Illness and treatment 3 - Reading - Fill in the gaps

Medical myths

So you think you know a little bit about medicine? Unfortunately, you're probably wrong, according to Dr Keith Hopcroft. Here he explains a number of common                [sleepwalkers, injure, misconceptions, burn, exists, allow, prevent, muscles]

Put butter on a burn

This is a bad idea, unless you're planning on changing traditional methods of cooking! You should put your butter back in the fridge and turn on the cold water tap instead. After leaving the

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under the running water for at least ten minutes, you should cover it with a clean wet tea towel to 

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infection, and seek medical help.

Don't

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a child with a head injury to sleep

This implies that sleep is dangerous for a child who has knocked their head, which is simply not true. However, if they are asleep, you are not able to watch out for serious and increasing tiredness which indicates a complication. The best thing to do in the case of a head injury is to allow the child to go to sleep, but to wake them from time to time to make sure that everything is in order.

You should avoid swimming after a meal

This belief probably

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because of the fear that some food might escape from your stomach if you have just eaten and choke you. Or perhaps people believe that blood will be diverted from the legs and arms towards the stomach, increasing the risk of cramp in the

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. Whatever the reason, there is no medical evidence to suggest that people should not swim after eating.

It's dangerous to wake                [sleepwalkers, injure, misconceptions, burn, exists, allow, prevent, muscles]

No it isn't, although waking them may cause confusion and distress. The safest thing to do is to guide the person gently back to bed and keep an eye on them until they have gone back to sleep again. This is important because it is also not true that they never                [sleepwalkers, injure, misconceptions, burn, exists, allow, prevent, muscles]themselves.