About The Islander. (St. Simons Island, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (April 27, 2009)
THE ISLANDER, APRIL 27, 2009, PAGE 7 (News to Q-CeCv The Best is Yet to Be By Clark Gillespie M.D., Professor Emeritus, the University of Arkansas Anxiety - Today and Always In the eyes of many historical observ ers of our human travail, the profound state of man (and I suppose, as well, of our beloved women) regularly harbors inconstancy, boredom, and anxiety. Accepting that philosophical harboring, and disregarding a zillion other of our brain’s docking sights - some of which we may have already and forever been entangled with - we only have room here and now to explore one of these named mental cargoes - anxiety. And even at that, only certain anxieties. The anxiety emotion is provided to us as a great protective shield - a shield that we personally recognize as fear. For instance, when we walk a dark alley alone at night the anxiety force heightens all of our protective and guardian senses in order to help keep us from harm - and hopefully getting us the hell back out of there. But that guardianship normally recedes when the risk is past and, like an armament is, for the time, put aside. Unfortunately, that is not always so - particularly amongst us seniors. While the current political and finan cial state of our lives is drenched in anxious turmoil and instability, and while our senior years are alone, in the best of times, fraught with dark alleys of illness, frailty, and separation - in all these times chronic anxiety - fear - can only add to such torments instead of serving us in the proper role as a guardian. It is certain then, that chronic anxi ety states tend to cloud senior life, health, and well-being. Genetic history and family heritage may both play a role in chronic anxiety development, but whatever the source, such a state abounds in negative beliefs. We are negative about our personal life and well-being, about our future, our loved ones future, and about the operations of the world around us - negative and constantly worried about it all. Inevitably, depression often grows out of such anxious environments. Seniors who are forever anxiety- involved share two compartments. First, and most commonly, Generalized Anxiety Disorders (GAD), and then Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD). The second and most uncommon condition - SAD - embraces anxiety present only when social and any inter-personal activity looms or actually occurs. GAD, on the other hand, is with its bearers always - even during sleep - which itself is often here difficult and perverse. We are further burdened with hardships in task-focusing, with disorganization, and with easy dis- tractibility which itself forces concen tration loss. Such a chronically disassembled mental lifestyle has, as well, signifi cant damaging potentials on our gen eral systemic health and physical well being. As with almost every health condi tion afflicting us, exercise and medita tion resources are high on the healing arm - and that is their proper position. Many other individual activities are also available to assist us in returning anxiety to its proper post, (see helpme- withanxiety.com) but very often profes sional help and guidance may be the way we have to go. Specific medications have been mar keted which are compounded to deal with depression and anxiety. When these drugs are successful they may be all that our bodies need to control our private mental assaults. In other situ ations, however, further consultation and care with a psychiatrist are the very best way to go. These physicians have, in their armamentarium, a relatively recent approach known as “cognitive therapy” which, amongst its many attributes, may be the best way to rid us of GAD. Here is a jumbled summary about how this humble doctor thinks that cognitive therapy works: Basically, it involves a deep col laboration between the bearer and the psychiatrist in order to identify and change that bearer’s basic dysfunction al thinking, behavior, and emotional responses. It holds that our thoughts cause our feelings and behavior, and not external things, people, events and situations. The benefit of this apparent fact is that we can change the way we think in order to ultimately feel and act bet ter - even if the situations and events do not change. Such a basic thought revolution requires the psychiatrist’s direction to re-enforce this dramatic change of our primary thinking and our eventual evolution into a new and sanguine thought-style. Such fundamental thought re-evalu- ations are generally resisted by us in initial therapeutic sessions, and it is the therapists prime work to help us overcome that strong dalliance of ours in our old destructive thoughts, so that the new cognitive processes may be harvested and absorbed into our daily being. Fear, as we need to understand, is Orthopaedic surgeons at the Southeast Georgia Health System Brunswick Campus were among the first in the country to perform MAKOplasty®, a minimally invasive partial knee resurfacing procedure used to treat early to mid-stage osteo arthritis of the knee. Now they are utilizing the next generation of the robotic arm system by MAKO Sur gical Corp., the new RIO™ Robotic Arm Interactive Orthopaedic Sys tem. With RIO™ and the new knee implants designed specifically for use with the system, the minimally inva sive MAKOplasty® procedure is now available to a larger pool of patients. Previously, the procedure was avail able to treat only the inner portion of the knee. The RIO™ System now makes possible resurfacing of the inner (medial), top (patellofemoral) an important survival tool. It guides us and helps us make decisions that protect our lives and well-being. It spares us from pain, potential injury and death. We are actually more strongly moti vated to avoid pain than pursue plea sure - that may ring a bell! Anyway, I believe we may now see that a pro longed fear state has the potential to overwhelm us and its role in chronic anxiety is certainly itself overwhelm ing. Thus it behooves us to get out of that larceny as quickly as possible. Mark Twain described the feelings of us anxiety sufferers very well when he proclaimed - “I have been through some terrible things in my life - some of which actually happened.” “I or both components of the knee. During the procedure, the surgeon uses the robotic arm, which provides tactile, acoustic and visual feedback, to limit the bone preparation to the diseased areas. This provides opti mal implant placement. The goal of this minimally invasive procedure is to restore the patient’s natural knee motion with as little bone cut ting and tissue trauma as possible, for a more natural feeling knee post operatively and a rapid recovery. Also performing the surgery at the Brunswick Campus are orthopaedic surgeons Denny Carter, MD, J. Mel vin Deese, MD, and J. Kevin Brooks, MD. For information about the RIO™ System or to make an appointment, call Drs. Deese, Carter, or Sasser at 912-262-9961 or Dr. Brooks at 912- 265-9006. □ YOUR J, Revedl d more rddidnt you. By the time you are 35, your skin may make you feel and look much older which hides your natural glow. facials and mild, medium and deeper chemical peels can remove damaged layers of skin lo restore a more youthful and healthy appearance. la personalized skin analysis by our trained aesthetic "ecialist, Deborah Rodi, RN. She will help determine Ithat fits you best. To learn more, call 9 12.634.1993. /OURS ^ECIALTY ,, _\Golden Isles 'Center for Plastiqsurgerx pc Dialf C. Bovvfv MD Ire Drive St. Simons Island, GA 31522 www.drdianebowen.com Health System offers latest minimally invasive knee surgery
