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Diet Tips For Healthy Skin

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Unlike other elements of our bodies – a big belly, flabby arms etc., skin is one feature of our appearance that is impossible to hide. But by following a few simple diet tips for healthy skin, you can proudly and confidently show off your glow with the best of them.

See Results with Vitamin C
This nutrient provides an excellent, natural source of healing that helps keep skin looking clear and bright. A great diet tip for healthy skin is to eat foods rich in Vitamin C like strawberries, tomatoes and or citrus every day.
  Vitamin E for acne and More
Vitamin E is an antioxidant that protects our cells from the distress of free radicals. It is a natural healing and smoothing agent that is widely-used in the treatment of skin disorders – acne in particular. A diet tip for healthy skin is to include Vitamin E-rich foods such as avocados, carrots, chickpeas, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, soy-based products and cheese – especially parmesan and cheddar.

Vitamin A to the Rescue
If your skin tends to be more oily than normal, a great diet tip for healthy skin would be to ensure you’re getting the right amount of vitamin A into your diet. It helps to maintain and repair our membranes and tissues, as well as minimizing the production of sebum which is the oily substance that secretes into our skin from the hair follicles. Foods with a high content of Vitamin A include eggs, apricots, cantaloupe and spinach.

‘B’ on Your Way to Beautiful Skin
Vitamin B is another fantastic nutrient essential for the road to healthy skin. It helps to retain moisture, assists in the prevention of skin cancer and has anti-aging abilities that can reduce fine lines. Another diet tip for healthy skin is to eat plenty of Vitamin B-rich foods such as seafood, poultry, beans and peas.

Carbs are Cool!
Forget about all the hype around reducing the amount of carbohydrates in your diet. Yes, too much of good thing can be bad in any situation, but our bodies – including our skin – need carbs to stay healthy. Keep this excellent diet tip for healthy skin in mind: A lack of carbohydrates in your body will result in a decreased amount of antioxidants which play a huge role in fighting the negative effects of free radicals. A diet that includes whole-grain carbohydrates such as wheat bread, pasta and rice will help to prevent the pre-mature aging that occurs when there is a lack of this nutrient in your system.

Water, Water Everywhere
One of best diet tips for healthy skin is to drink at least 8 ounces of water 6-8 times a day. It will keep your body as well as your skin hydrated and also rejuvenate your cells while helping to flush out toxins.

Sweet Dreams
Make sure you get enough rest because while you sleep, your cells regenerate. It’s another important diet tip for healthy skin as it prevents early aging while reducing puffiness and dark circles around your eyes.

Nine Recommendations to Increase Continuity of Mental Health Care ForSchizophrenia Patients

Sunday, August 2, 2015

Continuity of therapy is a vital component of quality care for people with serious mental illnesses and must be given more attention by consumers themselves, family members, advocates, providers, administrators, and researchers alike. At the moment, there is an important opportunity to develop a national consensus statement on the principles and practice standards that should form the basis of a continuum of therapy designed to provide realistic assurance that consumers can access vital medications when and where they are needed. Important strides have been made in identifying the specific factors which promote continuity of therapy - it is time to seize this important opportunity as yet another stepping stone to achieving the transformation of America's mental health care system for the benefit of consumers and their families, our communities, and our Nation. A roundtable of mental health experts has developed a set of nine recommendations for enhancing continuity of medication therapy for persons with schizophrenia or serious mental illness, including schizophrenia. They are as follows:
Mental Healthcare Recommendation #1 -
Encourage collaborations between hospitals and community-based organizations. Use fiscal incentives to foster collaborations including the standardization of information and shared electronic health records.
Mental Healthcare Recommendation #2 -
Use a quality improvement approach to enhance continuity of therapy by benchmarking at the organizational level performance and outcomes standards regarding continuity of care.
Mental Healthcare Recommendation #3 -
Ensure all consumers have a level of care management for the transition from inpatient to community. Care management services should be reimbursable by all payers and the disincentives to providing it should be removed.
Mental Healthcare Recommendation #4 -
Hospitals and community providers should focus on the "Pull Model" of transition from inpatient to outpatient care. The Pull Model focuses on involving community-based providers in the transition planning process from the beginning. Provider organizations should focus on staff competency in engagement and strategies and motivational interviewing.
Mental Healthcare Recommendation #5 -
Accreditation standards should be aligned to address and improve continuity of therapy in treating serious mental illness. This may include developing standards to ensure evidence of an active process of care management and transition between levels of care, a quality review of the success of transition plans, and measuring engagement.
Mental Healthcare Recommendation #6 -
Consumers and their families should be educated about the benefits of maintaining their personal health care history. Ensuring that consumers have detailed information about their illnesses and treatment history will help ensure that providers have access to the information they need to provide appropriate care in a timely manner. The options here range from simple paper and pencil logs and medication histories to electronic records on memory sticks.
Mental Healthcare Recommendation #7 -
Consumer-driven recovery planning should include and the appropriate and necessary use of hospitalization. More thoughtful use of inpatient services could lead to a reduction in emergency room use and ultimately to a decrease in the number of hospitalizations.
Mental Healthcare Recommendation #8 -
Parties who collect data about mental health services and performance should share it with appropriate stakeholders in usable and timely ways. Many payers and public entities collect both population and individual specific information about mental health consumers and services. Population-based data should be shared with all stakeholders, including families and consumers to aid in enhancing the system of care.
Mental Healthcare Recommendation #9 -
There should be meaningful involvement of consumers and their advocates in all levels of system delivery and evaluation. Global involvement of consumers and their advocates in the care delivery process is essential. Examples include using peer specialists as part of a treatment team, active involvement in policy and planning, as well as involvement in developing and implementing performance measurement and evaluation.
Applying these Mental Healthcare Recommendations -
While we have learned that maintaining continuity of therapy has a positive impact on consumer outcomes, the barriers and other impediments to ensuring this continuum of care have been long entrenched in mental health and related care systems. An unacceptably high number of people with serious psychiatric issues - including schizophrenia, depression and bipolar disorder - are "falling between the cracks" in the transition between acute inpatient settings and the community causing harm and disruption in their own lives and those of their families and often bringing their recovery process to a halt.
A continuity of therapy initiative is likely to decrease inappropriate use of emergency room services by consumers with schizophrenia or other serious mental illnesses by assuring consistency in the disease management approach used by all community provider organizations. Both of these likely outcomes of continuity of therapy provide cost reductions for the hospital and cost offset for the investments in continuity of therapy initiative and related therapies.
In addition, the continuity of therapy initiative provides the community hospital with another very tangible benefit. The continuity of therapy initiative provides the relationships, process, and infrastructure for an overall discharge planning functionality for all consumers with mental illnesses. This discharge planning functionality is a new, and critical, element in modern behavioral health standards that began in 2007.

WHAT MAKES AN IDEAL KITCHEN

Saturday, November 1, 2014

It is a mistake to suppose that any room, however small and unpleasantly situated, is "good enough" for a kitchen. This is the room where housekeepers pass a great portion of their time, and it should be one of the brightest and most convenient rooms in the house; for upon the results of no other department depend so greatly the health and comfort of the family as upon those involved in this 'household workshop'.



Every kitchen should have windows on two sides of the room, and the sun should have free entrance through them; the windows should open from the top to allow a complete change of air, for light and fresh air are among the chief essentials to success in all departments of the household. Good drainage should also be provided, and the ventilation of the kitchen ought to be even more carefully attended to than that of a sleeping room. The ventilation of the kitchen should be so ample as to thoroughly remove all gases and odors, which, together with steam from boiling and other cooking processes, generally invade and render to some degree unhealthful every other portion of the house.

There should be ample space for tables, chairs, range, sink, and cupboards, yet the room should not be so large as to necessitate too many steps. Undoubtedly much of the distaste for, and neglect of, "housework," so often deplored, arises from unpleasant surroundings. If the kitchen be light, airy, and tidy, and the utensils bright and clean, the work of compounding those articles of food which grace the table and satisfy the appetite will be a pleasant task.

It is desirable, from a sanitary standpoint, that the kitchen floor be made impervious to moisture; hence, concrete or tile floors are better than wooden floors. Cleanliness is the great desideratum, and this can be best attained by having all woodwork in and about the kitchen coated with polish; substances which cause stain and grease spots, do not penetrate the wood when polished, and can be easily removed with a damp cloth.

The elements of beauty should not be lacking in the kitchen. Pictures and fancy articles are inappropriate; but a few pots of easily cultivated flowers on the window ledge or arranged upon brackets about the window in winter, and a window box arranged as a jardiniere, with vines and blooming plants in summer, will greatly brighten the room, and thus serve to lighten the task of those whose daily labor confines them to the precincts of the kitchen.

The kitchen furniture.
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The furniture for a kitchen should not be cumbersome, and should be so made and dressed as to be easily cleaned. There should be plenty of cupboards, and each for the sake of order, should be devoted to a special purpose. Cupboards with sliding doors are much superior to closets. They should be placed upon casters so as to be easily moved, as they, are thus not only more convenient, but admit of more thorough cleanliness.

Cupboards used for the storage of food should be well ventilated; otherwise, they furnish choice conditions for the development of mold and germs. Movable cupboards may be ventilated by means of openings in the top, and doors covered with very fine wire gauze which will admit the air but keep out flies and dust.

For ordinary kitchen uses, small tables of suitable height on easy-rolling casters, and with zinc tops, are the most convenient and most easily kept clean. It is quite as well that they be made without drawers, which are too apt to become receptacles for a heterogeneous mass of rubbish. If desirable to have some handy place for keeping articles which are frequently required for use, an arrangement similar to that represented in the accompanying cut may be made at very small expense. It may be also an advantage to arrange small shelves about and above the range, on which may be kept various articles necessary for cooking purposes.

One of the most indispensable articles of furnishing for a well-appointed kitchen, is a sink; however, a sink must be properly constructed and well cared for, or it is likely to become a source of great danger to the health of the inmates of the household.  The sink should if possible stand out from the wall, so as to allow free access to all sides of it for the sake of cleanliness. The pipes and fixtures should be selected and placed by a competent plumber.

Great pains should be taken to keep the pipes clean and well disinfected. Refuse of all kinds should be kept out. Thoughtless housekeepers and careless domestics often allow greasy water and bits of table waste to find their way into the pipes. Drain pipes usually have a bend, or trap, through which water containing no sediment flows freely; but the melted grease which often passes into the pipes mixed with hot water, becomes cooled and solid as it descends, adhering to the pipes, and gradually accumulating until the drain is blocked, or the water passes through very slowly. A grease-lined pipe is a hotbed for disease germs.

 

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