Facelift Complications

Complications following facelift surgery, or rhytidectomy, can be devastating, particularly because of the elective nature of this procedure. As with all surgical procedures, complication prevention is paramount. Although facelift surgery is one of the safest cosmetic procedures available, any operation comes with the possibility of complications. There are postoperative face-lift complications unique to a facelift. Surgery causes injury to the nerves that control facial muscles resulting in unnatural looks. There may be problems with healing of the skin after surgery. There will be some scarring, although the surgeon will always try to hide the face-lift scars. Long-term numbness or tingling around the incision areas may occur. In addition to the specific facelift problems, there is the potential for general surgery problem. Some face lift patients experience nausea and general sickness after receiving anesthesia; this is a short-lasting side effect and usually diminishes completely after a few hours. Hematoma – if bleeding occurs under the skin, a hematoma can develop, leaving the area painfully swollen; an operation is required to stop the flow and remove the blood. Bleeding – although some light, postoperative bleeding is normal, uncontrolled bleeding is dangerous and can lead to painful hematomas. Infection – typically occurring in a specific area, symptoms of infection are swelling, sensitivity, redness, and localized heat. Unless it is severe, an infection can be relieved with antibiotics. With the increasing popularity of cosmetic surgery, more and more individuals who have previously undergone facelift require facelift revision surgery. Correcting problems with rhytidectomy surgery is becoming more common. Time does not stop after a facelift. In fact, depending on when the lift was and which procedures went along with it, it may deteriorate faster than usual and distort the features in new ways. A better understanding of the structure of the face, especially the developments that lie behind the cheek lift, allows skilled plastic surgeons to perform revision on facelift surgeries that have not held up so well over time and even those that have immediately resulted in unsatisfactory appearances. A secondary facelift, or facelift revision, can correct most common problems associated with traditional facelift methods and help patients avoid problems in the future. The most obvious problem associated with the traditional facelift is a “swept-back” look or “lateral sweep” of the lower face. The direction of pull for traditional facelifts is in one direction only: toward the ear. As time goes by, the lower face stays up but the unlifted deep structures of the upper cheek continue to fall “down,” thus creating a sweep toward the ear that gets progressively worse. This is more obvious in patients with dry, sun-damaged skin, since the natural lines of the face are in an unnatural pattern.

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Personalized Medicine

Personalized medicine is a medical model emphasizing the systematic use of information about an individual patient to select or optimize that patient's preventative and therapeutic care. Personalized medicine is the products and services that leverage the science of genomics and proteomics and capitalize on the trends toward wellness and consumerism to enable tailored approaches to prevention and care. Over the past century, medical care has centered on standards of care based on epidemiological studies of large cohorts. Personalized medicine seeks to provide an objective basis for consideration of such individual differences. Traditionally, personalized medicine has been limited to the consideration of a patient's family history, social circumstances, environment, and behaviors in tailoring individual care. Personalized medicine uses new methods of molecular analysis to manage a patient’s disease or predisposition toward a disease. It aims to achieve optimal medical outcomes by helping physicians and patients choose the disease management approaches likely to work best in the context of a patient’s genetic and environmental profile. Such approaches may include genetic screening programs that more precisely diagnose diseases and their sub-types, or help physicians select the type and dose of medication best suited to a certain group of patients. Personalized medicine is an extension of traditional approaches to understanding and treating illness. Since the beginning of the study of medicine, physicians have employed evidence found through observation to make a diagnosis or to prescribe treatment. In the modern concept of personalized medicine, the tools provided to the physician are more precise, probing not just the obvious, such as a tumor on a mammogram or cells under a microscope, but the very molecular makeup of each patient. Looking at the patient on this level helps the physician get a profile of the patient’s genetic distinction, or mapping. By investigating this genetic mapping, medical professionals are then able to profile patients, and use the found information to plan a course of treatment that is much more in step with the way their body works. Genomic medicine and personalized medicine use genetic information to prevent or treat disease in adults or their children. Having a genetic map or a profile of a patient’s genetic variation can then guide the selection of drugs or treatment processes. This can minimize side effects or to create a strategy for a more successful outcome from the medical treatment. Helping the physician cover all the bases is imperative. Genetic mapping can also indicate the propensity to contract certain diseases before the patient actually shows recognizable symptoms, allowing the physician and patient to put together a plan for observation and prevention. Personalized medicine, when coupled with personal pharmacogenetics, is a unique approach that may be well suited for the health challenges we face in the new millennium. Although the medical and scientific communities, through research and discovery, got the upper hand over many of the diseases we have encountered since the advent of advanced medicine, many diseases that are more complicated. Diseases like diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s are caused by a combination of genetic and other factors. Coupled with the fact that they tend to be chronic, they place a significant burden on not only the patient, but on the healthcare system as a whole. Personalized medicine aims to provide the tools and knowledge to fight chronic diseases and treat them more effectively than ever before. Genetic profiles can help physicians to better discern subgroups of patients with various forms of cancer, in addition to other complex diseases, helping to guide doctors with accurate forms of predictive medicine and preventative medicine. With personalized medicine, the physician is intending to select the best treatment protocol or even, in many cases, avoid passing the expense and risks of unnecessary medical treatments on to the patient altogether. In addition, personalized medicine, when used correctly, aims to guide tests that detect variation in the way individual patients metabolize various pharmaceuticals. Personalized medicine is working to help determine the right dose for a patient, helping to avoid hazards based on familial history, environmental influences, and genetic variation.