_ Is Your Hearing Getting Worse? By Jane Farrell article From NIH SeniorHealth.gov. Hearing loss, a common yet complex problem, involves both the ear’s ability to detect sounds and the brain’s ability to interpret those sounds, including speech. Several factors have to be taken into account to determine how much of an effect hearling loss will have on quality of life. They include: *the degree of the hearing loss *the pattern of hearing loss across different frequencies (pitches) *whether one or both ears is affected
_ Heart Health Anger and Heart Attacks By Jane Farrell article For some people, anger could literally be a killer. A new study has found that there’s a nearly fivefold increase in heart attack risk in the two hours following an outburst. “There has been a lot of research on anger; we already know it can be unhealthy, but we wanted to quantify the risk, not just for heart attack, but for other potentially lethal cardiovascular events as well,” said lead author Elizabeth Mostofsky, MPH, ScD, a post-doctoral fellow in the cardiovascular epidemiological unit at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
_ Mental & Emotional Health Can Skype Make You Happier? By article By Hilary Young Loneliness and depression are not uncommon within the senior community. While the Centers for Disease Control reports that “depression is a true and treatable medical condition, not a normal part of aging,” the CDC also acknowledges that older adults do face a higher risk than other age groups of experiencing depression and anxiety. According to the CDC, about 80 percent of older adults are living with at least one chronic health problem, which could play a major role in the development of depression.
_ Experts Have Overlooked Binge-Drinking Patterns By Jane Farrell article Studies linking moderate drinking to potential health benefits may have failed to take into account the issue of binge drinking among older “moderate” drinkers, a new study shows. Previous research, the investigators say, has focused on average drinking levels rather than drinking patterns. And that, the investigators say, hides underlying factors such as heavy episodic or weekend binge drinking.
_ Breast Cancer 14 Questions About Your Breast Cancer Diagnosis By article prognosis and medical choices.
_ Body Clock Controls Healing of Hearing Damage By article A discovery at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden paves the way for medication to help people with hearing disabilities. The researchers have identified a biological circadian clock in the hearing organ, the cochlea. This circadian clock controls how well hearing damage may heal.
Caregiving Peace of Mind for Long-Distance Caregivers By article By Marki Flannery Every Sunday, Donna placed a call from her home in Washington D.C. to her Aunt Catherine, to check up on her. At age 87, Catherine lived alone in her longtime Lower Manhattan apartment and, except for an attack of angina a couple years ago, was in relatively good health. Donna asked, as she usually did, about her aunt's weekend and was heartened to hear she had gotten out with friends. "My neighbor's daughter took us to the Metropolitan Museum," Catherine said, sounding uplifted.
_ Mental & Emotional Health Diagnosing Borderline Personality Disorder By Jane Farrell article Borderline personality disorder, a serious mental illness, affects six to ten million Americans, according to statistics from New York-Presbyterian Hospital. That’s more than twice the number of people affected by bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. And up to 90 percent of those diagnosed are women; while that may be because women seek treatment more often than men, it’s still a substantial number. Despite its prevalence, borderline personality disorder less widely known than other conditions such as depression.
_ Over 80s Over-Treated for Stroke Prevention By article People in their 80s are often prescribed drugs to ward off a stroke when the risk of a stroke is not that high and the drugs have other side effects, according to research doneby Dr. Kit Byatt of the Department of Geriatric Medicine at The County Hospital in Hereford, UK and published online in the journal Evidence Based Medicine. Byatt maintains that people in this age group are being "over-treated" and that doctors need to rethink their priorities and beliefs about stroke prevention.
_ Blood-Pressure Meds and Serious Falls By Jane Farrell article Blood-pressure medications have an unintended and potentially deadly side effect: they increase the risk of serious fall injuries by up to 40 percent. Yale School of Medicine researchers looked at 4,961 patients older than 70 who had hypertension. Among the participants, 14 percent didn’t take any medication, 55 percent took moderate doses and 31 percent took high doses.
_ BP Drug Enhances Chemotherapy By article Chemotherapy treatment for cancer work by inducing lesions in the DNA of tumor cells in order to inhibit their proliferation. However, according to a release by INSERM (Institut National de de la Santé et la Recherche Médicale), the body naturally tries to repair these lesions,and thus reduces the efficacy of chemotherapy. Blocking the mechanisms for DNA repair would help to improve chemotherapy by reducing the resistance of cells to treatment.
_ Mental & Emotional Health Health-Care Coverage: A Tragic Exception By Jane Farrell article By Michelle Andrews, Kaiser Health News Dealing with the aftermath of a suicide or attempted suicide is stressful enough. But some health plans make a harrowing experience worse by refusing to cover medical costs for injuries that are related to suicide—even though experts say that in many cases such exclusions aren't permitted under federal law. Yet patients or their loved ones often don't realize that.
Heart Health Post-Stroke Blood Pressure Treatment Not Always Effective By Jane Farrell article Giving blood pressure lowering medications to patients who have suffered a stroke doesn’t reduce their likelihood of death or major disability, according to a new study. The study was published inJAMA. At least 25 percent of the population has high blood pressure, which greatly increases the risk of stroke. Lowering blood pressure has been shown to reduce the risk of stroke.
_ The Personal Records You Need to Keep By Jane Farrell article We don’t like to think about suddenly becoming seriously sick or disabled. Yet it’s extremely helpful to review what you and others need to know if that happens. To have your “affairs in order” will help your family and caregivers as well as you yourself. The federal National Institute on Aging has a list that will help you and other family members be prepared for a sudden crisis. (And if you are caregiving yourself for a family member, it might be a good idea to tactfully bring up this subject.)
_ Antidepressant Helps With AD Agitation By Sondra Forsyth article The antidepressant drug citalopram, sold under the brand names Celexa and Cipramil and also available as a generic medication, significantly relieved agitation in a group of patients with Alzheimer's disease, according to research led by a Johns Hopkins team and reported in the February 19th issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. However, side effects including sings of abnormal heart function and a slight increase in cognitive decline.
_ How Does Your Medicine Work? By Jane Farrell article Medicines can enter the body in many different ways, including through an inhaler, a skin patch, a pill or a hypodermic needle. As drugs make their way through the body, many steps happen along the way. Understanding how medicines work in your body can help you learn why it is important to use medicines safely and effectively. In this section on taking medicines, we’ll focus on medicines you take by mouth, since those are the most common. Entering and Circulating in the Body
_ New Depression Treatments On the Horizon By Jane Farrell article New research into the physiological causes of depression could eventually yield treatments beyond common antidepressants like Prozac and Zoloft. According to the research, published in Current Psychiatry, treatments on the horizon include new medications, electrical and magnetic stimulation of the brain and long-term cognitive behavioral therapy for stress management.