_ Medical Care Doctors & Patients Making Decisions Together By Sondra Forsyth article Shared decision-making is a concept thatΓÇÖs gaining traction in medicine, particularly in areas of health care, where patients are presented with more than one reasonable treatment option. The programs, which feature patient-education tools such as online surveys and videos, have several goals. One is to help people thoroughly understand their choices and assure them that they are making informed decisions.
_ Mental & Emotional Health Should You See a Shrink? By article By Sherrie Campbell, PhD It is often the assumption that if you go to therapy that you have serious problems you cannot manage on your own and there is something fundamentally wrong with you. In reality, if someone is attending therapy, the person tends to be on the healthier side of self-love and self-awareness. Because seeing a therapist is stigmatized many people who want to seek help, either often they donΓÇÖt, or they keep their therapy private so they do not invoke judgment.
_ Multiple Sclerosis: 5 Things You Should Know By Jane Farrell article MS can happen to just about anyone. The central nervous system disorder affects your brain and spinal cord. But it spares the nerves and muscles that lead away from the spinal cord. Nearly 350,000 people in the United States have MS. MS is a long-term illness. Infection-fighting white blood cells enter the nervous system and cause injury by stripping off the myelin sheath that protects nerves. When this happens, the nerves cannot conduct electricity as well as they should. This causes symptoms.
_ Pets Vitamins + Supplements Should Your Pet Take Supplements? By Sondra Forsyth article Our pets are like our family, right? Even pet food manufacturers now refer to ΓÇ£pet ownersΓÇ¥ as ΓÇ£pet parentsΓÇ¥ in their marketing! This humanization trend has been fueled by us Baby Boomers who are refocusing our discretionary spending on our pets rather than spending it on feathering our now empty nests. So itΓÇÖs no wonder we ΓÇ£pet parentsΓÇ¥ are now pondering the question of vitamins and other supplementation for Fido and Fluffy. But whatΓÇÖs the real scoop of pet supplements? Good idea or bad?
_ Aging Well Foods That WonΓÇÖt ΓÇ£FrailΓÇ¥ You By Sondra Forsyth article By Robert Ashton M.D. With aging comes frailty. The more frail we are, the more likely we are to get sick or die from chronic illnesses including heart disease, diabetes, and other leading causes of death. If you can slow the debilitating process, then you have a shot at living not only a longer life, but a healthier one too.
_ Hep C Could Become a Rare Disease By Sondra Forsyth article Newly implemented screening guidelines and improved, highly effective drug therapies could make hepatitis C a rare disease in the United States by 2036, according to the results of a predictive model developed at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. The results of the analysis, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and performed with the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, were published in the August 5th 2014 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.
_ Wellness Coaching Improves Quality of Life By Sondra Forsyth article Wellness coaching improves quality of life, mood and perceived stress, according to a Mayo Clinic study published in August 2014 in the peer-reviews journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Matthew Clark, Ph.D., L.P., lead author of the study and resiliency expert at the Mayo Clinic Healthy Living Program, answered some common questions about wellness coaching:
_ Menopause What to Expect and How to Prepare for Menopause By Sondra Forsyth article By Marni Andrews There are a record number of North American women now entering a new period of their lives, menopause, which marks the official end of their reproductive period. Women are born with a finite number of eggs in their ovariesΓÇöby the time they reach their 50s, the number of fertile eggs has dropped significantly. When the remaining eggs are released, or hormones in the body can no longer stimulate their release, the body enters menopause. This generally happens between the ages of 45 and 55, with the average age being around 51.
_ Medical Care For-Profit Home Care: Higher Costs, Lower Quality By Sondra Forsyth article For-profit home health agencies are far costlier for Medicare than nonprofit agencies, according to a nationwide study done at the City University of New York School of Public Health and published Monday, August 4th 2014 in the August issue of the journal Health Affairs. Overall cost per patient was $1,215 higher at for-profits, with operating costs accounting for $752 of the difference and excess profits for $463. Yet the quality of care was actually worse at for-profit agencies than at non-profits, and more of the patients required repeat hospitalizations.
_ Rituals Help With Asthma Med Adherence By Sondra Forsyth article Storing asthma medications in the bathroom and establishing taking the drugs as part of a daily routine may be helpful advice that doctors can give their older asthmatic patients who struggle to remember to stick to their medication schedule. ThatΓÇÖs the finding of a study done at the Icahn School of Medicine in New York City, which discusses how elderly asthmatics cope with taking their inhaled corticosteroid medication as prescribed. The report was published August 5th 2014 in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
_ Interval Walking Best for Diabetics By Sondra Forsyth article Research done by by Dr. Thomas Solomon, and colleagues at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and published in August 2014 in Diabetologia suggests that training with alternating levels of walking intensity, known as interval training, could be better than walking at a constant speed to help manage blood sugar in people with type 2 diabetes.
_ Medical Care Pharmacists Could Boost Drug Adherence By Sondra Forsyth article Community pharmacists can dramatically help their patients stick to their prescription regimens, according to a study led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy. The findings, published on August 4th 2014 in Health Affairs, suggest also that greater adherence to medications can lead to a reduction in emergency room visits and hospital admissions, thereby lowering health care costs for a variety of chronic conditions including diabetes and asthma.
_ Healthy Diet & Nutrition Dehydrated? These 7 Foods Will Satisfy Your Thirst and Hunger By Sondra Forsyth article By Kristin Kirkpatrick, MS, RD, LD When heat and humidity soar, keeping your body hydrated matters more than ever. Did you know you can hydrate with whatΓÇÖs on your plate ΓÇö not just whatΓÇÖs in your cup? The following foods are heavy on the water content, according to the U.S. Department of AgricultureΓÇÖs nutrient database. In several cases, theyΓÇÖre also full of nutrients that will help you fight disease. So eat up, and beat the heat with your fork. 1. Cucumbers
_ Women's Health and Wellness Female Boomers with Asthma Face Challenges By Sondra Forsyth article An article published in the August 2014 issue of Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, the scientific publication of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI), outlines the challenges faced by older women in treating asthma, and offers practical solutions to improve their care.
_ Complicated Grief: When Sorrow Is Overwhelming By Jane Farrell article Losing a loved one is one of the most distressing and, unfortunately, common experiences people face. Most people experiencing normal grief and bereavement have a period of sorrow, numbness, and even guilt and anger. Gradually these feelings ease, and it's possible to accept loss and move forward. For some people, feelings of loss are debilitating and don't improve even after time passes. This is known as complicated grief. In complicated grief, painful emotions are so long lasting and severe that you have trouble accepting the loss and resuming your own life.
Digestive Health Diverticulitis Patients Suffer Symptoms Long After Attack By Sondra Forsyth article Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles interviewed people with diverticulitis and confirmed that many suffer psychological and physical symptoms long after their acute illness has passed.
_ Breast Cancer Acupuncture Helps Breast Ca Patients By Sondra Forsyth article Use of electroacupuncture (EA) ΓÇô a form of acupuncture where a small electric current is passed between pairs of acupuncture needles ΓÇô produces significant improvements in fatigue, anxiety and depression in as little as eight weeks for early stage breast cancer patients experiencing joint pain related to the use of aromatase inhibitors (AIs). That is the finding of a randomized, placebo-controlled trial examining the intervention led by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and published online in July 2014 in the journal Cancer.
_ Pain Management 9 Ways to Tame Your Chronic Pain By Jane Farrell article When it comes to chronic pain, thereΓÇÖs usually a limit to how much relief medications and procedures can bring. ThatΓÇÖs where changes to your daily life can help bridge the gap. Cleveland Clinic pain and wellness specialists Daniel Leizman, MD, and Mladen Golubi─ç, MD, PhD, offer nine ΓÇ£pain wellnessΓÇ¥ tips to make sure youΓÇÖre following for maximum pain management. Take deep breaths. The average adult takes eight to 16 breaths per minute. Slowing that down to five or six deep breaths that really fill your lungs will help you relax, which can lessen your discomfort.