Health and Disability

In the last several months, we have heard about rapidly increasing prices for Epi-Pen, the rising lockstep cost of insulin medications, and the practice of some companies hiking prices by combining two cheaper products into one, higher-priced drug.

In order to provide a better sense of the frequency and pervasiveness of these increases, last year CMS published a new interactive tool that tracks the price of drugs purchased for Medicare beneficiaries. This tool allows the public to view drugs in Medicare Part B and D with high spending on a per user basis, high spending for the program overall, and those with high unit cost increases in recent years. Individual entries contain helpful graphs on trends for specific drugs over the last five years, as we see below for a drug that helps to control high blood sugar.

Preliminary Findings: National Summary Report November 14, 2016 

The advent in 2013 of direct acting antiviral agents (DAAs) to combat Hepatitis C (HCV) is a

Medical science is advancing so rapidly that we expect bionic genitals any day now, but one decidedly low-tech procedure has been making quite a splash: the fecal transplant. It's exactly what it sounds like -- injecting someone else's shit into your asshole to fix butt problems.

It sounds like something out of a sci-fi dystopia as imagined by Matt Stone and Trey Parker, but it's a real thing that people really do. Did we mention the patient is in charge of finding their own poop donor?

"Nicole" went through all of this recently and kindly relayed all the gruesome details:

Amazon just about does it all, but one area that it is just dipping its toes into is “Home Assistants,” a new service to help keep customers’ homes clean.

The tip off was when a job posting was released in October for “Home Assistants,” according to a report from Engadget. Home assistants would perform tasks such as laundry, tidy up people’s homes and put groceries away.

Originally, the service was said to be offered as an added bonus for Amazon Prime customers, but the company has now removed any link to Prime, which means this could be a service available to any Amazon user in the future.

I am going to try very hard to be polite here. It isn't easy because this question makes my blood boil. I am often harassed by people who take exception to the combination of my white cane, my glasses and the printed book that I am reading on the train. But since you asked, I will try to clear this up for once and for all. Read this next sentence very carefully please.

Most "blind people" can see some. 

There are people who are totally blind. Some of them where glasses. Some reasons might be 1. to cover disfigured eyes and thus gain a bit in social acceptance, 2. to protect their face from branches and other obstacles and 3. to let other people know they can't see (again in order to avoid social problems and as a traffic safety measure).

However, 90 percent of legally blind people can see something, even if just light. Those who can see only light are often light-sensitive and bright light can cause pain. If they can't see much beyond light, they will rarely have a warning when bright light is coming. So, dark glasses are a real necessity.

The researchers found that Alzheimer's patients who consumed milk enriched with beneficial live bacteria every day for 12 weeks showed significant improvements in cognitive functioning.

Senior study author Prof. Mahmoud Salami, from Kashan University in Iran, and colleagues recently published their findings in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.

Probiotics are defined as live microorganisms that are "helpful" to human health. These include bacterial groups such as Lactobacillusand Bifidobacterium, as well as yeasts, including Saccharomyces boulardii.

According to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, probiotics can act in a number of ways. They can help create a favorable community of microbes in the gut, for example, and help stimulate immune response.

Compared with participants who consumed the untreated milk, those who received the probiotic-enriched milk demonstrated significant improvements in cognitive functioning, the team reports.

Subjects who consumed the treated milk saw average MMSE scores increase from 8.7 to 10.6 (out of a possible 30) during the 12-week study period, while scores dropped from 8.5 to 8.0 for those who drank the untreated milk.

The researchers stress that all participants remained severely cognitively impaired, but their findings are the first to show that probiotics might lead to some cognitive improvements.

"In a previous study, we showed that probiotic treatment improves the impaired spatial learning and memory in diabetic rats," notes Prof. Salami, "but this is the first time that probiotic supplementation has been shown to benefit cognition in cognitively impaired humans."

While long wait times are historically associated with healthcare, providers are taking a financial risk in not addressing the problem. Patients who get fed up and leave before utilizing a facility's services represent lost revenue -- and some are making their voices heard, posting their dissatisfaction on the internet for a world full of consumers to see. This can make growing and retaining a customer base challenging. But technology can help.

One one hand, long-term strategies such as pre-verification and a revamped check-in process can help cut wait times, implementing digital tools can have a more immediate impact, and at the very least sends the signal to patients that their hospital cares about the inconvenience of a lengthy stint in the waiting room.

"You have to show them that you care," said Lane. "You care about making that time smaller, and giving them some of their time back. The key is giving them some information. Imagine going to a restaurant, and you sign in, and you have no idea how much time you'll have to spend just standing there. That's a frustration. Even if wait times are longer than they should be, it's still important for them to know. It shows the patient that they care."

One thing  CrossChx tech can do is communicate to the patient how long the wait is expected to last. That prevents many consumers from just throwing their hands in the air and leaving the facility altogether.

But Alex Backer, founder and CEO of QLess, would go one step farther by eliminating the waiting room entirely.

QLess is mobile app that alerts users about their expected wait time -- not just for hospitals, but for restaurants, theater tickets, anything that involves waiting. By sending scheduling information to people's phones, Backer expects that the old-fashioned method of manual pen and paper patient registration could one day become a thing of the past.

"Waiting rooms are one of the most wasteful uses of real estate in healthcare," said Backer. "They're almost completely unnecessary. That real estate could be repurposed more efficiently to be used for healthcare."

There are two different approaches to preventing headaches with diet. The first approach would be an elimination diet that avoids foods and beverages known to trigger headaches. The second approach would be follow a comprehensive diet whose very composition may prevent headaches, explains Martin, co-director of the Headache and Facial Pain Center at UC Gardner Neuroscience Institute and an expert in the area of migraine. His conclusions and others for migraineurs come after performing an exhaustive literature review of more than 180 research studies on the subject of migraine and diet.

Martin’s two-part review, “Diet and Headache” is available online in the scholarly publicationHeadache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain. It is co-authored by Dr. Brinder Vij, associate professor in the UC Department of Neurology and Rehabilitation Medicine.

“One of the most important triggers for headache is the withdrawal of caffeine,” says Martin, who also sees patients at UC Health. “Let’s say you regularly pound down three or four cups of coffee every morning and you decide to skip your morning routine one day, you will likely have full-fledged caffeine withdrawal headache that day.”

That said, too much coffee may also present a risk, no more than 400 milligrams daily–one cup is 125 milligrams–is probably the maximum for migraine patients, says Martin. “Large amounts of caffeine can bring on anxiety and depressive symptoms as well as headaches,” he explains.

How to Fall-Proof Your Home

Your home is somewhere where you should feel most comfortable, especially for seniors who want to remain at home in their retirement years and remain independent. To maintain their health and independence, it’s important to make their homes fall proof. Here are some important tips to reduce the odds of you having a fall at home:

1. Remove Common Tripping Hazards

This may sound like common sense, but many of the causes of falls are simple tripping hazards. Make sure shoes are removed from the front door, telephone and power cords are properly stored away from common walking areas, and other items put away so they don’t become a hazard. Even something as innocent as a pet’s water bowl can cause you to take a tumble.

2. Create Larger Walkways

Arrange the furniture in your home to create a clear path that allows you to walk freely from room to room. This is particularly important for seniors who use a cane or walker. The more room you have, the less likely you will bump into something.

3. Clean Up Spills and Water Immediately..........