American Medical Association Family Medical Guide - American Medical Association [5]
Part Three: First Aid and Home Caregiving
Part Three focuses on two important topics—First Aid and Home Caregiving. The First Aid section provides step-by-step advice on how to handle injuries and emergencies including choking, bleeding, burns, and heatstroke. The Home Caregiving section gives practical information to help you take care of a person who is ill or disabled. For example, you will learn how to modify your home to make it easier for you to care for an older family member who has a disabling chronic illness such as Alzheimer’s disease.
Part Four: What Are Your Symptoms?
The popular and always-helpful symptoms charts have been completely revised and updated for this edition. Organized like flow charts, the symptoms charts direct you through a series of questions with yes or no answers from a specific symptom to reach a possible diagnosis or recommendation. The charts help you decide when it’s important to call your doctor about a problem, when to go to a hospital emergency department immediately, or when to take care of the problem yourself at home.
The symptoms charts contain many cross-references to articles in other parts of the book, especially to Part Five (Health Issues Throughout Life) and Part Six (Diseases, Disorders, and Other Problems). To make the best use of the symptoms charts and to obtain a full explanation of a specific disorder or condition, follow the cross-references to the articles.
Part Five: Health Issues Throughout Life
Part Five is an all-new section that discusses common health concerns that can occur at any time of life. This section has comprehensive chapters on children’s health, adolescent health, sexuality, infertility, pregnancy and childbirth, and dying and death. Part Five and Part Six (Diseases, Disorders, and Other Problems), which are both packed with helpful information, are the heart of the book.
Part Six: Diseases, Disorders, and Other Problems
You will probably use Part Six more than any other part of the book because this is where you will find information about hundreds of diseases and disorders. To make it easy for you to find the information you’re looking for, the chapters in this part of the book are arranged by body system. The articles in these chapters have an easy-to-follow, straightforward format that usually includes the following headings: Symptoms (describes the most common symptoms and signs of the disorder), Diagnosis (explains how the disorder is diagnosed), Treatment (explores the treatment options for the disorder), and Prevention (tells how the disorder can be prevented, when prevention is possible).
Within the articles on specific diseases, you will also find cross-references to other parts of the book. Use these cross-references, along with the index, to add to your knowledge of or improve your understanding about a particular health problem or concern.
Glossaries
This section contains a general Glossary and a Drug Glossary. The general Glossary defines some common medical terms you might hear or read. The Drug Glossary has two sections—a section on drug classes (the groups into which drugs are categorized) and a section on the top 200 prescription drugs.
PART ONE
What You Should Know
Information to Keep You Healthy
Healthy Eating
A wealth of information exists about the fundamental link between diet and health. Although many people think that healthy eating means flavorless, unsatisfying meals, this does not have to be the case. A healthy diet includes plenty of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, and other high-fiber, high-nutrient foods; supplies the right number of calories; and limits saturated fat and trans fats (such as