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Northeast
Center for Special Care is pleased to feature:
MedlinePlus
http://medlineplus.gov
There are a lot of sources that you can go to for
health and medical information on the web and this
month we feature
MedlinePlus,
a government funded website that is an excellent
doorway to search for
substantive information about specific diseases
and conditions. MedlinePlus
has been online since 1998. It is a partnership
of the U.S.
National Library of Medicine and the
National
Institutes of Health.
MedlinePlus
maintains a database of information on over seven
hundred diseases and conditions and boasts links to
thousands of articles. Medline
Plus always
is current with new articles added every day and the
entire database is reviewed every six months.
The pages on MedlinePlus
are user-friendly and organized to help you locate
information quickly. A text-link navigation bar
on the left-hand side of each page can help you to
jump to each topic or you can scan the center column
which includes standardized headings.
For instance on the "Spinal
Cord Injuries"
page the list of topics include: Latest News,
From the National Institutes of Health, Overviews,
Diagnosis & Symptoms, Treatment, Rehabilitation
and Recovery, among others. Links to articles
are organized under each heading.
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The
National Library of Medicine, a part of the National
Institutes of Health, created and maintains
MedlinePlus to assist you in locating authoritative
health information. MedlinePlus pages contain
carefully selected links to Web resources with health
information. |
Article
links are from varied sources for example: the "Spinal
Cord Injuries"
page links to articles from the National Institute of
Neurological Disorders and Stroke, American
Occupational Therapy Association, American Spinal
Injury Association, University of Alabama at
Birmingham as well as other reliable sources.
You will find that each specific disease or condition
page contains links to resources from organizations
that have expertise in the particular area.
Another helpful tool on MedlinePlus
is a PubMed search link. On the "Spinal
Cord Injuries" page when you click the PubMed
search link it will return a listing of journal abstracts from
recent articles published in research journals.
You will find this tool under each category of
diseases and conditions.
Another unique feature of MedlinePlus
is the A.D.A.M.
Medical Encyclopedia
which includes over 4,000 articles about diseases,
tests, symptoms, injuries, and surgeries. A.D.A.M.
also contains an extensive library of medical
photographs and illustrations. A.D.A.M. is a
very useful tool. For example the "spinal
cord trauma"
page contains illustrations of vertebrae, cauda equina
and vertebra and spinal nerves. This is followed
by an overview of spinal cord trauma, including
definition, symptoms, treatment, prevention and other
helpful information.
MedlinePlus
also includes a "Drug,
Supplements and Herbal Information"
database. You can easily located information
about any specific drug, over-the-counter medication
or herbal supplement by clicking on alphabetically arranged
links. There are also links to warnings,
recalls, clinical trials and other drug resources.
You can also view health-related news articles from
Reuters Health Information which remain on display for
thirty days and news articles from HealthDay which
remain on display for ninety days.
If all the above wasn't enough, MedlinePlus
includes a Merriam-Webster
Medical Dictionary
that allows you to search for any medical term.
There is a lot more to MedlinePlus
than we have presented here, but the fun of visiting
websites is exploring the information and features
that they contain and you may find that you return to MedlinePlus
again and again. MedlinePlus
is a good resource that has been well-developed over the
years. It is well organized, full of information
and has great tools. Best of all MedlinePlus
is free.
Northeast Center for Special Care is pleased to
present MedlinePlus
as our website of the month for July, 2006. If
you have never used MedlinePlus
this is a good opportunity to become acquainted with the
site and don't forget to bookmark them so you can
visit again.
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