When caring for a loved one, many families look for financial assistance to help specifically with the cost of home care services. While there are programs that provide assistance in this area, many families fail to consider other forms of assistance that can make their loved one’s residence more accessible and safer. A safe and accessible home can actually reduce the need for home care services as well as prevent unexpected increases in home care services costs by helping to avoid injuries. This articles aims to help families better understand their financial assistance options for making home modifications for elderly […]
Heart Health Risks in Men – Paying Attention in Your 20’s
According to the CDC, heart disease is the leading cause of death among Americans with 597,689 deaths attributed to it in 2010. Heart disease kills one in four men in the United States. For many older men this is not news, and young men are becoming more aware of the facts every day – yet very few act upon this information. More and more doctors are saying that heart disease can be prevented, but it is up to us to act before it is too late. So what can we do to prevent heart disease? First off, stop smoking. […]
Streamlined Access to HIV/AIDS Assistance Programs
An estimated 56,000 persons in the United States become infected with HIV every year. Of the 1.1 million persons living with HIV in the United States, approximately 250,000 are not aware of their infection and their risk for transmitting HIV to others. Of those who are unaware, many are diagnosed late in the course of their infection, after a prolonged asymptomatic period during which further transmission may have occurred. Persons who are diagnosed late in their infection miss a valuable opportunity to start HIV care and are at greater risk for AIDS-related complications (than those diagnosed earlier). Therefore, it should […]
Is that Drug Really Necessary?
A recent Boston Globe article described a large settlement a family won against Johnson & Johnson, the maker of Children’s Motrin. There’s an old adage, “All I know is what I read in the newspaper” and that is the case here. While it may sound like a windfall for the family, there was more to the story than just suing for—and winning—millions of dollars, and there is no happy ending nor winner. According to the article, when a little girl was seven years old her parents gave her Children’s Motrin for a fever. She apparently received three doses over 24 […]
Gender-Specific Medicine: Part 2
This week we continue to look at gender medicine- how diseases may manifest themselves differently, and how medications may affect differently- depending on whether you are male or female. An editorial in Nature in 2010 urged us to “put Gender on the Agenda,” as increasingly we are seeing from research results that there are distinct gender-based differences in disease incidence and activity, and treatment methods, especially medication. Cancer, for example, is the second leading cause of death among women and men, (Anderson, R.N., Deaths: Leading Causes for 2000. National Vital Statistics Reports. 2002, National Center for Health Statistics: Hyattsville, MD), […]