Category: Health

The Alzheimer’s Association Illinois Chapter’s educational program Memory Loss, Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease: The Basics will take place at 11a.m., on Saturday, November 18, 2017 at Chicago Public Library – Oriole Park Branch, 7454 W. Balmoral Avenue in Chicago. Attendees will learn the difference between normal, age-related memory changes and more serious memory problems that should be evaluated by a medical professional. Topics that will be covered include: common causes of memory loss, risk factors and the importance of an accurate diagnosis. Program specialist Mayra Ligeza will present and take questions following the program. The end of Alzheimer’s disease starts here. To register for this program offered at no cost, call 847.933.2413 or register online at www.alz.org/illinois.

El programa educativo de Alzheimer’s Association Illinois Chapter’s Pérdida de la Memoria, Demencia y Alzheimer’s: Lo Básico se ofrecerá a las 11 a.m. el sábado, 18 de noviembre del 2017 en la Biblioteca Pública de Chicago – Sucursal Oriole Park, 7454 W. Balmoral Ave., en Chicago. Los asistentes aprenderán la diferencia entre los cambios normales de la memoria, relacionados con la edad y problemas de memoria más graves que deberían ser evaluados por un profesional médico. Los temas que se cubrirán incluyen: Causas comunes de la pérdida de la memoria, factores de riesgo y la importancia de un diagnóstico acertado. La especialista del programa, Mayra Ligeza, presentará y tomará preguntas al terminar el programa. El fin de la enfermedad de Alzheimer’s empieza aquí. Para inscribirse para este programa, ofrecido sin costo alguno, llame al 847-933-2413 o inscríbase en línea en www.alz.org/illinois.

El Departamento de Salud Pública de Chicago (CDPH) anunció que la natalidad entre adolescentes ha alcanzado una nueva baja histórica en Chicago. En el 2015, el año más reciente en que hay datos disponibles, hubo 27.5 nacimientos por cada 1,000 mujeres de 15 a 19 años, una baja de más del 67 por ciento del índice de 85.2 en 1999. “Chicago ha hecho un esfuerzo concertado y colaborativo para ayudar a las jóvenes a planear su futuro, tomar alternativas responsables y llevar una vida de éxito”, dijo el Alcalde Rahm Emanuel. “Un bajo número récord de natalidad entre adolescentes significa que más adolescentes de Chicago pueden enfocarse en su educación, luchar por sus metas y crear mejores futuros para ellas”.

Desde el 2010, Chicago ha visto declinar la natalidad entre adolescentes en todos los grupos raciales y étnicos. Las adolescentes afroamericanas, que históricamente enfrentan mayores disparidades sobre la natalidad entre adolescentes, han reflejado el mayor descenso, de más de 72 nacimientos por 1,000 mujeres, a solo 34.9, lo que representa más del 51 por ciento menos en general. La tasa de natalidad entre adolescentes de Chicago es mayor que la del promedio nacional, pero continúa cerrando la brecha, bajando un 20 por ciento más que el índice nacional desde el 2010. “Este descenso en la natalidad entre adolescentes significa un aumento en oportunidades y potenciación para las adolescentes”, dijo la Comisionada de CDPH Julie Morita, M.D. “Esto es porque sabemos que la vasta mayoría de embarazos entre adolescentes son indeseados y la paternidad de los adolescentes está asociada con graves implicaciones de salud y educativas para las adolescentes y sus bebés”. Las investigaciones han mostrado constantemente que la natalidad entre las adolescentes y los embarazos no deseados aumentan las probabilidades de bajo peso al nacer y la mortalidad infantil. Estudios han mostrado también que aproximadamente el 38 por ciento de las madres adolescentes obtienen un diploma de secundaria y menos del 2 por ciento obtienen un diploma de universidad cuando llegan a los 30 años. CDPH y sus asociados han trabajado agresivamente para reducir la natalidad entre adolescentes y mejorar la salud reproductiva de los residentes. Chicago fue recientemente reconocido por National Institute of Reproductive Health (NIRH) como líder en libertad reproductiva.

¿Necesita otra razón para mantener su peso bajo control?

El exceso de peso puede causar la dislocación de sus rodillas y puede inclusive llevarle a una complicación que puede dar como resultado la amputación de la pierna. Un nuevo estudio atribuye un aumento en rodillas dislocadas a la epidemia de obesidad de E.U. “La obesidad aumenta considerablemente las complicaciones y el costo de atención”, dijo el estudio conducido por el autor del mismo, Dr. Joey Johnson, Médico ortopédico de trauma en la Escuela de Medicina Warren Alpert de Brown University. “Al aumentar el índice de obesidad, aumenta el índice de las rodillas dislocadas. El número total de paciente obesos está aumentando, por lo que cada vez vemos estos problemas con más frecuencia”, explicó Johnson. Las dislocaciones de rodilla ocurren por la rotura múltiple de ligamentos. Choques de vehículos o contactos en el deporte, como el fútbol, son causas comunes. Para el estudio, los investigadores analizaron más de 19,000 dislocaciones de rodilla a nivel nacional entre el 2000 y el 2012. En ese tiempo, la gente obesa, o gravemente obesa, representaba una parte creciente de pacientes con rodillas dislocadas – 19 por ciento en el 2012, hasta el 8 por ciento en el 2000. La obesidad está realcionada también con dislocaciones más severas de rodillas, estancias más largas en el hospital y costos más altos de tratamiento, de acuerdo al estudio publicado recientemente en Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma.

The largest study to compare the mortality outcomes of different types of exercise found people who did strength-based exercise had a 23 percent reduction in risk of premature death by any means, and a 31 percent reduction in cancer-related death. Lead author Emmanuel Stamatakis from the School of Public Health and the Charles Perkins Centre said while strength training has been given some attention for functional benefits as we age, little research has looked at its impact on mortality. “The study shows exercise that promotes muscular strength may be just as important for health as aerobic activities like jogging or cycling,” said Associate Professor Stamatakis. “And assuming our findings reflect cause and effect relationships, it may be even more vital when it comes to reducing risk of death from cancer.” The World Health Organization’s Physical Activity Guidelines for adults recommend 150 minutes of aerobic activity, plus two days of muscle strengthening activities each week. Summary of key findings:

• participation in any strength-promoting exercise was associated with a 23 percent reduction in all-cause mortality and a 31 percent reduction in cancer mortality
• own bodyweight exercises that can be performed in any setting without equipment yielded comparable results to gym-based activities
• adherence to WHO’s strength-promoting exercise guideline alone was associated with reduced risk of cancer-related death, but adherence to the WHO’s aerobic physical activity guideline alone was not
• adherence to WHO’s strength-promoting exercise and aerobic guidelines combined was associated with a greater risk reduction in mortality than aerobic physical activity alone
• there was no evidence of an association between strength-promoting exercise and cardiovascular disease mortality.

Reports of self-harm jumped nearly 70 percent among younger teen girls between 2011 and 2014, suggesting an urgent need for interventions targeted to this group, researchers say. Self-harm, such as self-poisoning or self-injury, is the strongest risk factor for subsequent suicide, and suicide is the second most common cause of death before age 25 worldwide, the study team notes in the journal The BMJ. “We found an increase in self-harm among girls aged 13-16 years of age not seen in any other age groups amongst girls or any of the age range we investigated among boys,” lead author Catharine Morgan told Reuters Health in an email. “We are unable to say for certain why this rise was observed. It may be a combination of an increase in girls actually reporting the self-harm or it may be a reflection of an increase in psychological distress among girls of this age group,” said Morgan, a researcher at the University of Manchester. Regardless of the reasons for this rise, we hope the study improves the awareness of the potentially growing problem of psychological distress in all young people, she added.

To assess the more recent prevalence of self-harm and whether kids are receiving adequate treatment for psychological distress, Morgan and her colleagues analyzed electronic health records covering 647 general medical practices. Children and teens ages 10 to 19 who had harmed themselves between 2001 and 2014 were included in the study. Almost 17,000 kids and teens had harmed themselves at least once, and about 73 percent were girls. Just over 84 percent of the incidents were drug overdoses and about 12 percent were self-cutting episodes. Between 2 percent and 3 percent poisoned themselves, and the remaining 1 percent of incidents involved hanging, suffocation, jumping and scalding. Roughly one in five of these kids harmed themselves again sometime during the year after their first episode, researchers found. The research team also found high rates of depression and anxiety disorders among the kids who self-harmed. About one-third of the girls and one-quarter of the boys were diagnosed with depression, for example.

In a new report released by Amino, a health care transparency company, Saint Anthony Hospital has been rated the city of Chicago’s “Best Value” hospital. Amino examined 68 hospitals across the Chicago area by analyzing their propriety database to calculate institutions’ health care costs and paired it with their quality data. “’Best Value’ means that Saint Anthony is achieving high quality of care and simultaneously providing that care at a lower cost,” said Chief Quality Officer and Obstetrician for Saint Anthony Hospital Eden Takhsh, M.D. “In other words, our hospital is on the right path toward remaining successful in this increasingly competitive health care marketplace.” With the health care environment becoming more difficult to navigate, Amino is working to help consumers make smarter health care choices in an age where there is an overwhelming amount of information. Their health care database of more than 9 billion insurance claims represents nearly every doctor and facility in America, and $1.8 trillion in medical bills. Amino’s Facility Cost Ratings leverage recognizable dollar signs to allow people to more easily shop for procedures like MRIs and surgeries nearby, knowing which facilities are in-network and relatively affordable. “Amino is focused on giving consumers and other health care stakeholders the information and tools they need to navigate decisions that could greatly impact their health and their wallet,” said David Vivero, CEO of Amino. “We hope that such transparency can guide people toward better care.”

By: Ashmar Mandou

Underserved children from Chicago’s Humboldt Park area were the recipients of the most advanced mobile health care following the unveiling on Thursday of a new pediatric mobile medical unit. Known as the Norwegian American Hospital Pediatric Care-A-Van, the “doctor’s office on wheels” will feature innovative technology and operate in partnership with the Norwegian American Hospital Foundation. Through a generous grant from the Children’s Care Foundation, the program will provide mobile health care for uninsured and underserved children and teenagers. “I am very excited about our new mobile medical unit,” said José R. Sánchez, president and CEO of Norwegian American Hospital. “This will allow us to continue to provide outstanding comprehensive primary health care services to the underserved youth we work with. The new unit will enable us to take our care provision to the next level, so that our patients can be even more engaged in the program, and have the best health outcomes possible.” The new Pediatric Care-A-Van will increase access, convenience, continuity, and quality of care to meet the unique needs of this patient population. The van is fitted with everything needed for health care clinics. In addition to immunization services, the van is suitable for health care screenings and physical examinations. The mobile unit will collaborate with other community partners, including Chicago Public Schools, churches and local health events. It will also be used at health fairs and community programs.

Women who use a lot of the common pain reliever acetaminophen during pregnancy may be more likely to have children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) than those who don’t use the drug, a Norwegian study suggests. Researchers analyzed data on almost 113,000 children and their parents, including 2,246 kids who were diagnosed with ADHD. Almost half of the mothers took acetaminophen (also known as paracetamol) at some point during pregnancy, researchers report in Pediatrics. Using the drug during just one trimester was associated with 7 percent higher odds of having a child with ADHD, while the increased risk was 22 percent for women who used acetaminophen in two trimesters and 27 percent with use in all three trimesters, the study found.

Short-term use didn’t appear to increase the risk for ADHD. In fact, when women took acetaminophen for less than 8 days, they were 10 percent less likely to have kids with ADHD than mothers who didn’t use the drug at all during pregnancy, the study found. Women used the medicine for fever and infections for 22 to 28 days, however, were more than six times more likely to have kids with ADHD than mothers who avoided the drug during pregnancy. Overall, researchers estimated that about 4 percent of the children in the study would have an ADHD diagnosis by age 13. The study wasn’t a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how prenatal acetaminophen use might directly cause ADHD. One limitation of the study is that long-term use of acetaminophen during pregnancy might indicate a more serious illness or injury, and researchers lacked data on the severity of conditions that led women to use the drug. Another drawback is that researchers relied on survey data to identify when and how long in pregnancy women used acetaminophen as well as the reasons they took the drug. Many people in the study also didn’t report a reason for using acetaminophen. It’s possible that the connections between acetaminophen and ADHD in the study were merely due to chance, said Dr. Antonio Saad, a researcher at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston who wasn’t involved in the study.

Las reportes de autolesiones subieron cerca de un 70 por ciento entre jóvencitas adolescentes entre el 2011 y el 2014, y esto sugiere una necesidad urgente de intervenciones dirigidas a este grupo, dijeron investigadores. La autolesión, como envenenarse o lesionarse, es el factor de riesgo mayor para un subsecuente suicidio y el suicidio es la segunda causa de muerte más común antes de los 25 años, a nivel mundial, hace notar el equipo de estudio en el diario The BMJ. “Encontramos un aumento en autolesiones en jovencitas de 13 a 16 años, no visto en ningún otro grupo entre las jovencitas ni entre los varones jóvenes de esa misma edad”, dijo la autora Catharine Morgan en un e-mail. “No podemos decir con certeza a que se debe el aumento. Puede ser una combinación de un aumento en jovencitas que actualmente reportan la autolesión o puede ser un reflejo de un aumento en problemas psicológicos entre jovencitas de este grupo de edad”, dijo Morgan, investigadora de la Universidad de Manchester. Sin importar las razones para este aumento, esperamos que el estudio mejore la concientización del potencial problema del crecimiento de problemas psicológicos en todos los jóvenes, agregó.

Para evaluar la más reciente prevalencia de autolesión y si los jóvenes están recibiendo el tratamiento adecuado para problemas psicológicos, Morgan y sus colegas analizaron récords electrónicos de salud cubriendo 647 prácticas médicas. Los niños y los adolescentes de 10 a 19 años que se han lastimado a si mismos entre el 2001 y el 2014 estuvieron incluídos en el estudio. Cerca de 17,000 niños y adolescentes se han lastimado a si mismos por lo menos una vez y aproximadamente 73 por ciento eran niñas. Solo más del 84 por ciento de los incidentes fueron sobredosis de droga y aproximadamente 12 por ciento fueron episodios de autocortaduras. Entre el 2 y el 3 por ciento se envenenaron a si mismas y el restante 1 por ciento de incidentes involucró, ahorcarse, asfixia, saltar al vacío y quemaduras. Cerca de uno de cada cinco de estos niños se lesionó nuevamente durante el año después del primer episodio, dicen los investigadores. El equipo investigativo encontró también un alto índice de depresión y ansiedad entre los niños que se autolesionaron. Aproximadamente una tercera parte de las niñas y una cuarta parte de los niños fueron diagnosticados con depresión.