Understanding changes in cardiovascular pathophysiology

Cardiovascular pathophysiological changes, such as hypertension and enlarged ventricles, reflect the altered functions of the heart and its circulation during ill-health. This article examines the normal and altered anatomy of the cardiac valves, the contractile elements and enzymes of the myocardium, the significance of the different factors associated with cardiac output, and the role of the autonomic nervous system in the heart beat. It also explores how certain diseases alter these functions and result in cardiac symptoms. Nurses can benefit from knowledge of these specific changes, for example, by being able to ask relevant questions in order to ascertain the nature of a patients condition, by being able to take an effective patient history and by being able to read diagnostic results, such as electrocardiograms and cardiac enzyme results. All this will help nurses to promote sound cardiac care based on a physiological rationale.

Foundations for paramedic practice: a theoretical perspective

Written by leading paramedics and academic subject experts, with a foreword by Paul Bates, this is the first foundation level text to introduce the main theoretical subjects studied on the new higher education paramedic science programmes. It underpins practice and links ways of working to the crucial theory base. The numerous examples and case studies focus specifically on pre-hospital and emergency care. Key topics covered include: * NHS and ambulance service history * Ethics and law for the paramedic * Communication and reflective practice * Professional issues, including evidence-based practice, anti-discriminatory practice, clinical governance and clinical audit * Psychological perspectives on health and ill health * Safeguarding children * Sociological perspectives on health and ill health and social policy * Managing change and leadership theory * Continuing professional development The text prompts you to stop and think about what you have just read and relate this to your role. Throughout the book, the author carefully considers how the theory being discussed relates to the role of the ambulance clinician. Foundations for Paramedic Practice: A Theoretical Perspective is a core text for students of paramedic science and will also provide a valuable resource for students of allied health professions. This text provides a stepping stone to further reading and investigation. - Taken from the back cover of: Amanda Blaber - Foundations for paramedic practice: a theoretical perspective

Critical care in childbearing for midwives

Many women who have higher–risk pregnancies, complications or medical conditions require specialist obstetric or multidisciplinary care. Increasingly women, whose condition deteriorates and becomes critical during childbirth, are being cared for by midwives in obstetric high dependency units within the labour ward, rather than being cared for by nurses in ITU. Critical Care in Childbearing for Midwives explores all aspects of management, support and care of childbearing women who become critically ill due to pre–existing conditions or who develop critical illness as a result of complications of childbearing. It examines predisposing factors which result in the need for critical care, addresses specialist monitoring technology and skills, and explores autonomous practice and team approaches to providing care for critically ill women in childbearing.

The Olympic Games and urban displacement: the case of Beijing

Urban spectacles such as the Olympic Games have been long perceived as being able to impose desired effects in the city that act as host. This kind of urban boost may include the creation of new jobs and revenue for local community, growth in tourism and convention business, improvements to city infrastructure and environment, and the stimulation of broad reform in the social, political and institutional realm. Nevertheless at the other end of the debate, the potentially detrimental impacts of Olympic urban development, particularly on disadvantaged and vulnerable groups, have also been increasingly noticed in recent years and subsequently cited by a number of high profile anti-Olympic groups to campaign against Olympic bids and awards. The common areas of concern over Olympic-related projects include the cost and debts risk, environmental threat, the occurrence of social imbalance, and disruption and disturbance of existing community life. Among these issues, displacement of low income households and squatter communities resulting from Olympic-inspired urban renewal are comparatively under-explored and have emerged as an imperative area for research inquiry. This is particularly the case where many other problems have become less prominent. Changing a city’s demographic landscape, particularly displacing lower income people from the area proposed for a profitable development is a highly contentious matter in its own right. Some see it as a natural and inevitable outgrowth of the process of urban evolution, without which cities cannot move towards a more attractive location for consumption-based business. Others believe it reflects urban crises and conflicts, highlighting the market failures, polarization and injustice. Regardless of perception,these phenomena are visible everywhere in post-industrial cities and particularly cannot be ignored when planning for the Olympic Games and other mega-events. The aim of this paper is to start the process of placing the displacement issue in the context of Olympic preparation and to seek a better understanding of their interrelations. In order to develop a better understanding of this issue in terms of cause, process, influential factors and its implication on planning policy, this paper studies the topic from both theoretic and empirical angles. It portrays various situations where the Olympics may trigger or facilitate displacement in host cities during the preparation of the Games, identifies several major variables that may affect the process and the overall outcome, and explores what could be learnt in generic terms for planning Olympic oriented infrastructure so that ill-effects to the local community can be effectively controlled. The paper concludes that the selection of development sites, the integration of Olympic facilities with the city’s fabric, the diversity of housing type produced for local residents and the dynamics of the new socioeconomic structure.