October 15, 2016

The pretravel consultation is beneficial any time before international travel, but ideally occurs at least six weeks before the patient's trip. The visit includes a medical history; questions about the itinerary; and a discussion of immunizations, malaria prophylaxis, and…

The mental status examination includes general observations made during the clinical encounter, as well as specific testing of cognitive functions, including attention, executive functioning, gnosia, language, memory, orientation, praxis, prosody, thought content, thought…

Although intimate partner violence is a prevalent problem, it is underrecognized. All female patients of childbearing age should be screened using one of several office-based screening tools that have been proven effective. If a patient is experiencing intimate partner violence…

AAFP Presses Congress to Protect Primary Care Program Funding | AAFP Delegates Address Discrimination, Diversity, and Gun Violence | New Scale Gauges Clinicians' Ability to Facilitate Patient Activation | Number of Small Practices Continues to Drop

Physician offices may be one of the few safe spaces for patients to disclose their abuse. We know that survivors want us to ask about IPV and to respond appropriately and safely. Training and system support will allow us to do that.

Sacubitril/valsartan provides a small mortality benefit and decreases heart failure–related hospitalizations over and above an ACE inhibitor. It may be used in place of an ACE inhibitor in patients receiving optimal doses of guideline-directed medical therapy that includes ACE…

ACE inhibitors reduce the risk of progression to macroalbuminuria in normotensive patients with microalbuminuria and type 1 diabetes mellitus.

A man with HIV presented with fever and widespread, severely painful, pruritic vesicles and pustules.

S.L. is a 55-year-old man who presents to your office for a routine refill of his antihypertension medication. He also takes a statin and an antidepressant. Although he smokes, his blood pressure and cholesterol are well controlled. His history and physical examination are…

Although there is risk with any current oral contraceptive combination, those that contain lower doses of estrogen, and levonorgestrel instead of desogestrel or gestodene, are associated with the least risk of ischemic stroke, myocardial infarction (MI), or pulmonary embolism…

In patients with hip or knee DJD, all analgesics are more effective than placebo in relieving pain and improving function. Although paracetamol (acetaminophen) is the least effective of all the drugs studied, it still may be the first treatment for these patients because of its…

This is a good example of how a well-done study can lead to erroneous conclusions. The comparator most likely to be effective here—titrated morphine—was used at a low dose and found to be less effective than intramuscular diclofenac or intravenous paracetamol (acetaminophen).

Key Points for Practice

The USPSTF recommends initiating low-dose aspirin use for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and colorectal cancer (CRC) in adults aged 50 to 59 years who have a 10% or greater 10-year CVD risk, are not at increased risk for bleeding, have a life expectancy…

Accidental injuries, including motor vehicle crashes and drowning, are the most common causes of travel-associated deaths in people traveling outside of the United States.