It sounds like a good idea. Have primary care doctors learn about older patients’ cognitive health by putting all of them, during routine office check-ups, through a few minutes of tests in which they are asked to recall lists of words, draw a clock face, describe the day and date of their appointment, talk about….
Continue ReadingMental Disability
Intoxicated drivers keep killing too many. New, targeted tactics may be needed.
Politicians and police may need to step up their crackdown on drug- and alcohol-impaired drivers, targeting repeat offenders with substance-abuse and mental health problems who also are “disproportionately responsible for fatalities,” a leading traffic safety group recommends. As the Wall Street Journal reported of new work by the Governors Highway Safety Association and its consultant….
Continue ReadingWho will step up to deal with dementia and Alzheimer’s?
With as many as 14 million Americans potentially suffering from various forms of dementia by 2040, including the common Alzheimer’s disease, and with the costs of the care for them forecast to soar soon to more than $500 billion, a frenzied race is on for ways to deal with the debilitating cognitive syndromes. But will….
Continue ReadingGun violence is a public health crisis. Research and treatment are needed now.
With back-to-back-to-back incidents of mass gun violence killing almost three dozen children, women, and men, can this nation muster the political courage to treat this lethal scourge as a public health menace? Can it, finally, green light and fund rigorous research that could inform public policies that both could protect Americans’ Second Amendment rights while….
Continue ReadingLoneliness, debilitation, and depression blamed for seniors’ rising suicides
The nation’s rising suicide crisis torments seniors, too, with just under one out of five such deaths in 2017 occurring with individuals 65 and older. Men 65-plus, experts say, face the highest suicide risk, while seniors 85 and older, men and women, rank No. 2 in groups most likely to die by taking their own….
Continue ReadingClinicians are facing up to the preventable harms that ICU’s inflict on many patients in the process of saving lives
Doctors and hospitals finally are owning up to and treating mental and physical damages inflicted on some of the sickest and most vulnerable individuals in their care—the 5 million or so patients who get helped in intensive care units, published research shows. Although ICU patients may get dramatic emergency care that saves them from deadly….
Continue ReadingAs assisted living facilities increase dementia care, resident safety risks rise
They look like nursing homes, but they’re not. And for the health and safety of our elderly loved ones, we must know the difference. These so-called assisted living facilities, operating with much less regulation and oversight than nursing homes, are raising concerns about the safety and quality of their dealings with a growing number of….
Continue ReadingAs 2018 season kicks off, college football reckons with head trauma harms
College football has kicked off its fall season with a flourish, but the signs are increasing that concerns about players’ health and safety may slash at the game’s size, spectacle, and importance. Just as the pro leagues were forced to answer in court for the harms that athletes suffer due to repeated blows to their….
Continue ReadingMillions of teens suffer concussions as experts link head trauma to suicide risk
Rigorous researchers avoid leaping to unfounded conclusions, but it’s hard not to look at two separate studies on areas of high current interest and just go “Hmmm ….” In the first work, experts from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed available reports and surveys to find that 15.1 percent of American high….
Continue ReadingPatients? We’re just profitable bit$ and byte$ to Big Pharma and insurers
Big Data may be a business buzzword that puts most consumers into a big sleep, but big alarms are sounding for Americans about Big Brother intrusions into their lives via the collection and analysis of vast amounts of highly personal information. Of course, Big Pharma and medical insurers are at the fore of invasive practices….
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