We’ve all seen patients who were far beyond the reach of medical treatment suddenly defy the odds and recover. We’ve also seen patients who were well on the road to recovery, take a turn for the worse for seemingly no reason at all. No matter what the technology or how terrific we are at our jobs, sometimes medicine just isn’t enough.

Case in point, a few years ago, my Grandma, in her mid-sixties at the time, had a moderate CVA. No matter what her doctors did for her, she wasn’t regaining consciousness, defying explanation. My mom and I were living and working in Los Angeles and Grandma was two thousand miles away in Chicago. When the doctor called to tell us about the stroke, he not only said that Grandma might not live through the night, but that she might not last the few hours it would take us to fly to her side. Mom and I both felt very strongly that we had to talk to her for what might be the last time, before we got on the plane. Hearing our voices and knowing that someone was with her, had always made a huge difference in any difficulty she faced. So Mom got the head nurse on the phone and asked if she could get a phone to Grandma. Asking quickly turned to pleading - we needed to tell Grandma to hold on and that we were coming. The nurse basically dismissed the notion - what possible good could THAT do It took a while, but Mom finally convinced the nurse to put a phone up to Grandma’s ear. We were able to tell her how much we loved her, that she was going to be fine and that we were on our way. By the time the nurse came back on the phone, she was speechless. Evidently the moment Grandma heard our voices her eyelids began to flutter. Her vitals stabilized, her eyes opened for the first time since she’d been in the hospital and she looked straight up at the nurse and then around the room looking for us. Two weeks later, she was out of the hospital and on her way to rehab.

That’s the miracle of communication.

Whether it’s a family member, a friend or just a familiar face, patients need to have the people they love surrounding them, when they’re ill, in pain, or afraid. As caregivers, it’s part of the job to realize that patients might be too ill or physically unable to initiate the contact they so desperately need, on their own.

I wish that were the end of the story. A few years later, Grandma who had recovered fully, badly injured her leg and her jaw after falling in the bathroom at home. She was unable to speak but was in stable condition, when admitted to a different hospital. She was supposed to have gone on vacation so we hadn’t expected to hear from her and had no idea she was in the hospital. A few days later she began spiraling into critical condition. By the time the hospital called us, she was in the ICU, unconscious and critical. While I was on one phone trying to get a flight, my mom was on the other phone with the doctor who happened to be standing right outside Grandma’s room. She begged him and then the nursing staff, to get a phone into her, so she could talk to her, for what looked like it would be the last time.

But at this hospital, the doctor and the nurses refused. While the doctor was on the phone with mom, Grandma, who had been unconscious just a few minutes before, unexpectedly opened her eyes and began to look around. The doctor told Mom what happened and took this as a sign that she her condition was turning around. Even so, Mom still pleaded with him to get a phone to Grandma. He told her there was no way to get a phone to an ICU patient. “We’ll try and figure something out in the morning,” he said, hanging up the phone. But Grandma didn’t have until morning. She died just a few hours later, before we could get to her and we lost our chance to tell her we loved her - our chance to say goodbye.

Looking back on that time reminds me of that scripture, “without a vision, the people perish”. Some people, even while facing serious illness or death are so self-motivated that just the possibility of dying makes them muster every ounce of strength they have, to fight it. But most people aren’t that way. Most people need to use the strength of others - the people they love - to provide the strength they cannot find.

Patients need connection. They need vision - the vision to “see” themselves getting through the darkness and fear that they’re facing. They need help “seeing” the next day or the next week. Seeing themselves strong and well again. And without that strength and that support they so desperately need from the people they love, there is no vision. And without that vision, they perish.

Simply put, at that moment, Grandma needed us. She needed to hear our voices that night and the very people who were there to be her advocates and to help her make that connection happen, didn’t do it. And that night, Grandma perished, without knowing that we were right there at the other end of that phone and on our way to be with her.

The good news is, the same thing that happened to us, doesn’t have to happen at your facility. With just a few simple steps designed to help communication-impaired patients, you can not only make a huge difference in their lives, you might even save them.

With just a few simple steps designed to help communication-impaired patients, you can make a huge difference in their lives.

Assessing Your Patient’s Ability To Communicate

The next time you’re caring for a patient with compromised communication ability, take a moment to see your patient’s surroundings from her perspective. If your patient’s family and friends are not at the hospital with her or can’t come often, are there tools you can provide your patient that will facilitate communication with the outside world

Mobility Limitations

If your patient can speak, is the telephone close enough to her for her to use

Does she need help dialing Is she able to see well enough to read a number off a piece of paper or out of her address book

If your patient is unable to hold a telephone, would she benefit from a speakerphone or a cell phone

Hearing/Speech Limitations

If your patient can’t speak, ask her to indicate if she would like to have someone called for her, and task a patient representative or volunteer to hold the phone up to her ear and facilitate their communication.

If your patient is deaf, make sure that your facility has TTY telephones to connect with family members. If your patient is blind, make sure that she has Braille writers or other devices to help her communicate.

Take a moment to call the department in your facility that deals with hearing or vision-impaired patients. They may have more tools or ideas that can bridge difficulties and enhance communication.

Another idea for patients who can’t speak, is patient Internet access. If your hospital has it available, it can be a real lifesaver, allowing a patient to type an email, a text message or to supervise while a message is typed for them. If your facility doesn’t have Internet access for patients, either you or another team member can use a smart phone or cell phone to send an email or text a message for them, facilitating emergency communication with a loved one.

For patients who have a temporary physically impairment, like a broken jaw, encourage them to use patient Internet access or their cell or smart phones (if allowed) to email, text and keep in touch with family or children who might not be able to visit in person.

If you work with seriously ill pediatric or adult patients who need to communicate updates about their patient to a whole team of family and friends, there is a terrific service called Care Pages. It was created by a family with a seriously ill child and no time to constantly email everyone who wanted to know how the child was doing.

Critical Care/End of Life

Since many hospitals still don’t have a means of patient communication in the ICU, you may have to get a bit more creative for patients in critical care units.

There are now low emission wireless phones, like those manufactured by Spectralink, which can be used safely in critical care units. Wireless web pads also work well, or if those aren’t available, you can always order an extension phone, like those used in regular patient rooms and keep it at the nurses’ station. When it’s needed, it can be plugged into a phone jack in a patient’s room.

And don’t forget that technology is making huge strides in facilitating patient communication. As unusual as it sounds, surgeons are now using Twitter to keep families apprised of patient’s progress during surgery, while families who are apart during emergencies, are using Facebook and MySpace to keep each other up to date. You can use that same technology to help a critically ill or dying patient communicate with family members who might not make it to the hospital in time to be with them.

How With your smart phone!

Most smart phones have the ability to record video, audio and take photos, all of which can be sent or received via email right from the phone. Let’s say you have a patient who might not make it through the night. His family is about to board a plane, but won’t arrive for three or four hours. Even if you aren’t allowed to turn your personal cell phone on to receive calls in the ICU, the family can record a video or audio message on their own phone and email it to you, so you can play it for the patient - something you can do without the phone actually being on. Or they can email you a photo of themselves to show to the patient or an email that your patient can read for himself.

You can do the same thing at your end. Let’s say that your patient is alert and oriented now, but you both realize that he might not live. By using your smart or cell phone with video or audio recording capability, he can record a final message to a loved one, that can later be emailed to the family. I don’t think I have to tell anyone, how much that bit of video can mean to a family.

Or let’s say that your patient is a John Doe or that she was a part of a mass casualty and even though you’re relatively positive you have the right name with the right person, the family member is still in transit. You can snap a quick photo and email it to the family, hastening the identification.

Communication isn’t just a patient’s right - for many it can be their only link to the outside world, or a life-renewing source of strength and love. Combine that with outstanding medical care and watch the miracles flow.

Heads-up Doctors, nurses, chiropractors and all other professionals in health care, because the word on the street is that Nutritional Cleansing has proven itself as an excellent practice that helps the body to get rid of toxins and impurities buried with the tissues, organs and body fat!

Special Note: This Is Not a colon cleanse or an organ specific cleanse. This is a full body nutritional cleanse that cleanses at the cellular level.

In 2008 a study was done to test a small sampling of 10 individuals for a variety of 400 known, chemicals, toxins, and pollutants. The blood analysis revealed that there was roughly 250 of the 400 substances were found in there bodies. Now get this; some of the substances identified in the blood had been on the EPA banned toxic chemicals list for 30 years! Whoa!

To many professionals in health care this is no surprise. However, whether you knew it or not, you would have to agree that having such a constant influx of these toxic agents and chemicals is not good for the health of the body!

The science of free radicals and trigger mechanisms for their activation is being highly research and more evidence is beginning to show a link between repeated exposure to certain toxic substances and a rise in free radical activity.

If you are reading this, most likely, you are one of those professionals in health care who realize that we can not have this crap in our bodies at elevated levels and rising daily and not expect some results of negative consequence to the human body.

The nutritional cleanse is a modern-day advanced, scientifically designed and revolutionary practice that can help the body to draw out the toxins buried deep within the body’s tissues.

Truth Be Told: There is a way to help possibly help more people come into superior health by having them add cleansing as a part of regular health maintenance.

A major side benefit of the nutritional cleanse is dramatic and highly visible weight loss!

The pounds of extra body fat literally melt off! It seems that the reason for this is based upon the fact that as toxins are dumped into the body, they become encapsulated by the fat as defense mechanism. Once the toxins and impurities have been reduced significantly there is no reason for the body to continue to hang on the excess body fat.

A superior nutritional cleanse is composed of powerful, nutrition dense natural compounds complied minerals, herbs, and botanicals feed the body nutrition on an unprecedented level. The net effect of regular nutritional cleansing causes the body to eliminate harmful toxins, chemicals and impurities.

You and I as professionals in health care, we are on the front lines: I am sharing this information with you, because you are on the front lines in the battle of health and disease. You see what is going on, and I know for fact that you will make a difference if you take hold of the information shared here!

Whether it is you, me or your clients since we all eat food, drink fluids, and breathe air we are steadily taking in toxins and impurities!

As professionals in health care we can make a difference! People want better health and want a better quality of life. I believe, and science is showing that if you can get the junk impurities out of the body it has a very high probability of performing better. That is now possible with nutritional cleansing.

Many people who suffer from anxiety disorder suffer more when trying to find an anxiety attacks treatment. The market is full of techniques and methods that the anxiety sufferer my get an episode just by looking at all these options that all claim to have the solution.

One word of assurance we would like to give is that the challenge does not lie with all the options available or with the fraud that is filling up this area. The challenge is within our own understanding of our anxiety case.

Why do we say it is a word of assurance? Because when the answer is within our hands and our control is much easier to find and solve, but if it lies somewhere out of our reach and control then it will be very hard to get.

As we said our understanding of our anxiety disorder forms the basis of solving the confusion. The first thing that we need to know if actually suffer from anxiety, or is it to the best of our knowledge we suffer from anxiety.

The real question is how did we arrive to the conclusion that we suffer from anxiety disorder? Was it the symptoms? If it was the symptoms we need to know this: most if not all anxiety physical symptoms are shared with other medical conditions.

Maybe we talked about what we experience to friends and family. A couple of those have friends who went through the same experience. They told us about the things those people did to overcome their anxiety disorder. We think we should do the same since what my friends’ friends went through seems similar to what we are going through.

I guess you get the picture. The first thing that we need to do when we experience out of the normal symptoms is to seek professional medical help. Only a doctor should give you a diagnosis. You are not an expert, your family members are not experts, your friends nor are their friends experts. The doctor is the only expert who is entitled to give you a diagnosis.

Once you are sure that your diagnosis shows an anxiety disorder, then you would need to know what type of anxiety disorder it is. You will need to understand the reasons and probable causes lying behind your anxiety case. Now you are ready to find an anxiety attacks treatment.

Now your search is concentrated, you know what you are looking for and you understand you understand the details of your anxiety case. Still you will find different methods and techniques. To be able to overcome this kind of diversity, you will need to understand what you are capable of and what kind of discipline you can handle.

Regardless of the effectiveness of the program, if you cannot stick to what the program requires then the program will do what it is supposed to do, and you will not get the results you expect.

When you find something that you think could work for you, what you need to do is to conduct a constructive research to understand the credibility and effectiveness of the program. Then you need to understand if you are capable of following what the program requires.