This student report is about neutering male and female cats and compares early ageneutering to neutering at the traditional age of 6 months.The main focus in this report is early age neutering, which means that neutering isperformed when the kittens are between 6 and 16 weeks of age. This technique has beenused by shelters in the United States for a long time, to prevent the adopted cats fromreproduce and contribute to the problem of overpopulation.Two different surgical methods are also addressed; the ventral midline incision and thelateral flank approach. Ovariohysterectomy and ovariectomy are also compared.I also address which drugs are preferable when kittens are neutered and some importantguidelines where you have to be extra careful when dealing with kittens.These guidelines are the preanesthetic evaluation, calculating drug dosages and preventinghypothermia, hypoglycaemia and stress.The report also has a summary of the concerns regarding early age neutering such asanaesthetic risks, growth disorders and growth plate fractures, urologic diseases andimmune system dysfunction, obesity, altered metabolism and behavioural changes.The sex hormones and how they change after neutering is also included.At the end of the report there is a compilation of a questionnaire that consists of eightquestions that I sent out to various animal hospitals and veterinary clinics in Sweden..

ABSTRACTThe discussions about energy use have increased year by year everywhere in the society, and so also in the healthcare sector. But what is actually energy use in a hospital facility, and what affects it?The typical way today to express the energy use is in kWh/m2. The problem with a key performance indicator that is expressed as energy use in relation to a specific area is that it does not take into account the activity in the building. Even though the activity to a very high extent affects the energy use.

ABSTRACTThe discussions about energy use have increased year by year everywhere in the society, and so also in the healthcare sector. But what is actually energy use in a hospital facility, and what affects it?The typical way today to express the energy use is in kWh/m2. The problem with a key performance indicator that is expressed as energy use in relation to a specific area is that it does not take into account the activity in the building. Even though the activity to a very high extent affects the energy use.

As a pet owner you are likely to someday face the decision to euthanize your pet and as a veterinarian or veterinary technician you are the one to perform this euthanasia. The reason for euthanasia may be depending on the animal, for instance illness, age and behavioral problems or depending on the needs of the owner or the society, so called convenience euthanasia. Many different euthanasia methods can be used when putting an animal to sleep. The method preferred in animal hospitals is pharmacological euthanasia either by inhalation of anesthetics or by injection of a euthanasia agent. If the pet owner wishes to be present during the procedure it is important to prepare him for what will happen. Many animals are sedated before the euthanasia in order to reduce anxiety and to ensure a softer transition between life and death. The euthanasia agent can then be administrated for instance intravenously or intraperitonealy.

In the middle of the 19th century came an opposite reaction against the hospitals? treatment of their patients and a more human way was requested. A link between crowded housing, bad hygien and other bad conditions had been noticed and nature was considered to be healthy. Hospitals and sanatiories moved closer to nature due to influences from England, USA and Germany, and cities began building public parks. Employment was seen as calming and healthy for the patients.

Botulism is a serious disease with high mortality that can affect horses. Due to this about 20-30 percent of the horses in Sweden are vaccinated against botulism. The purpose of this study was to see how common botulism is in the Swedish horse population and to se if a connection between feeding with haylage and botulism could be seen. In addition to this, the study aimed to find how common vaccination against botulism is among Swedish horses and on what grounds the diagnosis botulism is made. Medical records of horses being diagnosed with botulism at all the major large animal hospitals in Sweden between 1995-2005 were searched. In addition to this the database where general practitioners report their cases as well as the cases with botulism reported to the insurance companies were included. The results of this study show that only 0,03 percent of the Swedish horse population has been diagnosed with botulism during the time period this study covers. In all the cases included in this study the diagnosis was made based on clinical signs and in none of the cases verification by isolating the toxin was possible. In all cases where forage is noted in the journals the horse has been feed haylage which indicate that there is a connection between the use of haylage and botulism. Three horses died despite being partially vaccinated against botulism type B which indicate that a correct vaccination has to be done before the horse get any protection or that the correct diagnosis was not botulism type B..

Aim: The aim of present study was to determine the frequency of taste and smell disorders occuring in patients receiving chemotherapy for cancer. Methods: The study was of an empirical cross sectional quantitative descriptive design. During one month, consecutive cancer patients at outpatient units in two Swedish hospitals were asked to participate in the study by completing a questionnaire that had been developed previously for a similar study. All participants had undergone at least 1 cycle of intravenous chemotherapy or  a minimum of seven days of oral chemotherapy. Results: A total of 102 patients completed the questionnaire.

Introduction: Good hand hygiene practice is the single most important measure to reduce the spread of bacteria and viruses in healthcare. For nurses, this has become more important as the spread of multidrug-resistant bacteria in hospitals is increasingObjective: To identify factors that are important for adherence to hand hygiene among health care workers with patient contact.Method: Systematic literature review. Original articles were searched in PubMed and Cinahl.Results: Factors of importance for compliance was profession, lack of time, knowledge/education, physical work environment, attitudes toward hand hygiene, and dry hands.Conclusion: More education, less workload and more visible placement of hand disinfectant containers are examples of actions that could lead to the improvement of staff hand hygiene and reduce the incidence of healthcare associated infections. Due to the fact that health care workers around the world have different training and approaches, the result of this study may be difficult to use. To increase adherence to hand hygiene, a similar study limited to a specific country, such as Sweden, would therefore be interesting to carry through.Keywords: hand hygiene, Infection Control, Compliance..

There are several different kinds of bacteria that has developed resistance against the antibiotic agents used in todays medicine. Most of them has evolved from the human health care but several of them has gone over to also cause problems in the animal health care. They often occur as nosocomial infections and the greatest risk of exposure to them is during health care. Since infections with a resistant bacterium can be difficult to treat, it is desirable to prevent this spread, especially since an animal treated in a hospital often is more susceptible to infection, due to their primary condition. In Sweden the current resistance situation is good and is yearly monitored by the Swedish Veterinary Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring (SVARM) programme.

SammanfattningBakgrund:Tidigare litteratur beskriver att sjuksköterskor frekvent blir utsatta för våld på sin arbetsplats. Våldshandlingar orsakar spänningar i förhållandet mellan sjuksköterskor och patienter, vilket har negativa effekter på omvårdnaden.Syfte: Syftet med föreliggande studie var att beskriva bakgrundsfaktorer till att patienter och anhöriga utövar våld mot sjuksköterskor och annan vårdpersonal på sjukhus.Metod: En litteraturstudie med deskriptiv design, som inkluderade 15 artiklar. Artiklarna hittades i databaserna PubMed och Cinahl, sökorden som användes var Nurses, Patients, Hospitals, Workplace, Violence och Factors.Resultat: Huvudresultatet från denna studie var att bakgrundsfaktorer till våldshandlingar var höga arbetskrav på personal, långa väntetider, tid på dygnet, demografiska faktorer, substanspåverkan, påverkan av hälsotillstånd och inställning till sjukvården.Slutsats: Författaren till föreliggande litteraturstudie fann att de bakgrundsfaktorer som beskrevs till att patienter och anhöriga utövade våldshandlingar mot sjuksköterskor grundade sig i missnöje över vården eller att patienter och anhörigas beteenden påverkades av tillfälliga omständigheter. Det är av vikt att lyfta fram detta forskningsområde då det har en direkt påverkan på omvårdnad..

ABSTRACTThe discussions about energy use have increased year by year everywhere in the society, and so also in the healthcare sector. But what is actually energy use in a hospital facility, and what affects it?The typical way today to express the energy use is in kWh/m2. The problem with a key performance indicator that is expressed as energy use in relation to a specific area is that it does not take into account the activity in the building. Even though the activity to a very high extent affects the energy use.

During the years 2005-2007 several cases of abnormal bleeding were seen after surgery in Bengal cats on veterinary clinics and animal hospitals in Sweden. In this study we have examined if the observed bleedings are due to an inherited defect of the coagulation cascade. Ten Bengal cats were tested for activated partial thromboplastin time (P-APT-time) and one-stage protrombin time (P-PK), and nine of these cats were tested for fibrinogen quantity (P-fibrinogen). Four of the tested cats had shown signs of an abnormal bleeding after surgery, and five of the cats were genetically related to these cats. One cat had a small bleeding wound at the internal base of the right auricle.

Lameness localized to the hoof is a common problem in horses. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as a diagnostic tool is becoming more common and is well suited for examination of the distal limb and the hoof capsule. Today there are two different methods of MRI where in one the horse is under general anesthesia and in the other the horse is standing and only sedated. In this study we have compared the visualization of the distal interphalangeal joint using these two methods in two different groups of horses with unknown clinical problems referred to two different equine hospitals. The width of the joint structures including thickness of joint cartilage and joint fluid and also the width of the dorsal pouch of the distal interphalangeal joint were measured.

ABSTRACTThe discussions about energy use have increased year by year everywhere in the society, and so also in the healthcare sector. But what is actually energy use in a hospital facility, and what affects it?The typical way today to express the energy use is in kWh/m2. The problem with a key performance indicator that is expressed as energy use in relation to a specific area is that it does not take into account the activity in the building. Even though the activity to a very high extent affects the energy use.

Cancer is one of the most feared diseases in veterinary medicine today, and the incidence is higher than ever due to the fact that our companion animals live longer then they did ten to twenty years ago. Cancer is also one of the most common causes of mortality in older companion animals. This literature review will be about two of the currently most common form of cancer treatment of companion animals in Swedish animal hospitals, chemotherapy and radiation therapy. There will also be a section of general nursing care for cancer patients. The section of chemotherapy will describe the indications for choosing chemotherapy, the way to administrate chemotherapeutic drugs, describe specific chemotherapeutic drugs, potential side effects of chemotherapy, and how to handle and store chemotherapeutic drugs safely. The section of radiation therapy will describe the current devices for delivering radiation therapy, describe the indications for choosing radiation therapy and describe potential side effects that radiation therapy may cause.