s bedroom, how would I go about figuring out what it is?” I suppose the easiest answer is to just ask them. But easy doesn’t make for a good article. My quest began.

I found three really interesting free sites to identify prescription drugs, and one that is free…but only to medical professionals and students. Let’s take a look at them, shall we?

Drugs.com

The layout of this site is very nice. I can figure out exactly how to do what I want. I can identify unknown drugs, find out more about them and see what they might not interact with very well.

First I hit the Pill Identifier. Ha! The first line in the text reads, “Worried about those capsules you found in your teenager’s room?” Apparently I’m not the only paranoid and invasive parent out there. Let’s see what turns up.

I’m just going to give it some random information to work with and see what happens. I gave it the parameters of maroon and round. Hmmm….3 results. Docusate sodium-senna, Marinol, and Phenazopyridine hydrochloride. 2 of the 3 came with pictures which would help me to further verify what the pill is. Let’s look at Marinol.

You can go further to find out what the drug does. Aha! Check this out. “Dronabinol is a man-made form of cannabis (marijuana is an herbal form of cannabis).” I knew the little punk was up to no good. Wait ’til he gets home from school. Oh, yes, this is a hypothetical story. Sorry about that. Got a little carried away.

There are other fine features on this site to help you answer your questions about drugs. You can go through a list of drugs from A to Z, search for drugs based on the condition they treat, and of course, there is a community which you can join to interact with other people interested in how drugs interact with their health.

RxList

RxList does pretty much the same thing as Drugs.com, but in a bit different way. In addition to the ability to identify unknown drugs and identify prescription drugs based on the condition they treat, RxList also adds informational slideshows and a pharmaceutical dictionary to help you understand some of those fifty-cent words.

Lets take a look at RxList’s pill identifier and see what more trouble I can get my hypothetical teenage son into. Odd, maroon is not a listed colour. Well, let’s try red and round. Phreaky pharmacy Batman! There are 50 results ranging from over-the-counter medicines like Acetominophen to the anti-depressant Wellbutrin. Yet, Marinol isn’t listed. Hmm. Well, we can conclude that using both of these sites is going to give us a better chance of identifying that mysterious pill.

The RxList search results don’t show pictures for each pill either. That could make narrowing it down a little more difficult as well. In order to see a picture of the drug, you have to click on it’s name, then when the drug information page comes up, you need to click on another link to see the images – if there are any.

Overall, it’s still a very good resource.

PDRHealth

The real-world book, the Physicians Desk Reference (PDR), is now online. Unfortunately, the service costs a fair bit of money to access. Fortunately, it is free to access for medical professionals and students within the United States of America.

The PDR is the defacto standard for helping doctor’s and nurses find out all they need to know about almost any drug in existence. Yes, it uses a lot of medical jargon, so it may take a while to understand if you are not so inclined. Nonetheless, if you can break the code of medicalese, there is so much to be learned from this online tome.

However, Thomson Publishing has put together a bit of a layman’s site for those that want to find out more about what they are putting in their gullets everday. It isn’t quite as extensive as RxLink or Drugs.com, but, like all good research, it is another resource to help you confirm or deny what you are learning.

It is kind of nice that they breakdown medicines into three categories though: prescription, over-the-counter, and herbal medicines. Herbals aren’t specifically identified on the previous two sites.

PDRHealth does go beyond just medicines and looks at surgery and clinical trials as well. All are apart of a well-managed health care plan, in my opinion.

Hopefully, this breakdown will help you to be more involved in managing your health care and starting conversations about drugs, both good and bad, with your family. After all, it’s just like that six-inch philosopher GIJoe said, “Knowing is half the battle!”

What medical websites do you look at? Here’s ones that Jackson recommends.

3 Wikis To Study Smarter Online

Tina Sieber — Sat, 30 May 2009 13:00:34 +0000

Wiki is the Hawaiian word for quick. Being quick in every aspect – in using it and editing it – is a key factor in the success of Wikis.

Another factor is the hunger of people for information, knowledge and understanding. The faster, the better.

If you have ever been caught up in reading Wikipedia for hours on end, you’ll know what I mean. One page leads to the next, it never ends. For students, wikis can be an incrediby useful and compared to textbooks, they are a quick source of support and information.

Here is a list of three Wikis that may help boost your online studying:

DiRT – Digital Research Tools Wiki

DiRT contains a comprehensive collection of tools and resources that can be used by students or scholars in their research.

The focus is on humanities and social sciences. However, containing articles on brainstorming, how to communicate with colleagues, how to prepare screencasts or network with other researchers, this wiki covers tools and guidelines that may prove useful not only for researchers, but also for people with other career backgrounds and especially for students who are still exploring fields. Check it out and let us know what you think.

I’ve also written about other tools you can use for research besides wikis.

Medpedia

As the name suggests, Medpedia is a recently-launched wiki concerned with medical topics. The goal is to share “the advancing knowledge about health, medicine and the body among medical professionals and the general public.”

At this point, it contains hundreds of articles covering all types of human diseases and related medical background information. Nevertheless, the site states that you are not likely to find an article on the topic you are looking for. However, I did find everything I was looking for.

For med students, this Wiki can serve as a quick and easy way to research diseases and symptoms. Physicians and other experts are welcome to contribute to the site by editing pages or adding articles. Everyone else may suggest changes. All contributions will receive proper recognition.

If you’re a medical student and you are searching for the best websites to for medical information, check out Jackson’s article: The Best Reference Sites For Medical Students.

Textbook Revolution

Here we have a resource specifically for students or those who wish to learn new tricks.

Textbook Revolution features free educational materials on a wide variety of topics such as biology, earth sciences or world history.

The site is run by students and was founded in response to overpriced textbooks whose publishers only have profits in mind, rather than educational value.

If you know of high quality free textbooks, make an account with Textbook Revolution and share the resource. If you have used any of the listed books, provide your feedback and review them.

Aside from wikis, I’ve also listed 10 Tools For Online Learning in a previous article, check it out. Looking for a textbook? Check out TextBook Torrents: Torrent Directory for Text Books.

As a student, what is your favorite Wiki and how did you discover it? Share them with us!

Picture credits: xlucas