How to Write a CV Which Will Get You Hired

Monday 20 October 2008 @ 8:46 pm

In the face of a dynamic and complex recruitment environment, figuring out how to write a CV that gets you in the door with employers can make all the difference to your job searching. Adhering to some common sense guidelines and listening to expert advice can turn you into a master of the art of CV writing, opening up a new world of professional opportunities.

How to write a CV

Every year, thousands of supposedly high achievers are left wondering why they didn’t get the job. The problem often lies with the way they have written their CV. While professional and academic achievements can never be discounted, unless you write a CV that conveys these achievements clearly in a way that will appeal to recruiters, your efforts are unlikely to be successful.

It’s All About You

When you sit down to write a CV, you are, in effect, writing an advertisement for yourself. This is your best chance to present your achievements and skills in the most favourable light possible, highlighting to recruiters what makes you stand out from the rest.

It’s impossible to write a CV that’s truly persuasive without having a clear picture in your mind of your skills and key accomplishments. Think about all your past activities: academic projects and degrees, part/full-time work experience, voluntary work, and even social and personal experiences.

To write an online CV that gets the attention of your target audience, you must focus on your achievements and present them in a dynamic, quantifiable way. For instance, here are two CV statements written correctly; notice the action verbs and specific accomplishments:

As a summer volunteer with the Youth Advocacy Service, I interacted with eight pre-school children on a daily basis, providing meals, supervision and companionship.

I created and implemented the unique ‘Partner Plus’ program, which resulted in an 18% increase in sales within three months.

As you can see, it is important to give your potential employer a sense of what you’ve actually accomplished. Grades, awards and certificates, where relevant, can sometimes help to substantiate and strengthen your statements. But the spotlight should be on quantifiable achievements.

It’s All About Them

When you write a CV that gets you the interview, it’s the result of knowing your potential employer and the specific job for which you’re applying. You should always customize your CV for the position and try to convey your background and skills in a way that will be most relevant to the employer.

To do this, read and re-read the job advertisement, research the company and its industry thoroughly and find out about its priorities and hiring practices. Spending time on the company website before you write your CV is a great way to make your application more relevant.

If you do your homework in advance, when it comes time to write a CV that is tailored to the specific opportunity you will be able to incorporate your knowledge of these key elements as you present your experience.

Don’t Forget the Basics

Of course, when you write a CV you must remember to include all the standard facts and sections that most recruiters will look for: personal details, contact information, career profile and objectives, skills and achievements, work experience, and education. Omitting any of these elements could create uncertainty in the recruiter or even cost you the job.

Use Smart Language for an Extra Edge

When you write a CV, it’s important to pay attention to the language you use.

• Include decisive action verbs like ‘initiated’, ‘negotiated’, ‘managed’, and ‘created’ wherever possible.

• If your CV relies on words like ‘always’ ‘never’ and ‘best’, recruiters may see this as a tendency to exaggerate or boast.

• Instead of ‘problem’, use ‘challenge’ - it’s more positive.

• Don’t write a CV that is overloaded with lengthy phrases or sentences. It’s better to keep things straightforward.

Remember that all the hard work involved in writing a CV can be quickly undone by careless and avoidable spelling or grammar mistakes. So, after you write a CV, always spell check and proofread your work multiple times and ask friends, family members, or colleagues to review it as well.

Peter Whitehead is commissioned to write articles on behalf of iProfile, the preferred CV template. iProfile brings the online CV into the 21st Century. Tips & advice vary from CV writing to negotiating a pay rise.





How to Pick Your New Graduate Career

Monday 20 October 2008 @ 8:39 pm

As new graduates get ready to develop their careers, they transition from a world where they’ve attained a level of comfort and success into an entirely unfamiliar one. Many of them think their hard work in university will automatically entitle them to recognition and desirability as a new hire.

But just as gaining acceptance into university requires an understanding of what academia looks for in a prospective student, graduate careers also require careful study and preparation. Here’s what to keep in mind as you go about researching and planning your graduate career.

Do What You Love

Before deciding on a career path, it’s important to research the job market and analyse your own strengths and interests to find out what kind of graduate career might suit you best. As a wise counsellor once said, ‘Do what you love, the money will follow.’ This is good advice when pursuing your graduate career since the likelihood of success and happiness always improves when you’re doing something you feel passionate about.

To help you figure out your preferences and steer your graduate career in the right direction, many university career centres offer free aptitude and personality tests. These may help you zero in on the kind of graduate career that fits you best.

Start Your Job Searching Early

Start researching graduate careers early, before you graduate. Keep a tight focus on the work you enjoy and then apply that focus to relevant academic coursework, an internship and/or volunteer work experience that can give you a “foot in the door” to your chosen graduate career.

During the final year of study, set aside some time to work on developing your future graduate career options, and make sure you have the financial resources to cover calls, trips and business clothes for interviews. Take advantage of graduate career counselling at your university career centre. Schedule mock interviews to polish your presentation and speaking skills. Attend graduate career fairs and on-campus recruitment events. Keep your academics in good order, a. And learn to manage time effectively between studying and exploring options for graduate your future careers.

Anticipate Hurdles

Be alert to potential challenges early on, before they become roadblocks in your graduate career search:

• Don’t like speaking to groups? Take a public speaking class or join a debating club.

• Is your wardrobe fit for campus only? Invest some time and money on updating your clothes.

• Not much job experience? Experience counts, whether it’s paid or not. Use time off to volunteer or do part-time work in the field you’ve targeted for your graduate career.

• Not well-rounded in extra-curriculars? Make sure you have the requisite computer skills, driving license or other practical qualifications that might help in your graduate career and job search.

See Yourself As The Employer Does

Remember, you’re just starting out on your new graduate career path. As thrilled as you probably are to have attained your degree, you are not entitled to have grandiose expectations at the very beginning of your graduate career. Potential employers are far more interested in what you can do for the company than in what they can do for you. Know your customer (the employer); learn what they need, and then market the product (yourself) as intelligently as possible.

Start Selling!

Once you’ve applied the time, money and effort to prepare yourself thoroughly for your preferred graduate career job sector, it’s time to get yourself out onto the market with a top-notch CV.

Stay Positive

When you’re competing with other graduates for a position, often the person with better graduate career search skills will win the job over candidates with superior qualifications simply because they know how to sell themselves. Keeping a positive, friendly and professional attitude can compensate for a lack of experience.

So as you embark on the searching for a job, make it clear to recruiters that you’re an easy person to work with and are always willing to learn. It can go a long way toward getting your graduate career off to a running start.

Peter Whitehead is commissioned to write articles on behalf of iProfile, the preferred CV template. iProfile brings the online CV into the 21st Century. Tips & advice vary from CV writing to negotiating a pay rise.





The Importance of a Professional CV

Monday 20 October 2008 @ 8:36 pm

Writing a professional CV these days involves so much more than just listing your experience. Creating a professional CV is indispensable to getting the most desirable jobs and goes hand in hand with a successful career. Recruiters skim through thousands of job applications every day, so a professional CV is the best way to get noticed, get the interview, and get the job.

Understanding the Professional CV

Professional employees are those who act with integrity, understand the job requirements, communicate well with others, and are willing to adapt to the organisation’s requirements. A professional CV is like a professional employee; it must convey all those characteristics to help you land the job you’re looking for.

For starters, a professional CV always includes certain standard details that most recruiters are interested in:

- Personal information – name, address, full contact information.

- Personal profile and/or career objectives.

- Skills and achievements.

- Work experience.

- Education.

- References.

Beyond the basics, a professional CV will include a number of other key qualities that will put you one step closer to achieving your career goals. It all starts with knowing two things:

• Know Your Audience

Writing a professional CV requires knowledge about the position and the recruitment process. Examining the job advertisement carefully, researching the company, and contacting the recruiter’s office to clarify what the position entails are all likely to contribute to a professional CV that’s suited to the job. A professional CV is always customised to a particular job or recruiter’s requirements.

• Know Yourself

One of the most difficult aspects of writing a professional CV writing is the task of ‘selling’ yourself convincingly without fibs, exaggerations or boastfulness. But underselling yourself is a more common problem. Many applicants find it difficult to translate their achievements or experiences into skills that are relevant to the recruiter.

In order to prepare a professional CV, it is essential to avoid ‘achievement amnesia’. A professional CV highlights key experiences that a stand out for a recruiter or potential employer: projects completed on a shoestring budget or a tight schedule; sales targets exceeded; innovative techniques you introduced, etc. Make a list of everything you’ve accomplished in your professional or academic career. This will be indispensable when writing your professional CV.

When you know your target audience and have a clear recollection picture about of what you’ve achieved, your professional CV will bridge the gap between the recruiter’s needs and your skills as a candidate.

How to write a CV:

• Beat the filters

Recruiters often employ specialised software to extract critical information from your CV, converting it into a standard format. So it’s important that your CV presents information in a way that gets you noticed. A high quality, professional CV is prepared with this sort of filtering in mind. Spending hours on formatting, fancy typefaces, and eye-catching designs is a waste of time and may even hurt your chances. A truly professional CV focuses on key data like achievements and skills.

• Keep it Real (and Relevant)

A professional CV highlights relevant information in a relevant manner. Leave out each grade you got, the addresses of all the institutions you went to, your gender, marital status, passport details, etc. A professional CV attempts to quantify skills and actual experience, such as: “Presented results of inaugural sales campaign to Board of Directors and key investors”. Recruiters notice it when concise, relevant information is presented in plain English in a professional CV.

• Mind your Language

One of the easiest ways to spot an unprofessional CV is grammatical errors, spelling mistakes or incomprehensible terminology. You may be hitting all the right notes, but if your CV is riddled with sloppy mistakes, it will never come across as a professional CV. Read, re-read and ask your friends and relatives to read your CV before you send it out into the world.

Peter Whitehead is commissioned to write articles on behalf of iProfile, the preferred CV template. iProfile brings the online CV into the 21st Century. Tips & advice vary from CV writing to negotiating a pay rise.





Tuberculosis; Tubercle Bacillus

Monday 20 October 2008 @ 8:10 pm

Tuberculosis is an infection that often can become deadly. Tuberculosis is caused by the bacteria known as mycobacteria. Tuberculosis can attack the lungs, the central nervous system, the lymphatic system, the circulatory system, the genitourinary system, the gastrointestinal system, bones, joints and the skin at times. The specific name of the bacteria that causes tuberculosis is mycobacteria tuberculosis. Symptoms of the disease are a chronic cough, blood in the phlegm, night sweats, fever and unexplained weight loss. Tuberculosis can be spread through the air very easily. People with the disease can send the disease through the air when they cough, spit or sneeze.

There are a variety of tests that doctors need to perform before diagnosing tuberculosis. They include a chest x-ray, tuberculin skin tests, blood tests and a microscopic examination and microbiological cultures of body fluids. Treating tuberculosis is a difficult process for doctors and patients. It entails various antibiotics. Sometimes there are strains of tuberculosis that can be resistant to antibiotics. Preventing tuberculosis involves screenings and getting oneself vaccinated against the disease.

Tuberculosis is a disease that has been affecting not only human beings but also animals for over 18,000 years. Mummies entombed in Egypt have been examined and it has been scientifically proven that some of those mummies, when alive, were infected with the disease as evidenced by remnants of it in their spine. Scientists have also found strains of tuberculosis in the remains of bison that date back to 18,000 years before the present date. The one thing scientists still aren’t sure of is how tuberculosis developed over the past thousands of years. They aren’t sure if it developed from cattle and then spread to humans or if it spread from an ancestor to other humans and then animals.

The very first doctor to identify tuberculosis as a contagious disease was Ibn Sina in the 1020s. He wrote “The Canon of Medicine.” He is also responsible for developing the method of quarantine to avoid the spread of the disease or any other contagious disease. There was thought at one point that tuberculosis would be eradicated across the globe because the number of cases was beginning to drop appreciably. In 1987, cases of tuberculosis in Great Britain numbered 5,000 after numbering 117,000 in 1913. But then in 2000 the number of cases rose again to 6,300 and the number rose again in 2005 to 7,600.

The recent rise in tuberculosis cases, especially in the 1980s, is somewhat credited to the rise in HIV and patients with tuberculosis not finishing their medicine or treatment regimens assigned by a doctor. People would be heading back to the workplace and other public places before being completely healed of the condition and would begin to infect others by coughing, sneezing and spitting the contagious strain into the air around them.

As of right now it looks as if tuberculosis will never be eradicated on a worldwide stage because of the development of drug-resistant strains. This makes it difficult for doctors to treat their patients because antibiotics will not do the trick in curing the disease.

90 Day Recovery

Drug Rehab





Bone Marrow

Monday 20 October 2008 @ 7:46 pm

Bone marrow is an important part of human life. It is a flexible tissue that is found in the hollow interior of bones. Bone marrow exists in two forms. There is red bone marrow and yellow bone marrow. Almost 100 percent of bone marrow at birth falls into the red bone marrow category. Red bone marrow consists of myeloid tissue, red blood cells, platelets and white blood cells. Yellow bone marrow consists of fat cells and some white blood cells can develop in yellow bone marrow. Both the red and yellow bone marrows contain various capillaries and blood vessels.

The red bone marrow converts itself to yellow bone marrow over time. The red bone marrow can be found in flat bones. Flat bones are found in the hip, the breast, the skull, the ribs, the shoulder blades and vertebrae. Yellow bone marrow is found in the hollow interior of the middle portion of bones. If there is ever a severe condition of blood loss; the body has the ability to convert the yellow bone marrow back to red bone marrow to increase blood cell production.

There are a couple of different diseases involving one’s bone marrow that anyone can develop. Diseases of the bone marrow can develop from an infection or a malignancy. A malignancy is also known as a cancer. One type of infection found to disease bone marrow is called tuberculosis. Tuberculosis leads to the decrease in production of blood cells and blood platelets. Cancer of the bone marrow in a human being is known as a leukemia. Other problems of the bone marrow are anemias, lymphomas and plasma cell disorders. To diagnose these diseases a doctor usually performs a bone marrow aspiration. This can also be known as a biopsy. The site of the aspiration is usually on the back of the hip bone. During the biopsy the doctors test the sample for different signs of cancer or any other infection of the bone marrow.

One treatment for leukemia is a bone marrow transplant. This can be done if a bone marrow donor matches a leukemia patient. Once the bone marrow from the donor is inserted into the body of the patient, if the match is successful, the newly infused cells will help with the production of blood cells. A bone marrow transplant is usually only used when the situation is extremely severe for a leukemia patient. Some leukemia cases can be treated with chemotherapy and radiation techniques.

Www.marrow.org is the website for bone marrow donors. If you wish to become a bone marrow donor or learn more about donating your bone marrow to a foundation to help leukemia patients you should give this website a look. If you aren’t looking to donate bone marrow you can make a financial donation to the foundation to keep it up and running.

Bone marrow diseases and leukemia cannot be prevented. They are treatable but not preventable. They can be caused by the lack of blood cell production or the overproduction of one type of blood cell over the other.

Alcoholic Parents Addicts and Children





Multiple Sclerosis

Monday 20 October 2008 @ 7:45 pm

Multiple sclerosis is a disease of the central nervous system. It occurs when the immune system attacks the central nervous system, which leads to demyelination. A demyelination disease is a disease of the nervous system when the myelin of the neutrons is damaged. Multiple sclerosis usually develops in young adults but can occur in just about any age group. It is most prominent in women. The very first case of multiple sclerosis was discovered in 1868 by Jean-Martin Charcot.

Multiple sclerosis affects the brain and the spinal cord; specifically the myelin sheath that is wrapped around the nerve fibers. These myelin sheaths electrically insulate the nerve fibers when working properly. Despite being discovered over a century ago, there is no known cause of multiple sclerosis. There are ideas that the disease can be caused genetically, by an infection or even by other environmental factors. There is also no known cure for multiple sclerosis. Treatment is used to restore the body to a somewhat normal state after an attack and is used to possibly help prevent any further attacks. Having multiple sclerosis does not affect the life expectancy of patients. MS patients tend to live just as long as the non-affected population.

There are a variety of symptoms that can appear in a person that might have multiple sclerosis but not all of them will appear at once. These symptoms will appear gradually and from time to time. They are weakness, inability to balance or stand, acute or chronic pain, fatigue, muscle spasms, random eye twitching along with bladder and bowl difficulties.

As mentioned earlier, there are some environmental factors that could play a role in the development of multiple sclerosis. They are extreme stress, a decreased exposure to the sunlight, decreased Vitamin D intake and production and even smoking.

There are treatments available today for patients with multiple sclerosis but there is no known cure for the debilitating disease. The main focus of the treatments is to return the body to a normal functioning state, prevent any future attacks and to prevent any disability to the body. Some alternative treatments not used widely by many doctors is a specific diet tailored to the patient, the use of hyperbaric oxygenation and different types of herbal medication.

The prognosis for people with the disease is promising despite no known cure. Almost 40 percent of patients reach the seventh decade of their life and 15 percent of deaths from the disease are directly related to suicide. Over 50 percent of deaths in multiple sclerosis patients is directly related to the consequences of the disease. The majority of patients with multiple sclerosis loss the ability to walk prior to death but 90 percent of patients are still able to walk 10 years after the disease was diagnosed. More over; the number is at 75 percent for people who have had the disease for 15 years.

Multiple sclerosis is a disease that cannot be entirely prevented nor entirely cured. With proper treatment and excellent care patients with the disease can go about living their lives.

California Drug Recovery Recover from Addiction





The History of Medicine

Monday 20 October 2008 @ 7:38 pm

The practice of medicine has been around for centuries. Whether it is used for witchcraft or wizardry or just for the sole purpose of healing; medicine has been a mainstay in the survival of humankind. Medicine is simply defined as the art and science of healing. Practicing medicine involves treating and preventing disease and illness of humans. Medicine treats and prevents disease and illness through medication, surgery and various types of therapy.

The practice of medicine has been going on for hundreds of years. The first medicines were plants, animal parts and minerals. Medicine was practiced early on by shamans, priests and people known as medicine men. The practice of using plants as medicine is known as herbal healing. Herbal healing is still performed today. The Greeks, Egyptians and the Chinese are some of the first civilizations to experiment in the field of medicine.

Medicinal practices have become incredibly advanced over the past hundred years or so. X-rays, MRIs, CT Scans and more testing procedures have been invented. These tests allow doctors and nurses to see the inside of a patient’s body and their organs. Doctors can diagnose an illness such as bronchitis or a disease such as cancer. They can find where a bone is broken or where cartilage is torn and then tailor treatment accordingly.

The advancement of medicine over the years has also helped to save numerous amounts of lives. During the United States Civil War, many soldiers would have a limb or two amputated because of their battlefield injuries. If they survived the surgery, which took place in an open hospital (not in separate rooms), the injury would become infected with gout or other infections. Most of the soldiers that were operated on would die of an infection only days or months later. Medicine was not advanced enough yet to figure out how to successfully perform surgery without causing infection.

Medicinal practices have helped to develop treatments for cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Medicine is still working on cures for diabetes and cancer but with continued research will come close within the next 10 years or so. Doctors are now able to pinpoint the exact location of an illness or a disease and what medicines to use to deter the effects of the illness or disease.

One of the biggest advancements in medicine was the development of penicillin. It was developed in 1928 by Sir Alexander Fleming of Scotland. Penicillin is used to cure tonsillitis, pharyngitis and some skin infections. It is also used to treat gonorrhea, syphilis and cellulitis.

Millions of people have been saved by the advancements of medicine and will continue to be as more and more developments are made in the field of medicine. These advancements can be minute or they could be larger than life like a cure for cancer. If doctors and scientists hadn’t put their time and effort into developing new kinds of medicine then drugs like penicillin might not have ever been invented. Medicines are used to control heart problems, headaches, stomach diseases and sleep disorders to name a few.

College Binge Drinking Drinking On Campus





What is Laryngitis?

Monday 20 October 2008 @ 7:31 pm

Laryngitis is when the larynx becomes inflamed. The voice becomes hoarse and there can possibly be a complete loss of voice because the vocal cords become irritated by the inflammation. Laryngitis can be acute; lasting less than three days or it can be chronic; lasting for more than three weeks.

There are a handful of symptoms for laryngitis:

• Having a dry, sore throat.

• Difficulty swallowing liquids or food.

• Constantly coughing; this ironically can cause laryngitis itself.

• Swelling of the larynx.

• Swollen lymph glands in the throat, face or chest.

• Having a cold or flu-like symptoms; this ironically can also cause laryngitis.

• Suffering from a fever.

When should you see a doctor? If you begin to cough up green or yellow phlegm or even blood; you should consult a doctor immediately. If you have a history of breathing problems, such as having to sit upright while breathing, you should see your doctor as quickly as possible because laryngitis could be a life threatening problem.

There are plenty of causes of laryngitis. They are excessive smoking, coughing, alcohol consumption, an infection from a fungus, inflammation due to overuse of the vocal cords and a viral infection.

There are a variety of different treatments for laryngitis. Some of them are breathing in moist air, resting your voice, drink plenty of fluids, treat the underlying cause of laryngitis and suck on lozenges. You can breath in moist air by sitting in the bathroom with the shower running on hot or putting hot water in a bowl and breathing in the steam. Drinking plenty of fluids helps to prevent dehydration, treating alcoholism or excessive smoking will help rid of laryngitis and sucking on lozenges makes the throat wetter and takes away the dryness and soreness.

Sometimes acid reflux can lead to laryngitis. If so, taking pills to prevent or downplay the symptoms of acid reflux can help against laryngitis. Such pills are Zantac or Prilosec.

With laryngitis, more so young children and older adults, the risk of your throat swelling shut is great. If this occurs get to a hospital as soon as possible. The treatment for a swelled shut throat is a breathing tube being placed in your throat, the patient being placed on a ventilator and the patient will have an IV in them. The IV will be pumping antibiotics and more than likely steroids into the patient’s body.

Laryngitis, like having a cold, is almost impossible to defend against. One precaution most people take is constantly washing their hands before they touch their face or their mouth. Young children should receive the influenza vaccine which can help prevent this sickness which can possibly be deadly for children at a very young age.

If the symptoms of laryngitis do not go away after 2-3 weeks you should consult a doctor again. Why? There is a slim possibility that there could be a tumor in your throat that needs further medical attention before it develops into anything life threatening.

Nebraska Drug Recovery Midwest Alcoholism





What is Leukemia?

Monday 20 October 2008 @ 7:24 pm

Leukemia is a form of cancer that develops in the bone marrow of human beings. Leukemia is usually caused by an uncontrolled production of blood cells. Those blood cells that produce at astronomical rates are the white blood cells. There are two forms of leukemia; acute leukemia and chronic leukemia. Acute leukemia makes the bone marrow extremely crowded and prevents the bone marrow from producing healthy blood cells. This type of leukemia occurs mostly in children and long adults. In children, this is an extremely common cause of death and should be treated immediately. If not treated immediately, the malignant cells will spread to other tissues and organs throughout the body.

Chronic leukemia usually takes months or sometimes even years to develop in one’s body and progress to the state of acute leukemia. Chronic leukemia is most common to occur in older adults but there is the possibility of it occurring in any age group. Once detected, treatment isn’t necessarily needed immediately. Sometimes doctors will hold off on treatment to find the best way to handle the disease after they monitor its development.

There is no definitive way to prevent leukemia but avoiding such risk factors as smoking, avoiding exposure to chemicals and avoiding exposure to radiation might help prevent the development of leukemia.

Below are the symptoms of leukemia:

• Dizziness

• Nausea

• Swollen tonsils

• Fever, chills, night sweats and other flu-like symptoms

• Bone pain

• Joint pain

• Unintentional weight loss

• Paleness

• Weakness and fatigue

• Diarrhea

• Malaise

• Swollen or bleeding gums

• Frequent infection

• Enlarged liver and spleen

• Constant headaches

For each different type of leukemia, acute and chronic, there are different types of treatments. For acute leukemia patients are treated by induction chemotherapy. Induction chemotherapy is when doctors use different medicines to bring about new bone marrow remission. Treatments also include eliminating any remaining leukemia cells; which is called consolidation therapy. There is also preventative therapy. Preventative therapy is the process of preventing the cancer from spreading to the brain and the nervous system. If the patient is not responding to any of these treatments then doctors will recommend a bone marrow transplantation procedure. Many cases of acute leukemia can be cured and some of them might not be cured.

For chronic leukemia there is no definite cure. Most treatments are combined with chemotherapy and medicinal shots of prednisone and prednisolone. Despite the lack of a cure for chronic leukemia, these cases can be controlled for long periods of time without any setbacks.

There are four factors in determining how well the body will respond to leukemia treatment. Those four factors are the age of the patient, the percentages of leukemia cells in the blood and bone marrow, the degree to which specific systems of the body are affected by the leukemia and if there are any chromosome abnormalities in the leukemia cells.

Leukemia patients can seek counseling and support groups through the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute.

Alcohol Abuse Learning Self Reliance





Emphysema; A Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Monday 20 October 2008 @ 7:17 pm

Emphysema is a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease affecting the lungs of human beings. It is more often then not caused by exposure to toxic chemicals. Toxic chemicals does include long term exposure to tobacco smoke. Emphysema happens when the elasticity of the lung tissue is lost. This occurs with the destruction of the alveoli and the capillaries feeding the alveoli. The alveoli is a round structure found within the lung that aids in gas exchange with the blood traveling throughout the body. Symptoms of emphysema include shortness of breath when exercising and when resting, an expanded chest and hyperventilation.

Emphysema is an irreversible condition that causes degeneration of the lungs. The only way to slow the development of emphysema in patients is for the patient to quit smoking immediately and to avoid any tobacco smoke at all costs as well as other toxins harmful to the lungs. Emphysema cannot be cured but it can be prevented. To prevent emphysema people should not smoke, should avoid others who smoke as much as possible and should not inhale any toxins harmful to the lungs. The two types of emphysema are primary and secondary. There are ongoing studies that are currently examining the use of tretinoin, found in Retin-A (an acne medicine), as a possible reversal of emphysema. It has been tested on mice. The mice exhibited a return to elasticity of the lungs. Even though these studies are in their infancy, being conducted by the European Respiratory Journal, there is the possibility that a cure could be developed over time.

Emphysema affects thousands of Americans each and every year and the majority of cases are caused by smoking and other toxins affecting the lungs. Some of the most famous cases of emphysema have come from entertainers, novelists and musicians in the United States.

The most recent emphysema related death from the entertainment industry came in 2005 when late night legend Johnny Carson died from the disease. He passed away on January 23, 2005 from respiratory arrest caused by emphysema. Johnny Carson was the longtime host of “The Tonight Show” and one of the most entertaining comedians of his time. Carson was known for his love of the cigarette. He would constantly light up while filming the show. He appeared a couple of times at public shows with members of the Rat Pack.

Another famous case of emphysema was a member of the aforementioned Rat Pack; Dean Martin. Martin, one of the most soothing voices in the music industry of his time, died on December 25, 1995. He died of acute respiratory failure from emphysema. Martin was also a fan of the cigarette. In all of his movies, TV appearances and night club performances, Dino would always have a cigarette in his hand.

Other famous deaths from emphysema are T.S. Eliot, Richard Yates, Vincent Price, William F. Buckley Jr., Boris Karloff and Fyodor Dostoevsky to name a few. Among them are musicians, novelists, comedians, politicians and civilians. Emphysema cannot be cured but it can be easily prevented by not smoking and avoiding toxic chemicals that harm the lungs.

Washington Drug Recovery DC Substance Abuse





«« Previous Posts