July 2008
Monthly Archive
Alzheimer’s Patients React Poorly to ‘Elderspeak’
Posted by admin on 30 Jul 2008 | Tagged as: Uncategorized
Alzheimer’s patients may often become upset and even act out when nurses or other caregivers use “baby talk” to converse with them, a new study shows.
Researchers who taped the interactions of nursing home staff and people with moderate Alzheimer’s found that the residents often became more agitated and resistant to care if they were addressed as infants. Continue Reading »
Worm Study Challenges Prevailing Theory of Aging
Posted by admin on 28 Jul 2008 | Tagged as: Uncategorized
Aging may be part of your genetic plan, not the result of wear-and-tear on your body, a new study of worms suggests.
The finding contradicts a commonly held theory and gives hope that science eventually may find a way to stop or reverse the aging process. Continue Reading »
Antidepressant Scripts Up 16 Million Over 3-Year Period
Posted by admin on 27 Jul 2008 | Tagged as: Uncategorized
Between 2002 and 2005, the number of prescriptions filled for antidepressant drugs increased from 154 million to 170 million, according to a report released last Thursday by the U.S. government. Continue Reading »
Automated, Wearable Kidney Offers Continuous Dialysis
Posted by admin on 26 Jul 2008 | Tagged as: Uncategorized
An automated artificial kidney that can be worn on the body may one day be to dialysis patients what the insulin pump is to diabetes patients.
The automated, wearable artificial kidney (AWAK) works better than conventional dialysis, according to a paper in the current issue of Clinical and Experimental Nephrology. Continue Reading »
Web Site Demystifies Lab Tests
Posted by admin on 25 Jul 2008 | Tagged as: Uncategorized
For many Americans, the meanings of various lab tests have long been the Bermuda Triangle of health care: poorly explained and often mysterious.
Enter a nonprofit Web site from the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) called Lab Tests Online. It offers patients easy access to detailed but consumer-friendly information on lab work and test results. Continue Reading »
Magnetic Pulses to Brain Improve Lazy Eye in Adults
Posted by admin on 23 Jul 2008 | Tagged as: Uncategorized
Correcting lazy eye in adults is supposed to be impossible, but researchers report they have been able to do that — at least partially and temporarily — by beaming magnetic pulses into the brain.
Someone with lazy eye — ophthalmologists call it amblyopia — has poor vision because one eye is weaker than the other. Early treatment often has a child wearing a patch over the strong eye to strengthen the weaker one, but the problem has been thought to be untreatable in adulthood. Most of the estimated 6 million Americans with amblyopia are adults. Continue Reading »
Lung Cancer Trial Targets Asbestos-Related Disease
Posted by admin on 22 Jul 2008 | Tagged as: Uncategorized
Patients are being recruited for a clinical trial of a new targeted radiation and chemotherapy protocol for pleural mesothelioma, a cancer of the lung’s lining that’s almost always caused by exposure to asbestos.Currently, the standard treatment is to remove the affected lung. Continue Reading »
Stretch That Grocery List in Lean Times
Posted by admin on 21 Jul 2008 | Tagged as: Uncategorized
With the exception of housing, and maybe gassing up your car, groceries are likely the next biggest expense in your family’s budget. And increasingly, food is gobbling up more and more of the average Americans income. During all of 2007, food prices rose almost 5 percent. Then, in just the first five months of 2008, food prices jumped 6.3 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Continue Reading »
Too Much, Too Little Sleep Linked to Stroke Risk
Posted by admin on 18 Jul 2008 | Tagged as: Uncategorized
Sleeping either too much or too little appears to heighten the risk of stroke, a new study finds.
And while the researchers said their findings can be applied only to the postmenopausal women in the study, other experts said the same relationship between sleep and stroke risk seems to be universal.
The study of more than 93,000 women found that those who regularly slept more than nine hours a night had a 60 percent to 70 percent higher risk of stroke than women sleeping seven hours. Continue Reading »
U.S. Obesity Epidemic Continues to Grow
Posted by admin on 17 Jul 2008 | Tagged as: Uncategorized
Despite wide-ranging efforts to encourage Americans to lose weight, the number of U.S. adults who are obese increased almost 2 percent between 2005 and 2007, a new report found.In 2007, 25.6 percent of adults reported being obese, compared to 23.9 percent in 2005, according to the finding in the July 18 issue of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Continue Reading »