Sarah Wu is a speech pathologist in the Chicago public school system, and she is about to reveal all the dirty, little secrets of school lunches. Every day for a year, Wu ate the same school lunch her students ate. She photographed them, ate them, evaluated them, and then wrote about her experiences on a …
In the medical world, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a rising star, sure to become a household name. And the turning point in CTE’s infamy may have just been reported this week, with the report that former hockey great Rick Martin had CTE at the time of his death. First, some background: CTE is a …
Last year, DePuy Orthopaedics, a division of Johnson & Johnson, recalled two of their hip replacement systems due to a higher-than-usual failure rate, causing patients to have to have second surgeries to replace the replacement. Then, in May 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ordered all producers of “metal-on-metal” hip replacements to study …
Hip Replacements Fail, Sometimes Without Symptoms Read More »
A fascinating article in the Montreal Gazette describes how people living in Health Central Park nursing home in Florida have had their brains, mobility, and social lives jump-started by a simple gadget: the iPad. The hope is that the iPad and other digital tablets could become a mainstream treatment device for people with Alzheimer’s disease …
Can motherhood cause brain injury? Yes… indirectly. An article in the Deseret News recounts the experience of mom Erin Stewart, whose preschooler gave her a concussion: Motherhood is rough. I’m not talking about emotions here. I’m talking physically rough. I’m talking just-got-back-from-the-doctor-with-a-minor-concussion rough. Seriously. My preschooler gave me a concussion. In what will forever be …
International Walk to School Day is Wednesday, October 5, 2011. According to Safe Kids USA, a government site devoted to helping to keep children safe, approximately 13,000 child pedestrians age 14 and younger are injured each year in crashes with motor vehicles. For the twelfth year, Safe Kids and FedEx will team up to teach …
At about 2:00 pm, second grade student Michael Rodriguez slipped on some water at school and hit his head. By 6:00 pm, his mom was rushing him to the hospital. The basic story is simple, but the lessons are in the details. According to a Texas-based news source, VictoriaAdvocate.com, by the time 7-year-old Michael got …
A Brain Injury at School…a Cautionary Tale for Parents Read More »
A commentary in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) talks about the common problem facing nursing home residents: Unnecessary hospitalizations due to untrained nurses or substandard medical protocol when an elderly resident becomes ill. According to the articles authors, Dr. Joseph G. Ouslander and Dr. Robert A. Berenson: More than …
Results of a study just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) suggest guidelines for patients that could help keep them safer after carotid stenting. In fact, this advice might even save lives. A stent is a tiny tube that acts to keep an artery open, allowing blood to flow properly. Stents …
Earlier this year, California Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard introduced legislation known as H.R. 2552: “Nursing Home Patient Protection & Standards Act.” (The “H.R.” stands for House of Representatives, signifying that the bill started in that body of Congress.) H.R. 2522 was introduced to ensure consistent standards in nursing homes across the nation. It provides training and whistleblower …
Helping to Ensure Nursing Home Patient Protections Read More »