Blood Works: An Owner's Guide: What Every Person Needs to Know Before They Are a Patient

Your blood is the fascinating and complex fluid that keeps you alive and healthy. It is vital to our life. What does it do for us? How can we keep it in good health?

Blood, and the vessels that contain it, make up the largest organ system in the human body - an indispensable part of the infrastructure of our body's systems and life processes. Like any other organ or system in the body, its balance and health must be maintained. If blood fails - and because it is so complex it can fail in many ways - it results in reduced physical and mental function and increases your risk of health complications and death. Blood failure can be mild or severe. Even mild blood failure requires investigation and treatment. You can play a critical role both in maintaining your blood health and in making treatment choices if it fails - if you have the tools.

Anemia is the most common sign of blood failure, or unhealthy blood. It affects as many as one in three people on the planet and many even don't know they have it. Women of reproductive age, children, and the elderly are especially at risk. It can make you feel tired and lethargic, and "foggy headed." Sound familiar? But it can have more serious, even life-threatening consequences if it is not treated. Anemia is not just an inconvenience - it's a serious medical condition that must not be ignored.

Yet, while many of us know our cholesterol level and blood pressure, few of us are aware of our blood count. And what we don't know affects our everyday quality of life and puts us at risk if we have bleeding, an injury, or require hospitalization.

Over 600 million people suffer from chronic or acute blood loss from causes such as heavy menstrual bleeding, obstetric hemorrhage, gastrointestinal bleeding, surgery, trauma, and even blood taken for testing during hospitalization.

For many decades, the default treatment for anemia and blood loss has been blood transfusion, essentially a liquid "organ" transplant from another person. When a patient has heart failure or kidney failure, organ transplantation is not first-line treatment. Similarly, in blood failure, blood "transplantation" should not be first line treatment. Since the 1990s, scientific research has shown that the traditional use of blood transfusion is not the most effective treatment in many medical situations . Also, like any other transplant, transfusion is associated with profound changes in the recipient's immune system that increase the risk of complications and death. As a result, we now recognize the need for fundamental change in the way a patient's blood is managed.

Blood Works explores the fascinating new field called Patient Blood Management (PBM). PBM places the person receiving care at the center of critical decisions involving their lifeblood. Just as there are specialists to look after the heart, the kidneys, the lungs, etc. PBM is about caring for the patient's blood. Its aim is to improve general health and treatment outcomes by managing and preserving a patient's own blood while empowering them to share in the decision-making process.

With the contributions from 48 international medical experts, this highly readable book brings you the information every person needs to know before they are a patient. Meticulously researched and referenced, it will empower you to be an active partner in caring for your health and the health of your loved ones. Case studies of real patients illustrate the enormous value of PBM in improving the health and well-being of individuals and, in turn, whole populations, even while actually reducing the cost of health care. See why the World Health Organization has called for its urgent implementation around the globe.

Each chapter is organized to make critical information easily accessible when needed, while providing sufficient detail that the book will be a valuable resource, not only for you and your family, but for physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and other health care professionals.

Blood Works is the complete guide to enable you to manage and preserve this most precious of resources - your lifeblood!