Word: patient
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Last June, after four years of patient observing, the researchers finally made the crucial measurement. They employed a new, extremely sensitive computerized clocking device capable of detecting orbital timing changes of only one fifty-millionth of a second. This superaccurate timer revealed that in those four years the orbital period of the objects had decreased a total of four ten-thousandths of a second. That was exactly on the Einsteinian mark. Said Taylor: "We don't claim to have detected gravitational waves themselves, but simply proved they exist...
From there on, after about a week's training the patient can take over himself by attaching to the tube a small plastic bag containing two liters (about two quarts) of a special solution similar to the dialysate, or blood-cleansing fluid, used in kidney machines. The patient raises the bag to shoulder level or above, and the fluid flows down into the abdomen, bathing the peritoneal membrane, which contains many small blood vessels. The tube is then clamped off, and the patient folds up the empty bag into a neat package that he wears beneath the clothing...
Inside the abdominal cavity, a complex chemical movement, as in conventional hemodialysis, slowly begins. Toxic wastes and water from the bloodstream pass through the peritoneal membrane into the fluid. The process is allowed to continue for about five hours. Then the patient unwraps the empty plastic bag, lowers it to the floor, releases the clamp and lets the waste-laden fluid drain out of the abdominal cavity. Subsequently, a new bag of fluid is attached, and the procedure is repeated three times more at four-to eight-hour intervals every day. While the blood is being cleansed, patients...
...extreme care to avoid dangerous abdominal infections. Still, peritoneal dialysis has important advantages. CAPD's developers, Chemical Engineer Robert Popovich and Nephrologist Jack Moncrief, both of Austin, Texas, point out that it is simpler and, except for infections, less risky than using a kidney machine at home. A patient, for instance, can safely sleep through the procedure without the risk of bleeding to death if a tube is disconnected. Also, CAPD puts less strain on the heart, since no blood ever leaves the body, and thus is preferable for some people with cardiovascular problems...
...fewer than a hundred of the nation's almost 45,000 dialysis patients use CAPD. But that is likely to change. A year's dialysis at a kidney center now costs some $25,000 a patient; the dialysis bill for the nation as a whole, which is footed by the U.S. Government, totals $1 billion a year. By contrast, the tab for a CAPD patient is only about $8,000 a year, and is likely to drop as the technique becomes more popular. Says Nolph: "We have here one of those rare circumstances in modern times where something...