All posts by Sumana Rao

Don't worry about the people in your past; There's a reason they didn't make it to your future.
Zika Infections

Zika Infections

Zika virus is another African arboviral illness first seen in monkeys in Uganda in 1947 but has moved onto the front pages recently as it is becoming established in the Americas.

  1. Zika rarely causes serious illness or death.
  2. Four of five people who get Zika virus won’t even know they are sick
  3. Common symptoms of Zika include: fever, rash, joint pain, red eyes, muscle pain, headache
  4. If you are pregnant and contract Zika, you do not have to feel sick to pass the virus to your unborn baby.
  5. Contact your doctor if you have: fever, joint pain, red or itchy eyes, rash
  6. Symptoms typically occur 2–7 days after a bite from an infected mosquito.
  7. There is no specific medicine or vaccine for Zika virus. Treat the symptoms.
  8. Clinical symptoms of Zika disease appear after an incubation period ranging between 3 and 12 days. The disease symptoms are usually mild and short lasting (2–7 days), and infection may go unrecognized or be misdiagnosed as dengue.

Zika is a disease spread by:

  • Bite of an infected mosquito
  • Infected woman to child during pregnancy
  • Infected male to partner during sex

If you are pregnant when or soon after you contract Zika, your unborn baby may develop a severe birth defect known as microcephaly.  Microcephaly causes an unusually small head, brain damage, and often death.

 

Author: Sumana Rao | Posted on: September 29, 2017
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Dengue Fever

Dengue Fever

Virus serovars are widespread in the tropics and have caused massive outbreaks, it is considered the most rapidly spreading arboviral disease in the world with a 30 fold increase in cases in the last 50 years. It is clearly related to the prevalence of Aedes aegypti in most areas but is carried by other Aedes spp in other areas.

Dengue appeared severely in recent years in: The Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, Southern China, Taiwan, The Pacific Islands, The Caribbean, Mexico, Africa, Central and South America.

  1. Dengue virus is a leading cause of illness and death in the tropics and subtropics.
  2. As many as 400 million people are infected yearly.
  3. Dengue is caused by any one of four related viruses transmitted by mosquitoes.
  4. There are not yet any vaccines to prevent infection with dengue virus and the most effective protective measures are those that avoid mosquito bites.
  5. Symptoms: Symptoms, which usually begin four to six days after infection and last for up to 10 days, may include Sudden, high fever, Severe headaches, pain behind eyes, joint and muscle pain, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, skin rash (2 to 5 days after onset of fever, bleeding in nose, gums and easy bruising.
  6. When infected, early recognition and prompt supportive treatment can substantially lower the risk of medical complications and death.
  • Dengue has emerged as a worldwide problem only since the 1950s. Although dengue rarely occurs in the continental United States, it is endemic in Puerto Rico and in many popular tourist destinations in Latin America, Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands.

Author: Sumana Rao | Posted on:
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Chikungunya

Chikungunya

Chikungunya virus was originally an African illness and means ‘that which bends up” in the Makonde language of East Africa. For many years chikungunya was confined mainly to Africa but in the last decade has exploded through Asia and is now moving thru from the Caribbean to Central and South America.

  1. The incubation period of chikungunya disease ranges from 2-12 days, typically 3-7days.
  2. Symptoms include sudden onset of a fever, typically lasting from a few days to a week, sometimes up to ten days, usually above 39°C and sometimes reaching 40°C (104°F).
  3. The fever is associated with severe joint pain or stiffness. A maculopapular (red bumps) rash, muscle pain, headache, fatigue, nausea or vomiting may also be present. Inflammation of the eyes occurs in some.
  4. Typically, fever lasts for two days and then ends abruptly but may be biphasic (resolves and then returns later). Headache, insomnia and an extreme degree of prostration (feeling wiped out and requiring bedrest) last for a variable period, usually about 5-7 days.
  5. The severity of joint complaints in chikungunya may be severe and may persist for weeks, months or years in some individuals. The French have found that 80-90% of patients have some joint complaints at 3 months and 5% develop chronic joint complaints that persist for years.

Deaths from chikungunya mainly occur in elderly individuals with comorbid illness. The one group to be concerned about are pregnant women who may transmit chikungunya to their infant if they become infected just before giving birth, this has caused a small number of deaths in infected neonates.

Author: Sumana Rao | Posted on:
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Prevention Efforts for Arboviral Illnesses

Prevention Efforts for arboviral illnesses

Be prepared by controlling mosquitoes even before these diseases come to your area.

There are no treatments for any of these arboviral illnesses beyond supportive care and no vaccines are currently approved so mosquito prevention is crucial.

  • The chances of being infected with these three illnesses can all be diminished by mosquito control.
  • Aedes mosquitoes live and breed in fresh water near and in homes. Anything that can hold a cup or more of water including birdbaths, tire swings, planters, old bottles, trash cans, even the back of a toilet tank have all been breeding areas.
  • There is no danger in touching mosquito larva and instructing your family in looking in your home and yard for containers with larva (or potential breeding containers) and dumping them out is a great way to involve everyone in mosquito vigilance.
  • Controlling mosquitoes in your yard is most important, Aedes generally don’t fly all that far and most biting occurs from mosquitoes born and raised right in your neighborhood.
  • Use CDC recommended insect repellents containing either 20% DEET, picaridin or IR3535. Use of permethrin spray on and clothing can all diminish the chances of being bitten. Treating lawn furniture, curtains, blinds, clothing and tents with permethrin and sleeping in screened or air conditioned rooms will help diminish bites from mosquitoes.
Author: Sumana Rao | Posted on:
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Kids - How to control body odor?

Kids – How to control body odor?

Kids, how to control your body odor? You don’t need to wear branded clothes to look good and feel good.

To feel good and to improve your self-esteem you should be healthy and clean.

When you go to school your friends and classmates may notice your dress for few minutes or couple of days.

If you are not clean, then the image that you are trying to create through your dressing may not happen.

How to keep yourself clean and healthy?

Clothes:

  • Always try to wear fresh clothes to school. In a closed class room sweat odor can reach one corner to another.
  • Change your undergarments every day. This is hygiene practice required for your health.
  • Make sure your clothes are washed before wearing them. If your school requires you to wear uniform then, after you come back home – hang your uniform in air to remove any sweat odor.
  • Stay away from cigarette smoke and tell your family members not to smoke in the car and inside home -instead ask them to use designated area. If not your cloth and hair will collect smoke odor.

Shoes:

  • Sweat gets into shoes easily and your socks also smells very bad if you don’t give attention to it.
  • Bacteria can thrive in the shoes and socks for longtime as they like moist fabric of shoes and create bad odor.
  • If you have more than one pair of shoe, use them alternate days. This way shoe that you used will dry properly. Don’t wear wet shoes.
  • Once you come back home, take out shoe and socks. Wash socks alternate days. Clean shoes as often as possible. Washing, brushing and polishing is needed for all types of shoes. When you take care of shoes properly, not only your feet odor free, also shoes last longer.
  • If you have washing machine at home, see whether you can wash your fabric shoe using washing machine.

Teeth

  • Brush your teeth twice a day and floss it almost every day. If not, the particles stuck in between will help in growth of odor causing bacteria. When you speak then your mouth smells.
  • After every meal rinse your mouth and brush your teeth using your fingers.
  • Avoid eating heavy onion and garlic before leaving to school.
  • If you are wearing braces, make sure braces are cleaned. If not, it can harbor odor causing bacteria that release bad odor.

 Feet

  • Wash your feet after your school – wash between toes and use cloth/towel to wipe the water between toes.
  • Dry feet properly. Don’t wear socks and shoes with wet feet – this harbors bacterium in the shoe.
  • Avoid walking in cafeteria, class rooms, corridors in bare foot and public places. If not, you might catch fungal infections and can develop warts.
  • Apply talcum powder to your feet and you can also put little talcum powder in your shoe.

 Shirts

  • Before wearing shirts, make sure the shirt is washed and dried.
  • Daily don’t forget to wash your underarm pit. If not, your body sweat odor can reach people who are sitting close to you.
  • If needed use deodorant or anti-perspirant under armpits. Don’t use perfumes as it can cause headache to you and others.
  • Wear clothes that are meant for each season.
  • Don’t wear dirty gym clothes to classroom and once you come home take out gym dress and clean yourself.
  • Take shower everyday using bath soaps.

 Hair

  • Oil and sweat can create odor in your hair. It also makes it dirty and greasy.
  • Use shampoo to wash your hair. Massage your scalp well to remove dead skin, dirt and the oil. If needed use conditioner.
  • Wash hair 3 times in a week.
  • Use a wide toothed comb to comb hair. Avoid combing wet hair.
  • Use Sun light to dry hair.
  • Do apply oil to hair to keep it shiny, healthy and growing. Do not use oil in excess. And never use fragrant oil on your hair.

Body hygiene is very important. Just clean odor from the body itself tells others that you are clean and attracts people around you positively.

Image credit: https://www.needpix.com/photo/661759/team-basketball-team-girls-basketball-team-sport-basketball-teamwork-competition-athletes-basketball-court (Free for commercial use)

Author: Sumana Rao | Posted on: September 25, 2017
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RPM teaches communication in Autistic Children

Rapid Prompting Method RPM

An Indian mother Soma Mukhopadhyay who lives in Texas, developed a technique to teach communication skills to her autistic son Tito. Soma called this technique Rapid Prompting Method or RPM. This method allowed Tito to communicate his feeling, thoughts and ideas.

In 2005, Mukhopadhyay established the Halo-Soma Institute in Austin, Texas. In 2008 CNN channel ran a program on RPM that involved constant fast paced questioning, stimulating, engaging combined with the use of low tech alphabet board for spelled communication.

Soon, the word reached out. In the life of many Parents RPM technique became part of their life (who have autistic child).  Portia Iversen, a mother of an autistic child learnt Soma’s work and Soma helped Iversen’s son Dov.

Iversen’s book called ‘Strange Son‘ describes Soma’s technique and how the spelling board – RPM helped her son Dov to communicate using complex sentences.

What is RPM?

It is a low-tech approach that has a student, an instructor, paper and a pencil. It teaches child who is in autism spectrum to communicate effectively. RPM was designed based on the psychological, developmental and behavioral theories put forth by Jean Piaget and Anna Jean Ayres. It’s  goal is to “establish functional independent pointing-based communication in people who are otherwise nonverbal due to severe autism or other developmental disabilities” (Wikipedia).

As per http://www.halo-soma.org “RPM is distinct from other methods as it is based upon how the brain works. The aim is to bring the student to maximum learning through the open learning channel and to elicit the best (not simply to test) out of the child to enable maximum output in that given time. As a student’s cognitive and motor proficiency increases, the sophistication of a student’s response also improves RPM prompts – a student’s independent response, without physical support. In addition to teaching letter-chart pointing, RPM also utilizes stencils and other drawing exercises to lead to independent handwriting”.

It helps children to increase interest, confidence and self-esteem. It is designed to help students to initiate responses like picking up answers, to point, to type and to write. It reveals  students comprehension, academic abilities and conversational skills.

RPM is not recognized as a clinical profession and there is not much research support. However, people who want to practice, appear to be self-taught and has to participate in the workshops offered by Halo-Soma, Heather Clare of informative pointing fame or Vanderblilt Kennedy Center Angelman Program for Alphabet Therapy. If professionals want to apply for workshops they are required to submit a 10 mins video samples of the use of RPM, a resume and the reason for wanting to attend the course.

The technique may be used effectively for children who fall into autism spectrum and  Fragile X syndrome, blindness, deafness, Angelman syndrome, Down syndrome, Williams syndrome, and Prader-Willi syndrome.

The other technique that helps autistic child to communicate effectively that are similar to RPM is informative pointing or alphabet therapy.

How RPM helps a child? Visit below website for more information:

http://www.halo-soma.org/learning_faqs.php#USING_RAPID_PROMPTING_METHOD

Author: Sumana Rao | Posted on: September 15, 2017
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Sleepy baby

14 Tips to help babies sleep

14 Tips to help babies sleep

For young mothers, it is a challenge to put babies sleep. Quietly you put baby to sleep and turn around, there you go… next second, you will hear baby crying. Sometimes it is frustrating and you don’t know what to do. Grandma has few tips that can help you to make your baby sleep fast and better. Listen to grandma’s advice for young mothers…

  1.  Hair drier noise or run a fan to create a gentle hum that masks other sounds.
  2. Gentle bottom pat helps- Pat baby at the bottom for few seconds in a rhythmic manner
  3. Staring contest with the baby – With lot of affection and love stare at baby and she will sleep. Sometimes this may also excite baby. If so, close your eyes in front of baby and she will follow you.
  4. Give a soft towel to cuddle – Give a soft baby towel to cuddle. Snuggling soft towel gives the baby comfort and she sleeps well.
  5. Show them a very short video of lullaby – Hold your smart phone at a distance and play the lullaby. Best is mother singing to her baby- it always works miracle.
  6. Stroke between the eyes – using your fingers gently stroke between to eyes/eye brows. It puts the baby to sleep fast.
  7. A warm water bath with gentle stroke helps. It relaxes baby’s body and she will sleep before you know.
  8. Instead of keeping fragrant oil in baby’s room, use baby detergent to clean the crib that you use for washing baby’s clothes. This familiar odor helps baby to sleep better and fast.
  9. When you put your baby to sleep in the crib, keep your hand gently on her stomach, arms and head – it gives loving comfort
  10. Bed time is important – Establish a bed time for baby. For babies under 1 year 6:30 pm to 7 pm is the ideal bed time as per the pediatricians.
  11. Let there be a very soft light in your baby’s room while baby is sleeping.
  12. Give a gentle massage for baby – use baby safe oil and rub gently on the body. Massage helps in relaxation of baby’s muscles.
  13. Tell a bed time story in a soft voice to put baby sleep fast. Soft voice helps in soothing baby and don’t forget- she is familiar with your voice while she was in your womb itself
  14. Gentle cuddling – lie down next to your baby and cuddle her till she goes to sleep.

Image credit: Photo by Barbara Alçada on Unsplash

Author: Sumana Rao | Posted on: September 12, 2017
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Healthy Lunch For Kids

Healthy Lunch For Kids

All parents want their kids to eat nutritious and healthy food at home as well as in schools.  Packing healthy lunch needs some thinking because most kids think their lunch is not good and need something that is more like a snack item. It is important to include healthy and interesting items as kids will look forward eat good and tasty food during lunch time.   Here are some suggestions that can help to pack kids lunch. Also, give your kids some options to select the lunch.

1. Whole-Grain Breads: When you select the whole-grain bread look for the ingredients and make sure whole grains are listed first. If your kid is fussy about eating the whole grain bread make it interesting. You can also send pita bread once a while if your kids like to eat pita bread. Creative combinations makes it tasty and interesting for lunch and kids look forward for lunch time.

  • Prepare a sandwich – with fruits and spread. Take 2 slices of whole grain bread, apply spread of your kids choice, put banana slices and strawberry slices.
  • 2 tablespoons peanut butter or sunflower butter topped with one sliced medium-size banana on whole wheat bread.
  • Take whole wheat pita – fill with 2 tablespoons hummus, 2 tablespoons tabbouleh, 2 tablespoons cucumber and 1 tablespoon feta.

2. Fruit juice : Research suggests that drinking moderate amounts of 100 percent fruit juice doesn’t affect a child’s weight. Choose 100% fruit juices over the fruit-flavored kinds, which have fewer nutrients. Stick with one cup a day: 100-percent juice. If your kid wants more juice – make sure that they have not exceeded recommended sugar intake. If so, mix some filtered water to the juice to dilute sugar quantity.

Remember: Although a reasonable amount of fruit juice each day is fine for most children, remember that whole fruit is an even better option. Ask your child whether she prefers fruit juice or fruit or both.

3. Vegetables: If kid refuses to eat vegetables then make it a fun vegetable dip. For example – Cut organic carrots, then put peanut butter (if it is not allergic to your kid or else, chose some other spread like neutella hazelnut spread) and Goldfish crackers in separate bowls. The kids dip the carrots in the nut butter and then fish for the crackers.

4. Pasteurized Cheese: Cheese is source of calcium for growing bones and supplies good amount of protein. Give kids option and ask them what type of cheese they want.

Here is a tip: On whole-grain crackers spread cheese and pack it with lunch. Both are good source of calcium. If your kid prefer, place slice of cucumber or carrot on top of the cheese.

5. Fruit Cups or fruits: Whole fruit is good for kids. Wash and cut fruits – apple, mango, papaya, guava fruits and keep with lunch box. Kids can dip this in cheese or a vegetable dip and eat. Do not send fruits that can mess up their dress. Kids will start disliking the fruits that causes embarrassment by spoiling their dress. Whole fresh fruit is great, but prepackaged cups provide the same nutrients. Choose ones packed in juice to limit added sugars.

It is parents duty to introduce kids to healthy foods. Young minds will absorb and learn better and will implement healthy habits at proper age.

Image credit: https://www.needpix.com/photo/1200434/indian-food-thali-vegetarian-food-food-indian-curry-rice-plate-dal (Free for commercial use)

Author: Sumana Rao | Posted on: September 11, 2017
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