Student Puts Heart Into Baseball

April 30, 2012 marcostvc Blog

One of the topics that TVC’s Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) Homework Kit covers is exercise. It used to be that if you had Congestive Heart Failure you were told to rest, but that is not the case today. However, before starting any exercises, patients should discuss their plans with their doctor. With Congestive Heart Failure it is important to stay active, remain independent, and manage self-care activities.

One Congestive Heart Failure patient is Dylan Poulin. No one can question that Dylan Poulin plays the game of baseball with a lot of heart. But if they only knew what Poulin’s heart actually looked like, they’d even have a greater appreciation for how hard he plays the game. The 5-foot-11, 175-pound Poulin, a senior star at Oakmont Regional High School, is known as a battler on the diamond, but his real-life battle is much greater than trying to square up and hit a mid-80s fastball. Poulin, 18, was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy the day after his 13th birthday and has watched his health deteriorate over the past five years.

“(The condition) started at moderate and it’s kind of gradually gotten worse and worse until now where it’s severe,” said Poulin. “Nothing I can do about it but live day-to-day.

“The numbers have shown it and I went into congestive heart failure about a month and a half, two months ago. I had fluid in my lungs and my heart, and that’s when I knew it was starting to get bad.”

After patients such as Poulin are discharged, they can be given a Congestive Heart Failure Homework Kit from TVC’s Cardiovascular Connections line of products. Homework Kits come with videos and full color brochures that help extend the “critical path” into the home. They answer questions about home safety, medication, nutrition, wound care and rehabilitation. These Feature Product videos provide an interactive source of information that actually assists patients in the rehabilitation process. The products can be customized with your logo, a picture of your facility and the brochures are printed on 100 lb glossy enamel stock.

For more information, contact us!

Congestive Heart Failure Homework Kit

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Physical Therapy and Aquatics for Spinal Stenosis

April 6, 2012 marcostvc Blog

A new AquaHab Physical Therapy case study demonstrates the advantages of aquatic and physical therapy for low back pain related to lumbar spinal stenosis, according to patient results recorded by the Greater Philadelphia physical therapy practice. These findings validate an earlier clinical study published in Spine, which reported that physical therapy treatments can be effective in the recovery of patients suffering from lumbar spinal stenosis.

SpineVentures®, a comprehensive spine care program developed by TVC®, features a line of brochures on spine-related topics. One of the topics is spinal stenosis. In the brochure, it discusses the benefits of physical therapy and aquatics as part of the treatment process.

The clinical study published in Spine examined patients with lumbar spinal stenosis, who participated in one of two types of physical therapy treatment programs: flexion exercise and walking, or manual physical therapy, exercise and walking. Both groups reported significant perceived recovery after six weeks.

In the case study, the clinic tracked the progress of a 70-year-old female patient diagnosed with multi-level central and foraminal stenosis with left radiculopathy. She reported a pain level of 8 out of 10 when getting up in the morning and her physical therapist recorded a back index – the degree to which the condition affects everyday life – of 54/100. In addition to the pain, the patient presented with functional limitations, including difficulty walking up and down stairs, as well as range of motion deficits and strength deficits. Her goal was to be able to return to her aquatic exercise classes.

The patient received aquatic and physical therapy treatment during 22 visits over a 10-week timeframe. While her treatment initially started with aquatic physical therapy only, her therapist was able to quickly transition her to land-based skilled intervention after six treatment sessions. At her last visit, the patient reported that her pain varied from 1 out of 10 to 8 out of 10, but that it was no longer consistently at an 8. In addition, her post-treatment back index was recorded at 26/100. Her therapist reports that she demonstrated good progress throughout the course of her physical therapy treatment and was able to return to her aquatic exercise class following her discharge from care.

This case study shows that physical therapy and aquatics play an important part of a treatment program for spinal stenosis. TVC’s spinal stenosis brochure reinforces this treatment method. It also explains what spinal stenosis is, has educational illustrations and discusses epidural injections. Each brochure is customized with your logo, a picture of your facility and contact information. Most of TVC’s brochures are produced as a tri-fold, full color and 100 lb glossy enamel stock.

Contact us for more information!

Spinal Stenosis Brochures

Spinal Stenosis Brochures

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Knee Replacement Gives a Leg Up on Activity

March 14, 2012 marcostvc Blog

A twisted knee caused Gini Sarno, a 54 year-old property manager, to undergo a partial knee replacement. It didn’t slow her down for long.

“With the partial knee replacement, I went back to country line dancing three and a half months later,” said Sarno, a Tampa Bay resident who began dancing 8 years ago. “There are limitations to the dancing. I can’t stomp anymore, and I only go dancing once a week instead of four times. But the knee doesn’t hurt—it feels great!”

Like Sarno, other line dancers have joint replacements as well. One of her close friends has had both hips replaced and is going to need both knees replaced soon. The exciting trend is the increase in how many people are staying athletically active after joint replacements.

Today Americans undergo more than 1 million of these knee and hip replacements each year, and growing numbers are performed on people in their 50s and 60s such as Sarno. For example, almost 5% of people ages 50 and older have had knee replacement surgery according to the American Academy of Orthopaedic surgeons.

Is your practice prepared to reach out to this younger crowd? JointVentures, is an orthopedic service line program developed by TVC, Inc. Simply put, TVC helps you implement, operate and market a successful joint replacement program. One of our Featured Products is our Steps to Success GuideBooks. Steps to Success GuideBooks are excellent tools for conveying necessary and helpful information to patients about pre and post surgery. Fully customizable, it includes standard information regarding surgery, treatments, procedures, exercises and at-home instructions. GuideBooks are spiral bound, 100lb enamel color front and back covers and 80lb color insert pages.

Patients such as Sarno are able to get answers to many of their questions. It ensures a consistent message to improve the informed consent process. It significantly helps educate and set patients’ expectations. It increases efficiency for the physician in time spent educating the patient. This allows the surgeon to address only information not covered by guide or information specific to that patient.

Contact TVC, Inc. for more information!

JointVentures Steps to Success

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Much Needed Muscles for Cancer-Related Fatigue

March 5, 2012 marcostvc Blog

The battle against cancer can be difficult to witness, with the wasting away of the human body and the whittling away of energy. The strength to carry on, it turns out, comes from within the body. Individuals who have more muscle mass and strength are typically less affected by cachexia – a condition also known as body-wasting – that’s seen in people with advanced cancer. The condition causes significant weight loss, extraordinary fatigue and poor quality of life.

Researchers at Concordia University and the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) have discovered that people who suffer the most from debilitating cancer fatigue tend to have less muscle mass and strength than patients who are stronger.

“It is surprising that a strong relationship between cancer-related fatigue and muscle mass and strength hasn’t been previously studied,” says author Robert Kilgour, professor and chair of Concordia’s Department of Exercise Science. Kilgour hopes this study can be used to encourage hospitals and cancer centers to provide strength and training programs that can improve patients’ muscle mass, along with the quality of life.

TVC Inc.’s Cancer CareWays® was developed in conjunction with clinical nurse specialists, oncologists and marketing directors to help you quickly establish your facility as the area leader in cancer care. One of the products in our service line is our patient videos kit. This Feature Product presents a series of videos that help explain cancer-related fatigue and treatment, relieving the physician or office staff from having to repeat the same basic information over and over. The use of videos can:

  • Ensure a consistent message to improve the informed consent process
  • Significantly help educate and set patients’ expectations
  • Increase efficiency for the physician in time spent educating the patient. This allows the surgeon to address only information not covered by video or information specific to that patient.

Contact us for more information!

Cancer CareWays Patient Videos Kit

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The Debate over When to Get a Mammogram

February 22, 2012 marcostvc Blog

A heated debate is going on over when to start preparing your patients for their first screening mammogram. Likely, if they are turning 40, they’ve been told to prepare for it around their birthday and then to have one every year (or in some cases every other year) after.  Of course that’s just for routine mammograms, in situations where it might be breast cancer, other tests are warranted.

But in November 2009, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) updated its screening recommendations and said that women of average risk for breast cancer could wait until age 50 to start getting mammograms and then follow up only every two years, rather than annually.

These new guidelines set off a heated debate within the medical community and don’t match up with most other mammogram recommendations from major medical organizations. Women are left without any clear guidelines as to when to schedule their mammograms, it is up to their doctor to give them guidance.

“We’re having the scientific arguments back and forth and in the meantime, women, in a sense, get caught in the middle,” says Len Lichtenfeld, MD, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.

To help educate your patients on screening mammograms, TVC, Inc.’s Women’s Healthways service line of products has several mammogram focused products. Women’s HealthWays includes a comprehensive array of marketing and educational tools designed to quickly establish your women’s services as the community leader. We feature the following mammogram products:

Our products can be customized with your logo, corporate colors and a number of other features depending on the product. Contact us today to discuss how we can help you with your screening mammograms!

Women's Healthway Screening Mammogram Wall Display Board

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Women’s Heart Health

February 14, 2012 marcostvc Blog

About two-thirds of all women in this country are considered overweight. If your BMI is 25 -29.9 you are overweight, and if your BMI is 30 or more you are obese. A handy BMI calculator is located here: http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/ As waistlines among Americans grow, so do concerns about overall heart health. This is especially true for women who, according to a recent report by the American Heart Association (AHA), have increased their caloric intake by 22 percent in the last two decades, compared to 10 percent for men. Being overweight can lead to cardiovascular disease, heart attacks and even sudden death.

500,000 lives a year are lost to women that have heart attacks; it is the leading cause of death. Part of the problem is that women don’t have the same symptoms as men: they include abdominal pain, difficulty breathing, nausea, and fatigue. Women often think it is an older man’s disease, but that’s not true. Once women reach the age of 65, they have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and are more likely to die from it while the mortality rate in men has declined over two decades.

There is a lack of awareness about women’s heart risks and gender differences and studies show they frequently don’t get the cardiovascular care they need. Only 21% of women are aware that cardiovascular disease poses a significant risk to them. Whereas, 46% believe breast cancer is their most serious health threat, while only 4% cite heart disease. In fact, the total number of deaths from heart disease this year among women is expected to be nearly double the total deaths caused by all types of cancer combined.

This is your opportunity to educate your patients about cardiovascular health with our Cardiovascular Connections® service line of products. Consider adding wall displays to your exam rooms. These full-color wall displays are printed with your hospital’s logo, laminated, framed and ready to hang. For your convenience, TVC offers two sizes (22.5″w X 30″h and 30″w X 40″h). Another option is our brochures, we offer 28 topics, you can see the full list here. Each brochure is customized with your logo on the front, a picture of your facility, and contact information on the back.

Our Patient Education Videos are another popular product. It present a series of videos that help explain common conditions and treatments, relieving the physician or office staff from having to repeat the same basic information over and over. The use of videos can:

  • Ensure a consistent message to improve the informed consent process
  • Significantly help educate and set patients expectations
  • Increase efficiency for the physician in time spent educating the patient. This allows the surgeon to address only information not covered by video or information specific to that patient.

The Cardiovascular Connections® service line of products also offers Homework Kits, Seminar Boards, Steps to Success Guide Books, and Doctor Box Kits. Contact TVC Inc. for more information!

Cardiovascular Doctor Box Kits

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Patient Education is an Important Part of Sciatica

February 3, 2012 marcostvc Blog

TVC, Inc., a national leader in service line development, features brochures and wall displays that reinforce patient education for sciatica. Shooting pain, numbness and burning are among the most common symptoms of a pinched nerve—a condition that occurs when a nerve or a set of nerves, becomes compressed, constructed or stretched by a nearby bone, muscles or other surrounding tissue. While pinched nerves can occur anywhere in the body, sciatica is when one of the five spinal nerve roots that give rise to the sciatic nerve is irritated. The sciatic nerve is the longest nerve in your body. It runs from your spinal cord to your buttock and hip area and down the back of each leg.

Sciatica is a symptom, not a disorder. The radiating pain of sciatica signals another problem involving the nerve, such as a herniated disk. Depending on the cause, the pain of acute sciatica — which may be quite uncomfortable — usually goes away on its own within a couple of months. If it is from a herniated disk, the disk may require surgery. At first sign of pain, the patient should come in for an appointment to make sure there’s no serious damage. While the patient is waiting, he or she can review our wall display boards on the subject matter.

TVC wall displays are a great way to provide patients with answers to basic questions regarding sciatica. These full-color wall displays are printed with your hospital’s logo, laminated, framed and ready to hang. For your convenience, TVC, Inc. offers two sizes (22.5″w X 30″h and 30″w X 40″h).

During your session with the patient he or she will ask questions like is sciatica treatable? And what caused it? As you answer these questions, you can send the patient home with a sciatica brochure, also provided by TVC, Inc. TVC, Inc. SpineVentures brochures are designed to improve physician engagement, increase patient volume and reduce hospital costs. They can also be printed with your logo and corporate colors. Contact us for more information!

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Graphite May Help Hip Replacements Last Longer

January 25, 2012 marcostvc Blog

Graphite isn’t only in pencils, it can also be found in hip replacements. Researchers have discovered that in metal-on-metal hip implants, the lubricating layer that forms on both the implanted ball and socket consists of graphitic carbon. And this graphitic layer may be the product of proteins ground up the implant itself. This knowledge could help the design of new implants but also raises important questions about the action of the graphite in the body.

Over 50K hip replacements are performed each year in the UK and in the US that number is over 200K. But although surgeons are moving towards low wearing metal-on-metal joints, no one is precisely sure why the two metal pieces slide so well. Although it is known there is a layer that affects the friction, lubrication and wear of the two surfaces, known as a tribological layer, until now no-one has examined its composition.

The metal hip replacements are made from a cobalt-chromium-molybdenum alloy with around 60% Co, 26% Cr and 5-7% Mo and, until now, it’s been assumed that the layer between the moving parts is protein-based, made of denatured proteins from the synovial fluid found between joints in the body. What researchers found was something quite different – graphite, the allotrope of carbon that is used as a dry lubricant in machinery and engines.

With further understanding of how this graphitic carbon is produced in the body after hip implant surgery, scientists may be able to create the surfaces of hip implant metal so that more of the lubricating layer forms. This would cut friction and wear and tear and extend the life of the implant, reducing the number of implants that have to be redone. Potentially, metal-on-metal hip implants could come with a lifetime guarantee. People in their 50s, 60s, or younger who are considering hip replacement must also take into account the fact that hip implants, which may be made of metals, polymers or ceramics, don’t last forever. More than 96 percent of hip replacements only last 10 years.

Many young people postpone hip replacements due to replacements only lasting 10 years, if they lasted longer, more people would embrace the surgery and get it done sooner. With the advancement of graphite, more people will be scheduling hip replacements so it is important to have your marketing in place. TVC Inc. features a JointVentures service line that will increase patient volume, decrease hospital costs, increase word of mouth marketing, increase physician loyalty, and improve outcomes.

Our Services Line Includes:

We show you how to build a successful service line program. We make it manageable by breaking it into steps. You start with a strong foundation and add elements that all work together to produce results for your hospital. Simply put, TVC helps you implement, operate and market a successful joint replacement program. Contact us for more information.

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Fighting Childhood Cancer

January 16, 2012 marcostvc Blog

Imagine a robot that works in a giant freezer and fights childhood cancer… The concrete floor is so flat there’s only one millimeter of deviation so that when the robot runs on its tracks he doesn’t choose the wrong genetic sample. This freezer cost $2.4 million, it’s Swiss-made and holds more than 2 million biopsy specimens that can be stored for genetic research by scientists in Philadelphia and around the world.

Dr. John Maris is chief of the division of oncology and director of the Center for Childhood Cancer Research at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He stated that childhood cancer is on the rise such as leukemia and brain tumors, but not at such an increase as seen in autism.

He is an expert on neuroblastomas — cancers of the nervous system that typically appear in young children. Most are diagnosed as toddlers. Dr. Maris and colleagues have gathered the largest collection of pediatric neuroblastoma cases ever assembled, allowing them to perform the studies that have led to notable discoveries of neuroblastoma genes.

Maris said that there are potential cures for 85 percent of the children affected by cancer but that for the remaining 15 percent — the “high-risk” cases — cures have been evasive. It is for these children that gene research holds the most promise, the researchers said.

When parents come into your oncology practice for their children’s treatment, it’s important to have lots of materials available to explain the treatments their children are going to go through. TVC Inc. provides these products.

Here are some of the things we offer:

Patient Education Videos

The DVD library will be of tremendous aid to both physicians and cancer services staff, saving the laborious time-consuming work of basic patient education. Each video is customized by TVC with your logo. Topics include:
• Chemotherapy
• Radiation therapy
• Cancer-related pain
• Cancer-related fatigue
• Nutrition and cancer
• Lung cancer
• Prostate cancer
• Breast cancer
• Colon and rectal cancer
• Mammography

Image Campaign

Oncology patients expect the highest quality care in their fight against cancer. TVC has created an image campaign that includes newspaper advertisements, community newsletters, billboards, radio and TV commercials designed to let the public know you are their local cancer expert.

Wall Displays

An attractive series of wall displays answers patients’ frequently asked questions about radiation therapy. Six larger educational displays, customized with your cancer center logo, are an ideal way to create cancer awareness and highlight you center’s excellence in physician offices and hospital lobbies.

“Doctor Boxes” Patient Education for Physicians Practices

These innovative kits contain everything needed to transform your physicians’ offices into patient learning centers.

Patient Guidebook

The Guidebook, customized with your local information, is a helpful comprehensive reference for patients going through diagnosis and treatment. The journal, designed to easily track common symptoms, is an excellent way to facilitate communication between patient and staff.

Patient Education Brochures

A companion brochure is offered for each video. Additional brochure topics include: seed implants for prostate cancer, being diagnosed with cancer, skin cancer, diagnostic imaging, and managing the side effects of radiation therapy and chemotherapy. These beautiful brochures may be customized with your local information and be used in physicians’ offices and cancer service areas.

For more information, please contact us!

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Breastfeeding Lowers Blood Pressure and Reduces Risk of Breast Cancer

January 9, 2012 marcostvc Blog

Most women who breastfeed do it to bond with the infant or because of the nutritional benefits for the child. But now there’s a reason to do it for the woman that includes lowering blood pressure and reducing her risk of breast cancer.

A study found that mothers who exclusively breastfeed for at least six months lower the risk of developing high blood pressure later in life during menopause. Researchers found women who gave their babies formula or breastfed for less than three months were almost a quarter more likely to develop blood pressure problems.

An American study, of a little under 56,000 women with at least one child, concluded that mothers who breastfed for at least six months were less likely to develop high blood pressure over a 14 year period than those who bottle fed.

A study published in the May issue of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, analyzed data on some 139,681 women who had enrolled in the Women’s Health Initiative and it found women who reported a lifetime history of more than a year of breast-feeding were 12 percent less likely to have hypertension by the time they enrolled in the Women’s Health Initiative.

Besides high blood pressure, breastfeeding has also been linked to reducing the risk of breast cancer. However the study found no link between breastfeeding and reduced risk of cancer in those women without a history of breast cancer in their family.

The study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine used information from over 60,000 nurses who had given birth and had completed detailed questionnaires about their health with follow-ups every two years.

Dr Alison Stuebe, then of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, and now of the University of North Carolina found that for women at high risk of developing breast cancer, breastfeeding lowered that risk by as much as taking anti-cancer drug Tamoxifen as a preventive treatment.
Topics such as breastfeeding and how they relate to blood pressure and breast cancer are important issues in women’s health. Which is one of the many reasons TVC Inc. introduces Women’s HealthWays which is a cooperative effort between the physicians who provide women’s diagnostic and treatment services and the hospital, with emphasis on managing women’s health for the entire life span.

Women’s HealthWay’s includes a comprehensive array of marketing and educational tools designed to quickly establish your women’s services as the community leader.

What is Women’s HealthWays?

A hospital based system for developing and marketing a successful women’s services program using patient education, patient expectation setting and a focus on wellness.

A marketing plan that quickly brands the components of your women’s health services and raises community awareness of you program.

A method of enhancing the physician-hospital relationship

Program Features:

Customized Patient Education Video and Brochure Libraries

These libraries for the hospital and physician offices cover a wide range of topics

Wall Display Boards for Hospital Units

These wall display boards provide helpful information for patients with topics such as:
• Tips for new parents
• Frequently asked medical/surgical questions
• Frequently asked mammography questions

 

For more information about Women’s HealthWays contact us.

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