Patty Duke's Death Announcement Is A Milestone For Sepsis Awareness

http://goo.gl/jRIcbt

Oscar-winning actress Patty Duke, star of “The Patty Duke Show” and the Broadway play and film “The Miracle Worker,” died of sepsis from a ruptured intestine on Tuesday.

Simple though it may seem, her death announcement is a major milestone for the sepsis awareness movement, said Thomas Heymann, executive director of the Sepsis Alliance. The more people are aware of this condition, Heymann said, the stronger their likelihood of saving their own lives or the lives of their loved ones.

“The fact that they said Patty Duke’s cause of death was sepsis is relatively new,” Heymann said. “It very often would have been left as a complication of surgery or an infection, but it’s not a complication — it’s sepsis.”

Sepsis, a reaction to infection that leads to systemic organ failure, kills more than 258,000 Americans every year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, making it the ninth-leading cause of disease-related deaths in the country. While most people can fully recover from sepsis, some survivors are left with permanent organ damage or missing limbs due to amputation. 

Despite these alarming facts, less than half of Americans have even heard of sepsis, according to polls conducted by the Sepsis Alliance in partnership with official polling companies. In a 2015 online survey of 2,000 participants, only 47 percent of Americans were aware of sepsis. Meanwhile, 86 percent knew about Ebola and 76 percent knew about malaria — two diseases that are much rarer in the United States.


Children Learn About Dementia, Alzheimer's: School, Family Support (Video 3:51)

http://goo.gl/eQW0qh

Dementia and Alzheimer’s are topics that many adults avoid. This leaves children at a serious disadvantage in terms of being informed about them and in seeing adults modeling positive, proactive, dementia-related behaviors. By engaging children with information about these topics at school and at home, adults can impact future generations of healthcare recipients, service providers, and caregivers. Listening to young people’s concerns and encouraging them to become involved are major steps toward transformation. Family discussions can be helpful for everyone, particularly as more family members are becoming caregivers for loved ones with cognitive decline.

Children have meaningful stories to tell that can help others understand their candid and sincere perspectives. Meet Dan, a boy who shares his heartfelt story about his Nan before and after she developed dementia. He explains his confusion and distress when he didn’t know what was happening to her. Now, he has learned more about the disease and enjoys visiting her at the nursing home. Dan has adjusted to his new Nan, one of his “most important people.” Many say, “It takes a whole village to raise a child.” But it also takes a whole village to make a village whole.


Where are the female mice in drug testing?

https://goo.gl/zbyN4Z

ResearchGate: What were the key findings from your research into the gender breakup of mice used in scientific studies?

Rachel Hill: Overall my review found that a surprisingly large percentage of animal studies (around 75-80 percent) in schizophrenia research used male mice only. In addition, of the studies that did use both sexes, a large portion were underpowered. This means that the numbers from each sex involved in the study were so low that no statistically strong sex differences could be detected. Meanwhile, in 80 percent of the trials that did use a statistically significant number of male and female mice sex-specific results were actually found – so male and female mice reacted differently to the treatment.

RG: Do you feel the sample size and scope of studies you examined were sufficient to make a general statement about the gender imbalance in mice used for scientific research?

Hill: Yes, I do. I reviewed a total of 710 original articles and found that only 111 used both males and females. These articles were on a range of animal models of schizophrenia, including genetic models, drug-induced models, and developmental models.

RG: What impact could this imbalance have on humans? 

Hill: We could be missing vital information on how specific genes may interact with sex steroid hormones to influence brain function and behavior. We could also be very misinformed about how certain psychotrophic drugs act in the female brain as a large percentage of studies using drug induced models only tested males – in fact, only 9 out of 191 we reviewed included females.


Children with Cushing syndrome may have higher suicide risk

http://goo.gl/LG5oIM

Children with Cushing syndrome may be at higher risk for suicide as well as for depression, anxiety and other mental health conditions long after their disease has been successfully treated, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health.

Cushing syndrome results from high levels of the hormone cortisol. Long-term complications of the syndrome includeobesity, diabetes, bone fractures, high blood pressure, kidney stones and serious infections. Cushing's syndrome may be caused by tumors of the adrenal glands or other parts of the body that produce excess cortisol. It also may be caused by a pituitary tumor that stimulates the adrenal glands to produce high cortisol levels. Treatment usually involves stopping excess cortisol production by removing the tumor.

"Our results indicate that physicians who care for young people with Cushing syndrome should screen their patients for depression-related mental illness after the underlying disease has been successfully treated," said the study's senior author, Constantine Stratakis, D(med)Sci, director of the Division of Intramural Research at NIH's Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. "Patients may not tell their doctors that they're feeling depressed, so it's a good idea for physicians to screen their patients proactively for depression and related conditions."


FBI: Hospice Killed Patients for Profit

Death as a profit center...

http://goo.gl/FQc4ZP

The owner of a medical company near Dallas reportedly told nurses to overdose hospice patients so that they would die sooner. FBI investigators say Brad Harris, who founded Novus Health Care Services in Frisco, Texas, wanted to speed up as many deaths as possible in order to maximize profits, The Dallas Morning News reports. Communications between Harris and nurses included texts like “You need to make this patient go bye-bye.” An FBI affidavit alleges that he made comments like “if this f— would just die” and said in one meeting that he wanted to “find patients who would die within 24 hours.” In at least one case, a nurse refused to follow Harris’s instructions. It is unclear if any others were harmed. The newspaper said the FBI began its investigation in October 2014 based on allegations that Novus was regularly recruiting patients “who did not qualify for services." No charges have been filed against Novus or Harris.

US Nursing Home Antipsychotic Drugging Rates

http://www.ltccc.org/news/index.shtml

March 28, 2016 marks the fourth anniversary of the launch of the federal campaign to reduce inappropriate antipsychotic drugging in nursing homes across the country.  Click on the links below for LTCCC’s Alert on progress to date and to find out how the nursing homes in your state are doing.

LTC Alert Antipsychotic Drugging.  News alert on the anniversary of the campaign and the latest data on antipsychotic drugging.

State Antipsychotic Drugging MDS Rates. State and national drugging rates downloaded from Medicare.gov on March 22, 2016 for fourth quarter of 2015. [Excel]

US Nursing Home Antipsychotic Drugging Rates. The non-risk-adjusted antipsychotic drugging rates for every licensed nursing home. We have formatted these data to facilitate their usefulness. Each state has a tab in which is listed all of its nursing homes and each facility's county, zip code, percent of residents who did not receive AP drugs and percent who did (based on data reported by CMS for the end of 2015 (fourth quarter). [Excel]

CMS Facility Psychoactive Drug Data for Antipsychotics. The raw data provided from CMS upon which “US Nursing Home Antipsychotic Drugging Rates” is based.  Provided for reference. [Excel]

Antipsychotic Drugging Rates for All NY Nursing Homes (as of 2015, fourth quarter, excel)


Benefits of Medicaid Expansion for Behavioral Health

https://goo.gl/CmmQpK

Across the country, state and local officials are increasingly focused on improving health outcomes for people living with mental illness or substance use disorders. This brief analyzes national data on behavioral health and reviews published research focused on how Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act advances the goal of improving treatment for people with behavioral health needs. The key findings are the following:

Many of those who could benefit from Medicaid expansion have behavioral health needs. In 2014, an estimated 1.9 million low-income uninsured people with a substance use disorder or a mental illness lived in states that have not yet expanded Medicaid under the
Affordable Care Act.

In addition, people with behavioral health needs make up a substantial share of all low-income uninsured individuals in these states: 28%. While some of these individuals had access to some source of health insurance in 2014, many will gain access to coverage only if their states expand Medicaid, and others would gain access to more affordable coverage.

In states that have not yet expanded, Medicaid expansion would provide considerable benefits for individuals with behavioral health needs and their communities. Among low-income adults, Medicaid expansion is associated with a reduction in unmet need for
mental health and substance use disorder treatment. 


Michigan CARE Act gains final passage!

http://goo.gl/By0xRm

Legislation supporting Michigan’s 2 million family caregivers won bipartisan passage in the state House today and heads to the governor’s desk.

The House voted 70-38 in favor of Senate Bill 352, the Michigan Caregiver Advise, Record, Enable (CARE) Act that would support and equip family caregivers with the basic information and training they need when their loved ones go into the hospital and as they transition home.

The Senate concurred in minor amendments immediately afterward. The Senate unanimously passed the bill in December. The Snyder administration has signaled that the Governor supports the bill.

Family caregivers are an unpaid silent army who help make it possible for older Michiganders to live independently at home – where they want to be.

“We are pleased and grateful for bipartisan state House and Senate support of family caregivers, Michigan’s unsung heroes who perform a great labor of love every day,” said Paula D. Cunningham, State Director of AARP Michigan. “They are the first line of defense against older Americans being forced from their homes and into costly nursing homes or back into the hospital.”

Partnership for Health & Disability

http://midisabilityhealth.org/

The Partnership for Health & Disability is a collaboration between public health and disability advocacy and service organizations on issues that surround health for people with disabilities in the state of Michigan. 

The purpose of this website is to provide tools and resources to support the health of people living with disabilities.

Flint residents: 
If you have a disability or limitation and cannot get to water or filter distribution centers, please call 2-1-1


Aspirin Both Triggers And Treats An Often-Missed Disease

Interesting. I wonder if there are other compounds that produce similar patterns...

http://goo.gl/TiiXpQ

When Allison Fite was 16, she couldn't stop falling asleep in class. Doctors told her it was from a severe sinus infection, but it never really went away. For the next decade she struggled with infection after infection, taking antibiotics and decongestants. "Having these sinus problems and not being able to breathe was debilitating," she says.

"I was seeing a doctor in Bangkok at this point," she says. "He was like, 'This is not normal.' " But the doctor mentioned that aspirin can cause nasal polyps. This was Fite's first real clue about her illness. It's called aspirin-exacerbated respiratory disease, or AERD.

It was first described in the early 1900s, says Dr. Tanya Laidlaw, an immunologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston who studies the disease. It's seen in "patients who had this triad of asthma, nasal polyps and these rather idiosyncratic reactions to medications like aspirin," Laidlaw says.

Things started clicking into place. Fite's mother found one of Laidlaw's presentations on the illness online and sent it to her daughter. Fite knew she had nasal polyps and asthma, but she didn't know if she had the third symptom — a potentially life-threatening reaction to painkillers like aspirin or ibuprofen. So her doctor in Thailand decided to test her. He gave her a fifth of a pill of aspirin, just to see what would happen.

"Forty-five minutes later," Fite says, "I'm sitting in this hospital waiting room coughing, sweating, and my blood pressure spiked. And they're like 'OK, stop. Give her medicine; she has the disease.' "