Grounding (Earthing): The Easiest Way to Fight Stress By blog We all know that the world is becoming more stressful every day. We worry about the economy, another war in a place we’ve never heard of, our parents getting old and dying, the well-being of our children, our own health. Sometimes it seems like our lives are one endless series of stresses. The bad news is that stress is on the rise and it’s causing major problems for many of us. The good news is that there are simple ways to combat stress and get back in control of our lives.
Life After 50: How to Bloom Abundantly By blog Yesterday, I spent several hours working in my butterfly garden. The long, unusually cold winter had taken its toll on most everything that was still alive from last year, and I had a lot of pruning and re-planting to do. As I was enjoying the morning, I began thinking how my garden was much like the life of a midlife woman, and represented many of the things I incorporate into my coaching and speaking practices.
_ Caregiving Aging in Place: The ΓÇ£Granny PodsΓÇ¥ Trend By article By Hilary Young According to the American Association of Retired Persons, over 80 percent of adults now intend to age in place. Nursing homes are no longer the norm. Many seniors prefer to stay active and remain independent for as long as possible. One major trend that is helping to make this wish come true is the proliferation of transitional housing options, otherwise known as “Granny Pods.”
_ Mental & Emotional Health A Healthcare Team Helps Women Beat Depression By article A collaborative approach to depression counseling for women at obstetrics and gynecology clinics involving psychiatrists, clinicians, specialists, and depression care managers is an improvement over typical of mental health care at specialty clinics. That is the finding of a study done at the University of Washington and published May 7th 2014 in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology. A release from the university notes that approximately one-third of American women list an obstetrician/gynecologist as their primary physician.
_ For Older Adults, Complex Frailty Score Predicts Post-Op Outcomes By article More than half of all operations are performed on patients 65 years and older in the United States. Frail elderly patients who undergo surgery are more likely to have postoperative complications. But tools to estimate operative risk have their limitations because they often focus on a single organ system or solitary event. In geriatric medicine, the comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) is widely used to detect disabilities and conditions associated with frailty.
_ Positive Self-Talk To Reduce Stress By Jane Farrell article Is your glass half-empty or half-full? How you answer this age-old question about positive thinking may reflect your outlook on life, your attitude toward yourself, and whether you're optimistic or pessimistic — and it may even affect your health.
_ Living Well With Hepatitis C By Jane Farrell article By Jane Farrell Hepatitis C, an inflammation of the liver caused by a virus, is a discouraging, debilitating condition. It affects an estimated 3.2 million Americans, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The illness is usually caused by receiving donated blood that is infected, having had a bad organ transplant, or sharing a needle or having sex with a person who is contaminated with the virus.
_ Access to E-Health Records Could Improve Care By article Unlike medical records kept in paper charts, electronic health records (EHR) provide numerous access points to clinicians to review a patient's medical history. A multi-university study published in the May 2014 issue of Health Affairs has found that access to electronic health records in acute care situations may influence the care given to that patient, and in some cases, failure to review the EHR could have adversely affected the medical management.
_ New Cancer Tx Raises Blood Pressure By article The upside of new cancer therapies that block vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) signaling is that these agents have improved the outlook for patients with some cancers and are now used as a first line therapy for some tumors. However the downside is that almost 100% of patients who take VEGF inhibitors (VEGFIs) develop high blood pressure, and a subset develops severe hypertension. That is the finding of a study done at the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences, University of Glasgow.
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.
_ Women's Health and Wellness Women & Peripheral Artery Disease By Sondra Forsyth article Women, especially older women, face greater limits on their lifestyle and have more severe symptoms as a result of peripheral artery disease (PAD) than men do. The condition happens when fatty deposits build up in arteries outside the heart, usually the arteries supplying fresh oxygen and blood to the arms, legs and feet. About 8 million Americans have peripheral artery disease.
_ Challenging the Notion of ΓÇ£Healthy ObesityΓÇ¥ By Jane Farrell article Back in October of 2013, the concept of “healthy obesity” made news because of a study published in the journal Diabetologia about overweight people with no metabolic problems. Now a study published on April 30th 2014 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology challenges that assertion. A release from the publisher explains that obese people who have no signs of cardiovascular disease show a much higher prevalence of early plaque buildup in the arteries compared to healthy normal weight individuals, according to a study.
_ 5 Ways to Stop Being a Passive Patient By article By Frederick Frost, MD It’s high time for patients to take an active role in their own healthcare. There was a time when many people had long-term relationships with a family doctor – someone who knew them and their families well.
_ Sleep Health Does Melatonin Work? By Jane Farrell article could get to sleep. Millions of people suffer from the same condition, and melatonin, a popular dietary supplement, is said to help. The melatonin sold in stores is a concentrated form of a natural hormone that plays a role in sleep. The hormone’s levels in the body rise in the a.m. and fall in the p.m. It’s been studied in connection with sleep disorders such as jet lag and insomnia, as well as dementia symptoms.
_ Home Health Visits Keep Heart Patient Out of the Hospital By article Research done at North Shore University Hospital on Long Island demonstrated a very significant reduction in hospital readmissions after coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery for patients who received home health care through the “Follow Your Heart” program. The study was published in the May 2014 issue of The Annals of Thoracic Surgery.
_ Mental & Emotional Health Stress Management Stress-Free Living Stress Is Contagious By article Watching somebody else try to cope with a stressful situation, even on TV, can be enough to bump up your own level of the stress hormone called cortisol. That is the finding of research done at the Max Planck Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig and the Technische Universität Dresden and published on April 17th 2014 in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.
_ Exercise How to Stick With Your Fitness Program By Jane Farrell article By Ken Blanchard and Tim Kearin