Category: Health

Mary Jane to the Rescue?

mj

http://www.ncsl.org/research/health/state-medical-marijuana-laws.aspx

One of the biggest debates in medicine and politics right now, is the legalisation of Medical Marijuana. If you live in Utah, as I do, you definitely saw this issue on your ballot during the midterm elections. If you live anywhere else, you’ve either already seen it, or you will soon. Here are some things you need to know…

First, this is not intended to be a debate on the legalisation of recreational Marijauna, this is a medical blog and that has no place here.

Second, Medical Marijuana will not get you high (Unless you actively try to find a compound or strain that will).

Okay, so with those two pieces of information out of the way, let’s look at the facts.

Most importantly, Medical Marijuana has proven effective in the treatment of many very serious medical issues. These include; Multiple Sclerosis, Spinal Cord Injury, HIV, Arthritis, Epilepsy, Insomnia, and even Cancer.

For many of the patients prescribed Medical Marijuana, there is no high that comes from the drug, and the effects help them live with a much higher quality of life. For example, epileptics using the prescription can live a completely normal lifestyle with its help.

Why then, are so many against Medical Marijuana legalisation?

The easy and oversimplified answer is, that many just misunderstand the situation and facts, thinking that people will fake problems in order to find an easy high. This, from what was discussed above, is obviously not true.

The more realistic answer, the reason the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and many of its members objected its legalisation on this ballot, is far more complex.

It’s all in the way the bill was presented. The state of Utah had planned out a good system for the legalisation in the state. The only problem? The Federal Government.

What those on both sides of the political aisle often don’t understand is that states may legalise Cannabis for medical reasons, but it will still be a Federal Offence for the population that are involved.

This means your uncle with Epilepsy will be in a much better place medically, and won’t have issues from state authorities. However, if federal authorities hear about him, or the producer of the substance and then decided to act, anyone involved could be subject to time in Federal Prison, which is much worse than State Prison.

Until Medical Marijuana is legalised federally, the risks on use, even if a state has legalised it, may be too much.

Where do you stand on the Medical Marijuana debate? Should it be legalised? Is more research needed?

 

 

Man vs. Machine

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/opinion/letters/robots-health-care.html

There’s no question that scientific advancement has drastically improved human life, especially in medicine. In 1900, a person could expect to live to around 47, with some variation based on race and sex. Today, we can expect to live to see age 80 or more based on the same criteria.

This is an absolutely incredible improvement we have seen over the last 118 years in the United States, and scientific/technological advancement is much of the reason we have seen our live’s extended by those 30+ years.

Many people today feel that the next step in improving our health care is adding robots into some care regiments.

The addition of machinery in health care has objectively improved my life and standard of living. I survive with Type One Diabetes because I have an Animas Insulin Pump to deliver my medication into my body and a Dexcom G6 Continuous Glucose Monitor to tell me the level of glucose in my blood stream.

The difference between the machinery I use, and that which is under debate now, is that the robots in question will imitate human interactions for those they are provided for, but will not provided actual medication.

For some Dementia patients, an expensive robot with some lifelike qualities has been “prescribed” to imitate human interaction to improve the lives of this group of people who are in many cases, extremely lonely. This has had very positive results on the live’s of many of the patients involved. Researches involved say that although only Dementia patients would imagine these robots to be “real”, young people should not be dismissive of this idea, “Instead, they might consider how very real Siri seems to them.”

The questions then, are, should we allow robots to replace human interactions in medical care? Will imitation of our interactions, minus the emotions of love and care, have negative effects on patients?

My thoughts are that human interactions can never truly be imitated, and no matter how helpful these robots are, they will never be able to provide the benefits that would would receive through the care of a family member or close friend.

What do you think? Could allowing robots to assist in our health care allow us to achieve a better quality of life in some cases? Should synthetic interactions be allowed in any case? Let me know what you think.