It's Time To Forgive Already By blog If we’re honest, we all have harbored resentments, collected injustices, and become angry over insults that aren’t that important. I meditate. I burn candles. I drink green tea. And I still want to smack someone who offends me. It is challenging and completely exasperating to forgive someone. It might even be harder to forgive yourself.
_ CT Scans Better At Finding Gout By Jane Farrell article Researchers from the Mayo Clinic have discovered a new way of diagnosing gout that doesn’t involve needle aspiration. Until now the painful form of inflammatory arthritis has been detected only through drawing fluid or tissue from an affected joint via a needle and looking for uric acid crystals. But needle aspiration doesn’t seem to work as well as the one just developed by Mayo: X-rays known as dual-energy CT scans. According to a release from Mayo, the scans found gout in one third of patients who had tested negative for the illness.
_ Women's Health and Wellness WomenΓÇÖs Peak Heart Rate Different from MenΓÇÖs By article The formula for peak exercise heart rate that doctors have used for decades in tests to diagnose heart conditions may be flawed because it does not account for differences between men and women, according to research presented at the American College of Cardiology's 63rd Annual Scientific Session in March 2014 in Thousand Oaks, CA.
_ Women's Health and Wellness Recurrent UTIs: Hope For A Cure By Jane Farrell article Scientists may be edging closer to a permanent cure for recurrent urinary tract infections (UTIs). Researchers led by microbiologists from the University of Utah have shown the efficacy of a compound called chitosan when it’s used in combination with antibiotics. Chitosan is already approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for pharmaceutical and agricultural uses.
_ Surgical Residents And Patients Benefit From 24-Hour Shifts By Jane Farrell article Limiting the number of working hours for surgical residents hasn’t improved patient outcomes and may actually have increased patient complications. Additionally, shorter hours seem to lead to higher failure rates on certification exams. The finding, by researchers from St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, was published in the journal Annals of Surgery.
_ Vision Health Hope for New Tx for Retinal Blindness By article A report published online in in March 2014 in The FASEB Journal may lead the way toward new treatments or a cure for a common cause of blindness called proliferative retinopathies. Scientists at Harvard Medical Schools have shown that the body's innate immune system does more than help ward off external pathogens. It also helps remove sight-robbing abnormal blood vessels, while leaving healthy cells and tissue intact. This discovery is significant because the retina is part of the central nervous system and its cells cannot be replaced once lost.
_ Pain Management How To Make Chores Pain-Free By Jane Farrell article From the Cleveland Clinic Brain & Spine Team For some people, daily chores are a pain — literally. Up to 90 percent of people in the United States suffer from back pain at some point in their lives, and routine activities such as chores often cause flare-ups. But the chores themselves aren’t to blame, says occupational therapist Michael Milicia, OT/L. It’s how you do them. Below, he offers tips to help you do your household scrubbing and yard work without triggering pain.
40 Steps to Making a Bed... And Other Lessons in Caregiving By blog One recent morning, a clinical manager who helps train aides at the home care agency where I work, shared with me a lighthearted comment that she'd overheard from one of her newest trainees. "Who knew making a bed was so complex?" the aide had said. That got me thinking -- and counting.
Pain Management Natural Migraine Prevention Tips By article By Romie Mushtaq M.D. Headaches are fifth-leading cause of emergency room visits among all Americans, according to a 2013 National Institutes of Health report that calls headaches a major public health problem. The key to preventing headaches is, of course, to figure out what’s triggering them. While migraine and stress headaches can both be triggered by stress, migraines have many other possible triggers and they vary from one individual to the next.
_ Tweaking Electronic Alerts to Reduce Rx Errors By article Changing how medication alerts are presented in electronic medical records resulted in safer prescribing, increased efficiency, and reduced workload for health care providers who placed drug orders, according to study published online in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. A release from Indiana Universoty quotes study leader said Alissa L. Russ, Ph.D as saying, "We are looking at ways to improve the alert system for providers and for patient care."
Mentally Challenging Job = Sharp Mind After Retirement By article A mentally demanding job may seem stressful but data from the University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study show that you’re probably doing you brain a favor in the long run.
_ Gout Drug May Lower the Risk of Death By article In a study slated to be published in Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, researchers from Boston University School of Medicine found that the use of the drug allopurinol was associated with a reduced risk of death in patients with gout. The research suggests that the overall benefit of allopurinol on survival may outweigh the impact of rare serious adverse effects.
_ Money Matters Is It Smart To Buy A Condo? By Jane Farrell article Editor’s Note: As we get older, many of us think about downsizing from a house to a condo, because it’s easier to manage our lives in a simpler place. And we’d like to save as much money on home repairs as possible, because fixed incomes and Medicare don’t cover all essential expenses. Sometimes, though, the decision to buy or lease a condo isn’t as clear-cut as you’d like. Here, from a top expert, are some smart questions to ask yourself before making a move.
_ What You May Not Know About Preventing Heart Attacks, Strokes, and Diabetes By article By Bradley Bale MD and Amy Doneen ARNP with Lisa Collier Cool Have you ever wondered why someone could feel perfectly fine and then minutes later have a massive heart attack or stroke that either kills the person or causes a life-long disability? Even more challenging is the concept that some people can go in for a full medical exam, including cholesterol and blood pressure check and a stress test, and be told they are fine only to drop dead of a heart attack days or weeks later.
_ Aging Well Helping Us Use Age-Friendly Technologies By article Both public and private entities must consider the needs of older adults in order to help them optimize the use of new technologies from smart phones to smart cars, according to the latest issue of Public Policy & Aging Report (PP&AR), entitled “Aging and Technology: The Promise and the Paradox.” A total of eight articles, all from authors affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology AgeLab, are featured.
_ Sleep Health Get Back to Sleep - Without Drugs By Jane Farrell article From the Cleveland Clinic We’ve all been there. You are wide awake at 3 a.m., your mind racing with a rising sense of panic about the difficult day ahead if you don’t fall back to sleep. What you’re experiencing is a type of insomnia, says sleep disorders specialist Harneet Walia, MD, DABSM, of Cleveland Clinic’s Sleep Disorders Center.
25 Tips to Stretch Your Mind At Any Age By blog The good news is your brain has plasticity. This means that the brain has a natural ability to remodel itself throughout life so that the phrase “stretch your mind at any age” resonates. The brain is always changing, sometimes for better, and sometimes for worse. This neuroplasticity gives the brain the ability to change its neural pathways and synapses, which in turn affects changes in behavior, environment and neural processes.