Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2019 October 2

= October 2 =

stent insertion from artery blockage
How big an operation is this? Person (US senator age 77) is hospitalized with chest pains and has 2 stents put in, but they are acting like he will be back in action within a few days. Is that plausible? I mean it's heart surgery etc. and the guy's work schedule was brutal. This is about Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) who is in the presidential primaries. Thanks. 173.228.123.207 (talk) 15:26, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Recovery from angioplasty and stenting is typically brief. Discharge from the hospital is usually 12 to 24 hours after the catheter is removed. Many patients are able to return to work within a few days to a week after a procedure. -- Jayron 32 16:07, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes. In the UK he'd be forbidden from driving, but only for two weeks  (depending a bit on why the stents were fitted).  This is compared to a month or two for many other heart conditions.
 * "Heart surgery" is traumatic mostly because the surgery is so traumatic. Stents don't go in that way. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:23, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Indeed, percutaneous coronary intervention is often done as an outpatient prodcedure. The patient usually stays for a brief observation period after the procedure and then leaves with after-care instructions, which include instruction to seek medical attention if they experience abnormal symptoms. Of course, in Sanders's case, he was hospitalized with chest pain and then had the procedure; depending on diagnosis and any other treatments he may have a longer inpatient stay. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 03:22, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
 * They are reporting now that he was diagnosed with myocardial infarction (heart attack), though apparently not a major one on the scale of such things. Apparently this is diagnosed by a blood test a few days after the event.  Does that diagnosis make it a much bigger deal than before? 173.228.123.207 (talk) 05:46, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
 * For reference: Myocardial infarction, myocardial infarction complications. Certainly, a diagnosed MI is more serious than general complaints of "chest pain", but he's been discharged from the hospital so his prognosis is likely good. It sounds like he was treated rapidly, which is the ideal course of events. He wouldn't have been discharged if the hospital felt continued observation was necessary, as it might be in the case of someone with serious complications. Of course, nothing is certain, and some complications can take time to develop. He will presumably have follow-up visits with a cardiologist. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 06:18, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Swedish train tickets
Another question about my recent visit to Sweden. I took the X2000 train from Stockholm and Gothenburg and back. On the train there was an announcement in both Swedish and English: "If you are seated in the right place, we do not need to see your ticket, as we already have all the information we need." And sure enough, no one came to check my ticket.

But how can this necessarily work? What's stopping someone without a ticket from just climbing aboard the train and sitting on a vacant seat that just happens to not be reserved by anyone? After all, passengers don't have to register themselves in advance with the train personnel, so they don't know who of the passengers is who. J I P &#124; Talk 21:41, 2 October 2019 (UTC)


 * They can just do a count of the people on the train and if that matches the number of tickets sold, there's no need to check each (although technically someone could have missed the train and somebody else could have sneaked onboard, but they just don't worry about that). As for why they care about where you sit, that implies different seating areas are for differently priced tickets. In that case, they would need to match the count of each type of ticket with the number of people in the seating area for that type. (Although if one person is missing from the premium seats and there's an extra guy in the cheap seats, they may not care about that either.)


 * Then there could be more high-tech answers, like if there's an RFID tag in your ticket, and the seating area for passengers has RFID readers built-in. (They might have additional seating areas for crew which lacks the readers.) They could also have weight sensors in the seats, so if they detect butts in one more seat than they detect valid RFID tags, it's time to do a manual ticket check. SinisterLefty (talk) 22:46, 2 October 2019 (UTC)


 * The tickets are normal PDF documents that you print out and present when asked. They have QR codes to verify the purchase. Only they themselves admitted they wouldn't be checking them, and so they didn't. There were no RFID tags on the tickets. J I P  &#124; Talk 06:57, 3 October 2019 (UTC)


 * OK, that leaves my 1st paragraph as a possible explanation. SinisterLefty (talk) 07:02, 3 October 2019 (UTC)