Fibromyalgia Awareness By blog May 12th was Fibromyalgia Awareness Day. I marked that day by introducing my new project, 101 Answers About Fibromyalgia. This project is dedicated not only to those who have fibromyalgia, but to those who love people who have fibromyalgia. The goal is to collect at least 101 questions about the condition and gather the answers from different experts around the world. Regular visitors to my blog know that I've written about fibromyalgia before, both here and for other outlets.
_ Breast Cancer Double Mastectomy DoesnΓÇÖt Increase Survival By Sondra Forsyth article Many women diagnosed with cancer in one breast undergo a contralateral prophylactic mastectomy (CPM) to remove both breasts. Yet removing the unaffected breast has not been shown to increase survival, according to a study done at the University of Michigan and published online May 21st 2014 in Jama Surgery.
_ Pain Management Virtual Chronic Pain Patient Boosts DocsΓÇÖ Skills By article An online training module using ΓÇ£EdnaΓÇ¥, a virtual elderly woman with chronic lower back pain as a case study, greatly improved medical student clinical skills. ThatΓÇÖs the finding of a study done at the University of Pittsburgh and published in the May 2014 issue Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. The module is the first curriculum resource created through the efforts of the National Institutes of Health Pain Consortium's Centers of Excellence in Pain Education program (CoEPEs).
Organize Your Kitchen For Healthy Eating By article By Andrea Cespedes, PT, Yoga Instructor, Chef A pledge to focus on healthy eating will do you no good if you still have cheese curls and chocolate chip cookies calling to you from your pantry. Sound familiar?
_ Alternative Health Finding A Good Alternative Health Practitioner By Jane Farrell article There are so many ΓÇ£alternativeΓÇ¥ or ΓÇ£complementaryΓÇ¥ therapies available today that it can be hard to tell which ones are effective, donΓÇÖt work at all or can do you harm. ItΓÇÖs just as much of a challenge to choose a complementary health practitioner. Should you want to go to one, itΓÇÖs best to do the research beforehand or you may end up paying money for ΓÇ£treatmentsΓÇ¥ that donΓÇÖt work. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) is part of the National Institutes of Health and an authority in the field of alternative medicine.
_ 10 Facts About Depression By Jane Farrell article By Dr. Prakash Masand May is Mental Health Month, and a time to bring awareness to the many conditions that make up mental illness. One of the most common is depression. Unfortunately, many people have been misled about the facts of depression from what theyΓÇÖve seen on TV or in the movies, or have heard about from their friends and others. What are the real facts about depression? Here are the 10 ten facts that everyone should know about depression: 1. ThereΓÇÖs more to depression than just feeling blue.
_ National Hepatitis Testing Day 2014 By Sondra Forsyth article May 19th 2014 is the third national Hepatitis Testing Day. Testing is especially important for Boomers and Beyond because people in that cohort may have contracted the HCV virus through blood transfusions or organ transplants prior to 1992 before screening went into effect. HCV, a potentially life-threatening infection of the liver, can be chronic with no symptoms for years and even decades. Millions of Americans have chronic hepatitis and most of them don’t know they are infected until serious liver damage has occurred.
_ Exercise Health & Fitness Injury Prevention & Treatment Debunking Injury Prevention and Treatment Myths By Sondra Forsyth article By Sondra Forsyth
_ ΓÇ£Pre-crastinationΓÇ¥ Appears to Be Common By Jane Farrell article Putting off tasks until later, or procrastination, is a common phenomenon — but new research suggests that “pre-crastination,” hurrying to complete a task as soon as possible, may also be common. Thestudy, published in May 2014 in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests that people often opt to begin a task as soon as possible just to get it off their plate, even if they have to expend more physical effort to do so.
Tools To Take Charge Of Your Cancer Survivorship By blog Most major cancer centers today offer a survivor care plan to organize your diagnosis, treatment and follow-up plan. It will soon be a standard of care to provide treatment summaries and survivorship care plans to all cancer patients. The primary components of a plan include: Diagnostic tests performed and results; including tumor site, stage, grade and other biomarker information.
_ Aging Well Hand Grip Reveals the Speed of Aging By article A hand grip test shows wide differences between the rates of aging among different population groups, according to new research by demographers at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria. The study was published on May 7th 2014 in the journal PLOS ONE
Caring for Horses Can Help Dementia Symptoms By Jane Farrell article Spending time with horses eases dementia symptoms for Alzheimer’s patients, according to the first study of its kind. The research, a collaboration between The Ohio State University and an adult daycare center, revealed that patients could groom, feed and walk horses under supervision. That experience improved patients’ mood and made them less likely to resist care or become upset later in the day.
_ Medical Care The Right Questions to Ask Your Doctor About Hepatitis C By Sondra Forsyth article By Sondra Forsyth The Centers for Disease Control has designated May as Hepatitis Awareness Month. One goal of that campaign is to let Boomers know that of the more than three million Americans infected with hepatitis C, over 75% are in their 50s and 60s. You can find out the extent of your risk with this 5-minute online assessment from the CDC.
Vision Health Abnormal ΓÇ£Binocular VisionΓÇ¥ as We Age By article Abnormal “binocular vision”, which involves the way our eyes work together as a team, increases dramatically as we age, according to research from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. A release from the university reports that the study also found that general health and antidepressant use are also linked to this disorder, which affects depth perception and therefore may increase the risk of falls.
_ Take a Walk to Spark Your Creativity By article When the task at hand requires some imagination, taking a walk may lead to more creative thinking than sitting, according to research published in April 2014 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, a publication of the American Psychological Association. A release from the association quotes researcher Marily Oppezzo PhD of Santa Clara University, as saying, "Many people anecdotally claim they do their best thinking when walking, "With this study, we finally may be taking a step or two toward discovering why."
_ Support Group Weight Loss Helps Diabetics By article Weight loss and control of blood sugar can reduce the risk of complications in patients with diabetes but paring off the pounds is difficult for many people. Now a randomized controlled trial of obese adults with type 2 diabetes done at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis suggests that participants enrolled in a community-based structured weight loss program are able to shed more of their excess avoir dupois, improve blood sugar control, and reduce or even eliminate insulin use.
Love Your Gums! By article One in every two adults age 30 and older suffers from periodontal disease, commonly referred to as gum disease. The American Academy of Periodontology (AAP) is calling for Americans to Love the Gums You’re With and take better care of their gums. To learn more, take a brief quiz on perio.org/loveyourgumsto evaluate the current state of your gum health, learn the signs and symptoms of periodontal disease, and receive tips on how to properly care for their gums.