Bacteria become airborne again. index It signals that the winter wave of influenza and coronavirus is finally beginning. Are you about to get sick? Is it me? My 5 year old son feels a little warmer to me. His sister seems okay. Should I take my temperature?
I think maybe you shouldn’t. My resolutions for next year are: I will not take your temperature. Parents should not take temperatures. Because it’s almost useless to do so. Home thermometers are garbage.
The thermometer I have is the type that points at a person’s head. It’s clearly a scam. Sometimes I pull the trigger and the numbers I get seem about right. Also, reads may be irrational. As a sentient human being, I know when the latter is the case. Evolution has expanded the field of heat sensing cells around the globe. hairless surface After examining my skin, I found that if you apply these to your child’s forehead, you may get the following diagnosis: he is hot. or: he seems normal. No further investigation is necessary.
I bought my contactless fever gun in 2020, at a time when fever testing was all the rage, and concert halls and other venues were equipped with thermal bouncers that could test your forehead from any distance. It had been. I think everyone knew in their hearts that this was foolish, even those who thought the Fever Gun was better used in other situations. However, calling this habit “stupid” may be being too kind.
The published evidence regarding fever guns is damning. One study by the FDA compared measurements taken under ideal conditions to oral thermometer readings. They often turn out to be seriously insane. According to the study, the best-performing models exceed the heat generation threshold of approximately 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit. two thirds of the time;the worst could happen never Perform appropriate diagnosis. Another study led by Adrienne Haimovich, now an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, found that patients in emergency departments who received both forehead temperature checks and oral or rectal thermometer measurements was identified. The forehead gun was successful in identifying fever in the following patients: 1/3 of the case.
However, let’s not single out guns, which are in some ways a product of the coronavirus pandemic. Standard infrared tympanic probes (which quickly measure temperature inside the ear) are also a waste of time in important ways. “When this eardrum thermometer came out, I was working full time as an EMT,” said Edmund Hooker, a professor of health care administration at Xavier University. He soon came to believe that they were ineffective. “It’s so hot that you can put an egg on your forehead and fry it, but I think you’re going to have a kid come back with a thermometer in his eardrum reading 98.6 or 99.” So he started running tests. According to a 1993 paper, ear thermometers missing child fever. Another of his studies conducted with adults showed that the device dangerously miscalibrated. (In more recent research, resemble concerns. )
Although oral thermometers are fairly accurate, there are some challenges to using them in young children. Rectal probes are the most accurate. As for armpit measurements, Hooker said they’re also pretty unreliable. I started asking about another means of checking my temperature, a glowing fever wipe my parents had placed on my forehead, but he wouldn’t even let me finish my question. “Absolutely worthless! Your mother was better,” he declared. “That’s my other Research shows that my mother was very good. ”
His other research: After demonstrating that ear thermometers were ineffective, Hooker decided to compare ear thermometers to human touch. Parent’s hands – nature’s thermometer – made it so. pretty good: Approximately 82 percent of fevers in children were correctly alerted, compared to 75 percent with tympanic membrane probes. However, parents’ hands tend to be overdiagnosed, with almost a quarter of normal-temperature children reporting that their parents’ hands were warm. (The ear thermometer had a much lower false positive rate.)
Many such experiments are currently underway. health care setting all around it of world: A great deal of effort has gone into measuring the ability to diagnose fever just by touch. (In medical terminology, this practice is aptly, and sarcastically, described as “parental touching.”) In general, these studies are not large-scale and may be subject to some degree of bias. there is. For example, all of the experiments I reviewed were conducted in a medical setting, and in the case of Hooker’s disease, in an emergency department, so participants were told that they may or may not have a cold. They weren’t your average kids. Rather, those children may have had a higher baseline rate of fever, and their parents may have been disproportionately likely to think that their children were seriously ill.
some researcher They tried to look at all the small studies on parental touch together, which can be a fuzzy approach, but aggregating weaker studies doesn’t make them any more powerful, but these ‘s study, taken as a whole, yields roughly the same results as Hooker’s study. : Parents’ hands have a reliably high sensitivity for fever at nearly 90%, but a lower specificity at about 55%. In other words, when a child has a fever, parents can usually sense it with their hands, but if the child does not have a fever, they may mistakenly believe that the child has a fever.
The latter is not very good, considering that children with fever should stay home from school or daycare. In that case, a thermometer may provide a helpful (and moderate) second opinion. However, palpation must be sufficient when considered as a measure of risk to the child’s health. Very hot children, those most at risk of infection, are also the least likely to be misdiagnosed through contact. If your child’s head feels like the side of a convection oven, you can almost certainly say that your child is sick. That would almost certainly be true. (And calling your doctor would be the right thing to do.) For borderline conditions, such as a temperature of 101 degrees, 99 degrees, or 100.4 degrees, no hand can determine a fever as accurately as a good thermometer. . However, there are few additional benefits that thermometers bring to both your child’s health and your peace of mind.
It is important to remember that the very definition of threshold fever is arbitrary and follows ancient scientific laws. That’s a nice round number.. Converting to Celsius, 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit is 38 degrees. The established “normal” temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit maps to 37 degrees Celsius. (Actually, the body temperature of a healthy elderly person is Range from 98.9 degrees to 99.9 degrees Haimovich and Hooker said that under normal circumstances, a measured fever is only one aspect of the overall picture that determines treatment. Haimovich said older patients with symptoms of a urinary tract infection who also have a fever may receive a more comprehensive course of antibiotics. Rising temperatures suggest the infection may be spreading. However, children who have a low-grade fever but are otherwise fine do not need treatment. Some evidence suggests that low-grade fever may occur strengthen immune response; Therefore, as a rule, the temperature should be slightly higher. left alone If your child is not uncomfortable, then maybe ibuprofen? (On the other hand, a child whose temperature is “only” 99 degrees but appears lethargic and confused probably needs to be seen.)
Haimovic said he has small children, so I asked him how he takes their temperatures and if he ever touches their heads. “Oh, yeah,” he said. He told me that his wife seemed to be better at sensing heat than he was. This is consistent with known neurophysiology. One study suggests that women’s hands are sensitive to heat. become sensitive to warmth higher than men on average. However, a study conducted at a Canadian hospital found that Dad is just as good as mom When you sense heat with your hands. (mothers were much more likely to do so) believe Other studies have investigated whether having multiple children, and perhaps experiencing more head sensations, may also be a factor. The answer is no. This suggests that detecting a child’s fever is a basic fact of our perception rather than a skilled skill.
As for Hooker, he doesn’t even have a thermometer. He has four children and was always touching their heads. “They are all grown adults now,” he told me. “They all survived because I didn’t worry about fever.” He advises parents not to waste money on fancy thermometers that measure ears or foreheads. “Buy your kid an ice cream cone. It’s so much better,” he said. “And if you Really If you feel you need to know your child’s temperature, if it’s a toddler, use a rectal thermometer to measure their bottom.
Infants are a special case. If your small infant develops any kind of fever, he or she may need immediate medical attention. But for parents beyond that stage, the plan of action is simple. I will not take your temperature. Parents should not take body temperature. Place your hand on your forehead or use your lips instead. Your child may have a fever. Or maybe he just needs a kiss.
