humor – Page 29 – Go Retire Psychiatrist

Do You Really Need to Walk 10,000 Steps a Day?

Since we got this little step counter, I’ve been paying more attention to how I exercise. The step counter will even track steps when I juggle—probably because I drop balls often enough to chase after them a lot.

And then I ran across the 10,000 steps as a benchmark for walking to keep healthy. I get about 3,000 steps during a typical 30-minute exercise session, which I do at least 5 days a week. Most people probably know that the CDC recommends that older adults spend 150 minutes as week (5 days a week for about 30 minutes a day) of moderate-intensity exercise.

That includes walking, jogging, wrestling Bigfoot, things like that. Muscle strengthening and balance are also important.

The 10,000-step thing (or 4,000-6,000 steps for older adults) puzzled me a little. The 10,000-step goal has an interesting story behind it. It turns out that around the time of the 1964 Tokyo Olympic games, that 10,000 steps goal had no scientific basis and was a marketing gimmick for selling the early pedometers.

In fact, if you really use your imagination, you might see how the Japanese character for 10,000 looks a little like a man walking—a stick man. The meter was called a Manpo-kei which literally translates to 10,000 steps.

Just walking 10,000 steps a day as a health goal probably doesn’t have a lot of scientific support. But you can increase the intensity of walking to get more benefit, such as walking up stairs or using a step platform, which I use nowadays. As a consultation-liaison psychiatrist, I walked all over an 8-floor hospital. I would usually use the stairs, often well over 20 flights pretty much every day.

I think the other way to make walking a more vigorous exercise is to develop and practice the well-known technique of silly walking, documented in the Ministry of Silly Walks documentary.

Monty Python

Jim Updates His Workout and Adds a Step Counter!

Since we added the step platform, I’ve been wondering how to count steps when I use it because for some reason my smartphone step counter won’t count steps when I try to use it on the platform.

Sena got a handy step counter and it works! It works if you have it in your pocket or wear it on neck with a lanyard.

I usually practice juggling patterns as a warm up to exercising. I’m still working on the shower pattern. Progress is slow.

My exercise routine takes a half hour. Following that I sit for mindfulness meditation for 30 minutes. We are still using our anti-Peloton exercise bike. I do one leg stands for a minute on each leg. I still do floor yoga, body weight squats, planks, and dumbbells. I still count my own steps on the platform: 50 steps alternating right and left leg four times (200 steps). The counter number varies between 170-200 or so.

As a review, a recently published study found that climbing 5 flights of stairs (approximately 50 steps) was associated with a lower risk of ASCVD types independent of disease susceptibility (Song et al, see reference below). There was a threshold effect of stair climbing in the study, meaning the benefit was lost if you went over a certain number of “floors.” Going over 15 or 20 didn’t gain much for subjects. A flight was 10 stair steps.

Step up!

Reference:

Song Z, Wan L, Wang W, Li Y, Zhao Y, Zhuang Z, Dong X, Xiao W, Huang N, Xu M, Clarke R, Qi L, Huang T, Daily stair climbing, disease susceptibility, and risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease: A prospective cohort study, Atherosclerosis (2023)

Fake Snakes Saga Slithers On

The fake snake saga continues with not much change in scaring off birds, evidently. Bird poop calling cards are still being left.

I repositioned them and we’re hoping for the best.

This reminds me that the other night I was awakened by what I was pretty sure was an owl and dogs raising a ruckus at each other. I thought there was either one or two dogs trying to imitate the owl.

I don’t think it was the other way around. There is an owl that barks like a dog, but I believe it’s found only in Australia. I think it barks because it can’t stop eating vegemite, which makes it think it’s a dog.

Snakes don’t make noises generally, other than hissing sounds unless they’ve been abducted by extraterrestrials. The ETs conduct genetic experiments on them and that’s how they came up with the reptilians—who bark like owls.

Thoughts on a Study of Sitting with Your Patients

I saw this interesting article on a study about the effect of chair placement on physicians’ behavior when in a patient’s room, specifically whether it altered the length of time a doctor spends with a patient or the level of satisfaction patients had with the interaction. In this study, it didn’t lengthen the time, but seemed to strengthen patient satisfaction with interaction with the physician. It’s a concept I recognize because I took this one level up—I carried my chair with me on hospital rounds in my role as a consultation-liaison psychiatrist.

I got a gift of a 3-legged camp stool from a colleague who ran the palliative care service at University of Iowa hospital. Other members of the palliative team had been using them as well.

Patients got a big kick out of a doctor who carried his chair around with him and actually sat down to talk with them. The way the camp stool folds up apparently made it look like nunchucks to some patients, so I got jokes about that occasionally. It really helped build rapport.

The only drawback with the camp stool was that my one of my legs would go numb the longer I sat on it, and could lead to a challenge getting up from it gracefully because it was partly a balancing act. Even so, I often spent much more than 10-15 minutes with patients.

Once, the stool actually broke and I dropped unceremoniously on my butt while evaluating a patient for catatonia—who proved not to be catatonic by the apparent facial expression of mirth as I fell on the floor. In that sense, the chair actually became a part of the evaluation—accidentally.

Thomas Hackett knew all about this. He was a famous consultation-liaison psychiatrist and a past president of the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry (ACLP). One of his quotes from an early edition of the Massachusetts General Hospital Handbook of General Hospital Psychiatry fits perfectly in this context:

“As a matter of courtesy, I sit down when interviewing or visiting patients. Long accustomed to the ritual of making rounds, many physicians remain standing as a matter of course. Standing, physicians remind me of missiles about to be launched, poised to depart. Even if that is not necessarily true, they look the part. Patients sense this and it limits conversation. In addition, when standing, the physician necessarily looks down on the patient. This disparity in height is apt to encourage the attribution of arrogance. Looking down at a patient who is prone emphasizes the dependency of the position. Sitting at the bedside equalizes station. Sitting with a patient need not take longer than standing with him.”— Hackett, T. P., MD (1978). Beginnings: liaison psychiatry in a general hospital. Massachusetts General Hospital: Handbook of general hospital psychiatry. T. P. Hackett, MD and N. H. Cassem, MD. St. Louis, Missouri, The C.V. Mosby Company: 1-14.

Reference: Effect of chair placement on physicians’ behavior and patients’ satisfaction: randomized deception trial BMJ 2023; 383 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2023-076309 (Published 15 December 2023)

CDC ACIP Meeting on the RSV Vaccine and Some Dad Jokes

We watched the section of the CDC ACIP meeting about RSV vaccines on February 29, 2024. There was a lot of discussion on the safety of the vaccine. It looks like it will still have a requirement that you have a shared clinical decision-making meeting with your physician. I think that still implies you’d need a prescription. However, there are only a handful of states which would require a prescription from your doctor. Iowa is one of them.

That made the comment by one of the committee participants thought provoking. I believe she got the RSV vaccine from a pharmacist, who asked no questions. There was no shared clinical decision-making discussion with that pharmacist.

But there was a discussion during the meeting with a pharmacist who was in the room. She made it clear that pharmacists had plenty of training (“20 hours” along with additional learning) and could handle the shared clinical decision-making piece with patients.

Sena and I have had all of our vaccines including the Covid-19 shots administered by pharmacy techs. I hardly know what the pharmacists look like because they are a blur, managing the drive-up window and all other customers. It’s clear that a large proportion of vaccines are available at most pharmacies and the techs give the shots. They are pleasant and happy to apply the Band-Aid.

You can’t even telephone the pharmacy and talk to a live person. Sometimes you’ll get a recording which replies to most of your questions with “Sorry, I didn’t get that. Did you say you want a vaccine or a cheeseburger with fries?” Scheduling vaccine appointments are generally done on line. Scheduling a visit with the pharmacist is probably not easier than scheduling one with your doctor, who might confuse you with “the colonoscopy” in room 5.

I’ve looked at the health care professional section on the CDC website pertaining to the age and medical conditions necessary to qualify for getting the RSV vaccine. I’m pretty sure I’m in the right age category, although I stopped keeping track after the evolution of asparagus. I don’t have any chronic medical conditions, unless you count dad jokes. I exercise, juggle, take only a multivitamin a day, meditate, and regularly leap tall buildings in a single bound. I’m pretty sure I don’t need the RSV vaccine, but what do I know? I’m a retired psychiatrist.

It looks like the risk of getting Guillain-Barre Syndrome (pronounced “GBS”) is not zero and may or may not be associated with the RSV vaccine. It’s pretty clear that 2 of the 3 major manufacturers of the vaccine who attended the meeting were pretty sensitive to any hints their product might have anything to do with GBS and might challenge you to a no holds barred thumb wrestling match if you say otherwise.

We think there’s a long way to go before everybody’s clear on who gets the RSV vaccine and when, and also where. But you can’t get it at the pharmacy drive up window.

Rubber Snake Trick for Pesky Birds So Far

So far, the rubber snakes are not scaring off the birds. We have the telltale evidence for their continued visits to our porch.

It’s only a couple of days. We moved them around to see if that fools the birds into thinking the snakes are real.

The Rubber Snake Trick to Scare Pesky Birds

Our porch is a favorite roosting spot for little birds. But they don’t just roost there. They leave certain things behind.

So, Sena bought some rubber snakes. I think we’ll know quickly whether they work. On the other hand, experts say that you need to move them around every so often so birds don’t figure out they’re not real.

I figure they’re worth a try, as long as extraterrestrials don’t abduct them. We could always kick it up a notch if they don’t work.

High as a Kite!

We heard about the marketing of a new cannabis product in Iowa. A company called Climbing Kites makes a beverage that contains low concentration THC and it’s legal to buy it as long as the percentage of Delta 9 THC is not above 0.3%. Their website says funny things like “Fly High: All Buzz, No Booze.” However, it’s not legal to make it in Iowa. So, you just have to make believe you’re drinking it. Just kidding, sort of.

No, seriously, while it’s true it has to be made in Minnesota and shipped back to Iowa, you can buy it in Iowa legally as long as you’re over 21 years old and don’t mind going to prison for 20 years if you’re caught with an open container of the beverage while driving. Relax, that’s a joke. Have another drink! There’s a FAQ web page on the Climbing Kites web site. It’s Iowa’s first THC drink.

That doesn’t mean recreational marijuana is legal in Iowa, at least not yet. Several surrounding states are, though, including Missouri, Illinois, and Minnesota. There’s an interesting article on the future for marijuana legalization in Iowa.

Marijuana is still not legal at the federal level, though. It’s still classified as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act. While there is some conflict between the states that legalize recreational marijuana and the federal government, the federal government is not hustling to prosecute in those states.

It’s been a while since I tried marijuana, which really only caused me to think I could feel every blade of grass (the kind you mow) under my feet. It was before the evolution of the paramecium and, as luck would have it, before the invention of matches. This meant I had to chew the marijuana, leading to a gas attack which attracted a pack of dinosaurs. Of course, my gas attack is what led to the first mass extinction of the large reptiles resulting in the formation of the first mammals, who traded the marijuana for cell phones with the Extraterrestrials. It’s hard to know who got over on that deal because mammals came down with the zombie scrolling fixation while the ETs got a case of the stucks, suddenly becoming unable to remember how to drive their spaceships or make basic decisions about abducting cattle or mutilating soybeans. As you know, that led to all the UFO crashes on the planet, eventually making it necessary to hire the Bigfoot clan to re-educate them about how to traverse multiple dimensions in space-time enabling the collection of massive amounts of beef jerky supplies. History tells us this didn’t work out well for the ETs because their mouths are way too small to eat beef jerky.

There are many ways to get high as a kite; the substance high, the runner’s high, the writer’s high, and more. Weighing the good and the bad about them is a difficult task.

Sweethearts on a February Stroll

Yesterday, we went out for a walk because it was a pretty nice day for February. All the snow was pretty much gone. We saw a hawk who also saw us. We approached the tree it was perched in very slowly. It tolerated our attention until we got too close for comfort—and flapped off in a huff.

It was a nice enough day to walk all the way out to the Sitting Man and beyond. Others were out taking in the sun as well. It’s good to do simple things; things like walking in the sun, drinking iced coffee, eating zucchini bread, waving at UFOs.

You know how it is.

Civil or Uncivil Bird Society

We caught sight of several birds engaged in the usual interactions with each other and their prey (in the case of the hawk). Call it civil or uncivil society, it’s natural no matter how you see it.

I’m going to call it a Red-tailed Hawk that caught a gray squirrel and had a tough time managing to eat it or even carry it up a tree.

We saw a male Cardinal nip a sparrow who was dining a little too close to him on a tree. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess it was a White-throated Sparrow.

We a Black-capped Chickadee flitting around and a couple of wild turkeys trudging through the snow. The turkeys seemed to be almost encouraging each other at times.

Music Credit for video:

Call to Adventure – Comedy by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1300022

Artist: http://incompetech.com/