Attempt to stop teen teen smoking

We all know that smoking makes you look really cool these days and who doesn't want to look the coolest ... well Teens of course.

Japan have rolled out a cigarette machine that is supposed to verify if you are of age to smoke or not. How this worked is the machine has a face recognition camera that supposedly can detect your age. Interesting enough, and of course it's in Japan where they are quite good a finding ideas for things via technology.

So now these machines have been rolled out onto the street and they did seem to be working until someone figured out a way to hack it. How you ask? Well the kids are able to use a picture of a someone older and hold it up to the machine and look at there you are verified.

Here is the link to the article: Linky

Why did I post this, well it relates to smoking and the fight against it. And of course us RT's are anti-smokers right! Just thought it was interesting and fun. People are trying to cut down smoking.


Enjoy.

Does smoking drive our profession?

Is it possible that smoking drives out profession? Is it also possible that the patient load of our profession could be decreasing significantly in the future?

This is just maybe a theory I have thought about but let me explain myself. If you look at the patients who we give nebulizer tx's to on a regular basis the majority of them are COPDer's and Asthmatics in trouble. Now say we cut out the COPDers and notice how much our census will drop because to me it seems that I see more COPDers than I do asthmatics so if we see less of them our census goes down right, also with more education and better use of medications there can be less of the admitted in the hospital. Here is a article showing this.

Self-Management Education for COPD Patients Cuts Hospital Admissions

There are a couple of sites that have shown that study that I have found, but I'm only going to post one for now.

Another way to look at my thoughts on how our census will decrease in the future goes like this: The majority of COPDers in the world are of a older age. Now here is where my thinking comes in so stay with me, but it shouldn't be that hard. Due to the fact that the COPDers are older and there wasn't a whole lot of education on the harmful effects of cigarette smoking at that time versus the education there is now (seriously the military packages cigarettes with the soldiers meals in WW2) and the perception of smoking has in the United States in today's day and age. It's getting banned everywhere, the price is increasing, there are warnings everywhere, you have to be a certain age, and it's almost getting to the point where it is illegal to smoke anywhere anymore. All of this in my opinion equals less COPDers in the future which will in turn should decrease the census for nebulizer treatments with COPD patients.

Lets look a little deeper now also. In the past there was asbestosis which caused respiratory problems and this is now outlawed. Different jobs that have fumes that can be inhaled are not required by OSHA for the personnel that do these jobs to wear a mask that filters out these fumes which can cause respiratory issues for example automobile painters which have the paint that can be inhaled. These precautions can cause a decrease of people with lung problem due to inhaled fumes, particles or whatever is able to be inhaled at certain jobs.

Well there you have it my ideas on how our job census will decrease in the future, basically when the current population over 65 passes on there is a possibility of a decrease in patients due to education and studies of smoking and harmful inhalants. According to this study Half of elderly patients discharged from hospital following a first admission for COPD are dead within 3 to 7 years. So that right there could show that it really might not take to long.

Remember this is in no way a scientific study but just a thought I have had, but I would love to hear anybody else's opinion on these ideas. Of course there are also the studies about air pollutants causing COPD like symptoms in people also, so maybe if we don't get green enough as a country it will stay the same but the cause will be different.

Drive on RT's