Australian Doctor Australian Doctor 28th July 2017 | Page 31

This Week
PIC
OF THE
WEEK
QUOTES OF
THE WEEK
FRANCE What’s red and blue
and lumpy all over? An elite
cyclist’s legs in the Tour De
France, as shown by Polish
cyclist Pawel Poljanski, who
posted this photo of his legs
to social media last week.
“After 16 stages I think my legs
look little tired {sic}” he said,
with a picture of his veiny,
sunburnt limbs. Elite cyclists
have 40L of blood pumping
through their muscles per
minute, about double that of
an untrained athlete, so blood
can pool in their veins, making
them more visible. Despite the
reasonable clinical explanation
for this, when cyclists have
posted similar pics in the past,
rumours of doping have been
started.
“I was bred
to a baker’s
wife. I took up
medicine because
the dough was
better.”
A condition that’s hard to recognise
Journal
Talk
Michael Woodhead
FOR those of you who liked the book The
Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by
neurologist-turned-author Dr Oliver Sacks,
there is an intriguing Australian case of
the same condition reported in JAMA
Neurology this month.
Author Sara Bugg describes her
encounter with Jamie, who has an
impaired ability to recognise people’s
faces — even those of her own family.
Her condition, known a prosopagnosia,
is a subtype of the visual agnosia
described by the late Dr Sacks, in which
the subject has a cognitive disorder that
renders their brain unable to handle facial
recognition.
The author recounts how Jamie told her
well-rehearsed story of how she had never
realised she had a medical condition until
she saw a TV program about someone
else with the same condition.
For most of her young life, Jamie had
assumed that there were many people
who had difficulty remembering faces in
the same way as some people can never
remember a name.
“This girl was unable to recognise
herself,” the author notes. And Jamie
had a string of anecdotes about how
her inability to recognise faces had
complicated her young life.
“One summer I was out on our back
deck and saw someone in the glass door.
I thought we had an intruder. I was so
scared that I fell backwards into our pool!”
she laughed.
After losing jobs due to being unable
to recognise customers or check their ID,
Jamie talked about how she learned to
adapt by linking people to their non-facial
properties, such as glasses, clothing or
hair colour.
She also learned to mask her condition
from others by always ensuring she arrived
first so that they would recognise her and
seek her out, rather than vice versa.
But she still sometimes had to lie or
bluff her way out of embarrassing social
and work situations when she failed to
recognise someone.
This was especially true when she
dealt with non-Caucasians, whom Jamie
had difficulty in distinguishing due to less
variety in their eye and hair colour.
However, as with many people who
have chronic conditions, Jamie learned to
adapt and put herself in situations where
she wasn’t at a disadvantage.
To this end she moved to work in a
Muslim country where many women cover
their faces with the burka.
“Here the women’s features were
unknown to all,” the author notes.
To maintain distinction from friends,
each woman acquired a burka of a unique
colour.
“[Jamie] was able to dispense with the
vain attempts to learn faces and instead
embrace a new friend as simply “the
woman in yellow.”
“Against all odds, Jamie [is] thriving.”
JAMA Neurology 2017; online.
SNAPSHOT
RESPIRATORY RESULTS
Respiratory conditions accounted for 8% of the total burden of disease and injury in Australia in 2011,
as measured in disability-adjusted life years.
Respiratory causes of disease burden:
COPD 43%
Asthma 29%
Upper respiratory
conditions 20%
Other 8%
Disease burden due to illness or disability,
rather than death, accounted for:
• 53% of COPD cases
• 93% of asthma cases
• 99% of upper respiratory conditions
Since 2003 the burden of disease
has fallen by:
• 7% all respiratory conditions
• 10% COPD
• 11% asthma
• No change upper respiratory conditions
Self-penned epitaph of
former Goulburn GP Dr
Keith Beck, who died at
the age of 90.
“We had one
doctor who had
been making
more money
when they were
working driving
taxis.”
Top End Medical Centre
general manager Jackie
Bradner says overseas
trained doctors are
missing out on VR rates
in some Darwin suburbs
because of classification
inconsistencies.
“Upwards of
40% of superbug
strains resistant
to last-line
antibiotics are
found in nursing
homes.”
Senior medical adviser
Professor John Turnidge, of
the Australian Commission
on Safety and Quality in
Health Care, is tracking
bacteria resistant to the last
line of antibiotics.
“The cuts could
lead to ageing
equipment
remaining in
use.”
Newcastle Radiation
oncologist Professor
Peter O’Brien says Federal
Government funding
cuts may reduce patient
access to services such as
brachytherapy.
Source: AIHW, The burden of chronic respiratory conditions in Australia.

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28 July 2017 | Australian Doctor |
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