Health Source and Medline Plus take 2

I posted this earlier this morning, but for some reason I can't see it when I look at the public view of my blog, so I will repost it:

My responses to the exercises are in red italics.  I found these exercises to be helpful in my understanding of asthma.  My son was recently told by a physician that he may have it, and I wanted to know what it was.

Discovery Exercise:

Create a blog posting discussing the following questions and other observations you have about Health Source – Consumer Edition. All resources can be accessed via this alphabetical list.

1. In Health Source – Consumer Edition, click on the Publications link at the top of the page and explore the types of magazines and journals indexed in the database. 

Here I found pamphlets, books, including children's books, and magazines.2. Search for a disease or condition, such as diabetes. Sort your results by the most current publication date by clicking on the ‘Relevance Sort’ option.

I looked up Asthma and found articles written this month.3. Pick one of the articles you found and read through the full text. Was the article written in terms you could understand without consulting a medical dictionary?

The first one I tried, I could only find the abstract, not the whole article.  Next I tried an article from CRS - Adult Health Advisor and  this has a lot of very helpful information, and is very easy to understand.

MedlinePlus is produced by the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health. All the content in this resource is written with the consumer in mind. You’ll find overviews of medical conditions, pamphlets that can be printed, videos of surgical procedures and much more.  MedlinePlus is not part of Marvel.  The Medline database that is available in Marvel contains information intended more for the medical practitioner than for the consumer.

Discovery Exercise:

1. Go to Medline Plus   (http://www.medlineplus.gov)

2. Look at a few of the links on the main page. What’s in the news column on the right side?

Here is the list of news items:

 Advisory Panel Moves to Make HIV Testing Routine

 It's Turkey Time: Safely Prepare Your Holiday Meal

 Unemployed at Higher Risk for Heart Attack? Indicate in your blog post what some of the top searches are as listed on the left side of the page

Here are some of the popular searches:

arthritis

  aspirin

  asthma

  autism

   calcium

   cholera

   diabetes

   hypertension

   metoprolol

   multiple sclerosis

   potassium

   prednisone

   stroke

  vitamin d

3. Click on tab “Drugs and Supplements” and search for a medication you take or you have seen ads about recently such as Prilosec or Cymbalta. Note the kind of information available.

I tried Symbicort, an inhaler drug and was sent to Budesonide Oral Inhalation. I read some disturbing warnings about this.   was given this list of choices:

What side effects can this medication cause? What storage conditions are needed for this medicine? What other information should I know? Brand names Brand names of combination products

Why is this medication prescribed? How should this medicine be used? What special precautions should I follow? What special dietary instructions should I follow? What should I do if I forget a dose?

which covers many of my questions.

4. Click on “Health Topics” and search for the same disease or condition you looked at in Health Source. How does the information in MedlinePlus differ from that in Health Source?

I like the way this is set up. Instead of refering me to different articles, this is more like an encyclopedia of articles, with the references sited at the bottom. It gives quick information, without having to sort through a lot of articles that weren't that relevant to my needs.

5. Look at the list of videos available by clicking on “Videos and Cool Tools” tab. Pick one video and launch it so you have an idea of what a patron would experience. What did you think of the video?

The video I watched was an interactive tutorial which gave a basic description of what asthma is and how to treat it.  I found it informative and helpful and plan to have my son watch it.