Rabies Awareness Alert for all pets and Livestock.

Once infection occurs, the rabies virus grows in muscle tissue and may go undetected for several days or months. during this incubation (or latent) period, the animal appears healthy and shows no sign of infection.

Usually within 1 to 3 months, the virus migrates to the nerves near the site of the infection and spreads to the spinal cord and brain (i.e., the central nervous system). It usually takes from 12 to 180 days to spread through the peripheral nerves to the central nervous system. At this point, the disease progresses rapidly, and the animal begins to show the classic behavioral signs of rabies. The virus spreads to the saliva, tears, breast milk, and urine. The animal usually dies in 4 or 5 days.

Rabies causes typical symptoms. The infection progresses in a predictable manner, from the initial prodormal phase to the excitative, or furious, phase to the final paralytic phase.

The first sign usually is a change in behavior. Pet owners should be aware that behavioral changes can occur as a result of many conditions, from digestive disorders to poisoning.

Rabid animals usually stop eating and drinking, and may appear to want to be left alone. after the initial onset of symptoms, the animal may become vicious or begin to show signs of paralysis. some rabid animals bite at the slightest provocation and others may be somnolent and difficult to arouse. Once the animal shows signs of paralysis, the disease progresses very quickly and the animal dies.

Prodromal Phase: first Symptoms of Rabies

The early symptoms of rabies tend to be subtle, last 2 to 3 days, and include the following:

• Change in tone of the dog’s bark
• Chewing at the bite site
• Fever
• Loss of appetite
• Subtle changes in behavior

Furious Phase: “mad Dog Syndrome”

The second phase of infection usually lasts 2 to 4 days and not all rabid animals experience it. Animals that enter immediately into the final paralytic phase are sometimes said to have dumb or paralytic rabies. Animals that spend most of their diseased state in the furious phase are sometimes said to have furious rabies. an infected dog may viciously attack any moving object, person, or animal; a caged rabid dog will chew the wire, break their teeth, and try to bite a hand moving in front of the cage. Rabid cats will attack suddenly, biting and scratching. Foxes will invade yards and attack dogs, cows, and porcupines.

They may show the following signs:

Paralytic Phase

The third and final phase of infection usually lasts for 2 to 4 days. Initial symptoms include the following:

• Appearance of choking
• Dropping of the lower jaw (in dogs)
• Inability to swallow, leading to drooling and foaming of saliva (i.e., “foaming at the mouth”)
• Paralysis of jaw, throat, and chewing muscles

Paralysis then spreads to other parts of the body, the animal becomes depressed, rapidly enters a coma and dies.

THURSDAY, Feb. 17 (HealthDay News) — Patients struggling with chronic fatigue syndrome may be helped the most when standard treatment is coupled with cognitive behavior therapy or exercise therapy, new British research suggests.

The apparent promise of cognitive behavior therapy and "graded exercise therapy" offers considerable hope to patients combating the complex condition characterized by profound tiredness, impaired concentration, diminished memory, sleep difficulties and muscle and joint pain, the study authors said.

The findings also support the somewhat controversial notion that incremental adjustments in physical behavior and/or mental attitude can ultimately have a positive impact on the disorder, the authors said.

The standard intervention, known as specialist medical care, is centered around giving patients information about their condition, advice on how to manage symptoms and assistance with coping approaches.

The research team behind the new study found little appreciable benefit with a third alternate therapeutic approach that focuses on helping patients strictly structure their activity and relaxation routines to match their severely reduced energy levels. this strategy, known as "adaptive pacing therapy," assumes that chronic fatigue syndrome is not, in fact, reversible with behavioral changes.

"Patients who received either graded exercise therapy or cognitive behavior therapy reported less fatigue and better function than those who received either adaptive pacing therapy or specialist medical care alone," said study author Dr. Peter D. White, a professor of psychological medicine at Barts and the London School of Medicine, and a psychiatrist at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London.

White and his colleagues report their findings in the Feb. 18 online edition of The Lancet.

The authors noted that it is not yet understood what gives rise to chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

The cognitive behavioral therapy targets the building fear and avoidance of activity that can exacerbate CFS. In effect, it seeks to break a vicious cycle in which mental inhibitions actually perpetuate and aggravate the underlying chronic fatigue.

Exercise therapy, also known as "GET," tries to reduce fatigue and disability by gradually helping patients increase their activity levels to improve their overall physical fitness.

To explore which therapies or combinations of therapies might be best, 641 chronic fatigue patients from four different rehabilitation centers in Britain were divided up into one of four groups. over the course of a year, all got standard specialist medical care, while three of the groups received one additional treatment: pacing therapy, cognitive therapy or exercise therapy.

White and his team found the greatest improvements in terms of both fatigue levels and physical function were experienced by those patients who were treated with standard therapy in combination with either cognitive therapy or exercise therapy.

What's more, patients who got a combination of standard treatment and pacing therapy fared no better than those who got standard treatment alone.

Specifically, 60 percent of the standard/cognitive or standard/GET patients experienced fatigue and function improvements, while 30 percent reported "normal levels" of fatigue and function. half as many of the standard therapy alone or standard/pacing patients reported normal fatigue and function levels.

White noted that all the treatments were equally safe, and serious reactions were rare.

"Patients now have a choice of two moderately effective and safe treatments that can help them towards a healthier life," he said.

Dr. Nancy Klimas, chief medical officer at the Chronic Fatigue Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, noted that the merits of various therapeutic approaches to chronic fatigue syndrome are still a matter of debate.

"But here Dr. White is saying that cognitive behavioral therapy and graded exercise are moderately helpful, but not curative," she said. "and I would agree with that."

"On the other hand, it's also important to note that when we talk about helping patients increase their activity levels, we're talking about people who have very limited amounts of energy," Klimas added. "and you have to work within this 'energy envelope,' because if you push beyond the threshold they will relapse. So often, what we're talking about is about five minutes of exercise before taking a rest."

"In any case, I look at this as a first step," she said, "and anticipate more effective therapies, based on a better understanding of the biology of the illness, in the future."

More information

For more on chronic fatigue syndrome, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

ScienceDaily (Jan. 18, 2011) — Many risk factors for breast cancer are well studied and documented. thus, scientists are sure by now that early first menstrual period, late onset of menopause and a family history of breast cancer are associated with an increased breast cancer risk.

However, neither an individual woman nor medicine can influence whether family members develop breast cancer or at what age menopause starts — these are risk factors on which we have no influence. Scientists of the German Cancer Research Center in the team of Associate Professor (PD) Dr. Karen Steindorf and Professor Dr. Jenny Chang-Claude, jointly with Professor Dr. Dieter Flesch-Janys of Hamburg Eppendorf University Hospitals, have been searching for risk factors which can be influenced by changes in lifestyle and behavior.

"58,000 women in Germany are diagnosed with breast cancer each year," says Jenny Chang-Claude."therefore, a key question is whether there are behavioral changes that might help to lower the disease risk. our study aims to determine the percentage of cases where these avoidable risk factors are responsible."

The researchers focused on aspects such as taking hormones for relief of menopausal symptoms (hormone replacement therapy), physical activity, overweight and alcohol consumption. All these lifestyle factors have been identified in prior studies as possible risk factors for the development of breast cancer.

In their current MARIE study, which is supported by Deutsche Krebshilfe (German Cancer Aid), the epidemiologists studied 6,386 female controls along with 3,074 patients who had been diagnosed with breast cancer after the onset of menopause. On the basis of these data, the scientists calculated the percentage of cancer cases that is attributable to a particular risk factor (or a particular combination of several risk factors).

Of the modifiable lifestyle factors, it is primarily hormone replacement therapy and a lack of physical activity which increase a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer. Alcohol consumption and overweight were found to have less influence on breast cancer risk. thus, 19.4 percent of invasive postmenopausal breast cancer are attributed to hormone replacement therapy; 12.8 percent to a lack of physical activity. Both factors together are responsible for 29.8 percent of breast cancer cases. When the investigators took a separate look at the group of patients whose tumors have receptors for sex hormones (hormone receptor-positive breast tumors), they determined an even higher value of 37.9 percent. The study leaders emphasize that these results reflect the situation in Germany with our typical lifestyle and may differ in countries with other lifestyles.

Non-modifiable factors such as family history or age at first and last menstrual period account for 37.2 percent in total of all malignant postmenopausal breast cancers. "that means that two factors which each woman has in her own hands are responsible for a similar number of postmenopausal breast cancer cases as the non-modifiable factors," Karen Steindorf says. "if behavioral changes in these two areas could be brought about, almost 30 percent of breast cancers after menopause could be prevented." therefore, the DKFZ researchers recommend women to take more exercise and to refrain from hormone replacement therapy, unless it is absolutely necessary.

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The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Journal Reference:

1. Benjamin B.E. Barnes, Karen Steindorf, Rebecca Hein, Dieter Flesch-Janys, Jenny Chang-Claude. Population attributable risk of invasive postmenopausal breast cancer and breast cancer subtypes for modifiable and non-modifiable risk factors. Cancer Epidemiology, 2010; DOI: 10.1016/j.canep.2010.11.003

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Disclaimer: this article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.