A 33-year-old woman was seen by an obstetrician. The patient did not know if she had previously had chickenpox. Her varicella-zoster antibody titre signified non-immunity. She had not been vaccinated. Three months later, she became pregnant. She was told...

For many, the last 12 months of life is spent with significant disability, associated with rising symptom burden and functional decline. A palliative approach aims to ease difficult symptoms, encourage the best quality of life, and offer support for...

Almost 1.45 million Australians have some form of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This equates to one in seven Australians over 40 suffering from COPD. Typical symptoms of COPD include shortness of breath, wheezing, chest tightness, chronic cough, unintended...

You don’t notice it at first but you find yourself tripping over and falling a lot more – you can’t ever remember being that clumsy. Everything seems to take that much longer because your muscles don’t do what you...

A 74-year-old man who had been self-medicating with antacids for recurrent indigestion consulted his GP when symptoms persisted for three months. After assessment, his GP prescribed a proton pump inhibitor and arranged review in four weeks. Two months later the...

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the most common cause of blindness in developed countries. The prevalence of AMD is 1.4% at 70 years of age and 5.6% at 80 years of age and 20% at age of 90 years....

Local community pharmacists play a vital role in improving health outcomes for LGBTI people and people living with HIV. There has been greater recognition of the health needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) Australians among an increasing...

Status epilepticus is a medical emergency. It is commonly defined as 30 minutes of continuous seizure activity, or repeated seizures without full recovery of consciousness between attacks. However, as epilepsy seizures generally only last several minutes, the general consensus...

Dementia includes a range of neurological disorders characterised by memory loss and cognitive impairment. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, accounting for 50–70% of cases.1 In 2015 approximately 342,800 Australians were living with dementia, with this...

The prevalence of acute pancreatitis is between 5 and 30 per 100,000 population worldwide. It also represents the most common cause for gastrointestinal hospital admission in the United States.2 The main causes of acute pancreatitis are alcohol and gall...