Newspapers / Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.) / May 23, 2002, edition 1 / Page 27
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Health & Wellness Healthbeat Local cancer survivor to be honored Baldwin Jackie Baldwin, a four-year can cer survivor, will be honoredc on Thursday, May 30, at Reynolds Park Recreation Center. Baldwin will serve as the keynote speaker for the gathering. Her topic will be "Interrupting Satan's Plan." The event will begin at 7 p.m. The public is invited to attend. Baldwin has two daughters: Arte cia. 26 and Jaci, 10. WFU Baptist Medical Center will sponsor several public events ? May 29 - free health risk assessment for seniors at BestHealth Older adults who mix alcohol and medication are at greater risk than younger adults. Alcohol combined with prescription medications may contribute to depression, insomnia, poor nutrition and frequent falls. A free health risk assessment sponsored by BestHealth55, Step One, CenterPoint Human Services and the Shepherd's Center of Greater Winston-Salem will t!e held May 29 from 1-7 p.m. at the BestHealth community resource center at Hanes Mall. After com pleting the written assessment, participants will have the opportuni ty to have their questions answered individually and confidentially. Appointments are not required and participants will be handled on a first-come, first-served basis. Door prizes will be available. For information, contact Rae Beasley, 716-6878. * June 4 and 6 - two June Jazz concerts at the medical center Jazz lovers can enjoy two fine performances at Wake Forest Univer sity Baptist Medical Center in June. The Steve Haines Quartet will perform on June 4 at 12:15 p.m. at Davis Memorial Chapel. Haines, director of the Miles Davis Program in Jazz Studies at the Universi ty of North Carolina in Greensboro, will perform on bass with saxo phonist David Lown, pianist Chip Crawford and Thomas Taylor Jr. on drums. On June 6 at 12:15 p.m.. singer/flutist Brenda Mori Sisti will per form. Pianist Ken Rhodes, drummer John Williams and bassist Matt Kendrick will back her up. Both performances are free and the public is invited to attend. The performances are part of the Arts Alive! performing arts series sponsored by the medical center's Committee on Visual and Per fon ring Arts and the Hawthorne Hill Society. For information, con tact Jim Steele, 716-3487. Medical Park Hospital is first in W-S to use advanced laser treatment An eye surgeon and glaucoma specialist at Medical Park Hos pital last week used an advanced new laser treatment to reduce eye pressure in several patients suffering from glaucoma, the leading cause of blindness among African Americans and the second lead ing cause of blindness in America. The procedures marked the first time Selective Laser Trabecu loplasty, or SLT. was used in Winston-Salem. SLT should help patients who continue to suffer from fluid buildup and pressure in their eyes despite undergoing conventional treatments for glaucoma, said Carol Ziel, M.D. SLT helps to reduce and maintain a low inner eye pressure, and the cool laser technology protects the surrounding eye tissue. The procedure takes about five minutes and patients leave without a patch. "I think the laser worked very well and our patients didn't have any discomfort because the SLT isn't a burning laser and doesn't cause as much damage to the (eye) tissue." Ziel said after complet ing the procedures on May 13. Glaucoma occurs when fluid builds up inside the eye causing damage to the optic nerve. Left untreated, it can cause partial vision loss and even blindness. Risk factors include family history, age. farsightedness and diabetes. Open angle glaucoma, the most com mon form of the disease, accounts for 19 percent of all blindness among African Americans and 6 percent among Caucasians, according to a recent survey by the Glaucoma Research Founda tion. Novant Health is a not-for-profit health-care system in Western North Carolina, serving more than 3.4 million people in 32 counties reaching from Southern Virginia to Northern South Carolina. Novant and the majority of its facilities are 50lc3, private, commu nity organizations. The health-care system consists of seven hospi tals in the Triad and Southern Piedmont regions: Forsyth Medical Center, Medical Park Hospital and Thomasville Medical Center in the Triad region; Presbyterian Hospital. Presbyterian Orthopaedic Hospital. Hemby Children's Hospital and Presbyterian Hospital Matthews of the Southern Piedmont region. Other facilities and pro grams of Novant Health include three philanthropic foundations, three long-term care and senior residential facilities, physician clin ics, outpatient surgery and diagnostic centers, rehabilitation pro grams and community health outreach programs. Psychologist seeks subjects for study of adolescent transitions GREENSBORO - A psychology researcher at The Uni versity of North Carolina at Greensboro is seeking young women who are planning to leave home for college to par ticipate in a study on the transition from adolescence to adulthood. Dr. Kathy Bell, assistant professor, is co-investigator of the study, which she is conducting in collaboration with researchers in Israel. The study is examining psychosocial adjustment of adolescents in two cultural and environmental contexts: the Israeli military and the American college. To retain consistency between the research subjects in both countries, young women in the Triad region are being sought who have,-specific characteristics. They must be plan ning to leave home for the fi^st time in the fall to attend a college about 300 miles from home and must be from dual parent families that have not experienced divorce. Participants will be interviewed three times over a nine month period about their adjustment and close relationships across the transition. Participants will receive a small stipend to partially reimburse them for their time. For more information, contact the Adolescent Social Development Laboratory at (336) 256-0024. Childhood depression is more common than you probably think According to the Center for Mental Health Services, about one in every 33 children in the United States under the age of 12 may experience depression, and about one in eight adolescents (aged 13-18) may experience depression. Hagler BY PAUL COLLINS nil CHRONIC! I People generally pic ture childhood as happy and play ful. A lot of chil dren. unfortunate- (T ly, don't always L have these experi- p" ' ences, according ^ to Andy Hagler, executive director ^ of the Mentalf, Health Associa tion of Forsyth County Inc. Parents gener ally know what it takes to keep a child physically healthy - such as nutritious food, exercise and getting immunization shots, but "we haven't always been as good for providing basics of good mental health," Hagler said. "We need to treat a child's mental health just as impor ts tant as we do their physical I health." And at times, just as children may . ... need to go to a A I' doctor when ?Mitel illi they have a '!? II i i i nhvciral h>>:ilfh problem, they mav need to po J ... c to a mental health profes sional when they have a mental health problem. Hagler said. Sir Childhood <.// C5 Study: Diabetics get drug that could be deadly BY LINDSEY TANNER llll ASSOCIATED PRESS CHICAGO - Doctors frequently prescribe a com mon diabetes drug for patients for whom the label warns it is inappropriate and potentially deadly, a study suggests. Nearly one-fourth of patients whose prescriptions for the drug metformin were studied had heart or kidney ailments listed on the label as contraindications, the study found. Metformin, sold as Glu cophage. can cause a rare side effect called lactic acidosis, a buildup of lactic acid in the blood that is fatal in about 50 percent of cases. The drug package insert contains a black-box warning - high lighted cautionary information required by the government for drugs with potentially seri ous side effects - and says it should not be used by patients with kidney disease or on drug treatment for heart failure. While none of the 100 patients studied had devel oped lactic acidosis, the study "may underestimate the fre quency of contraindications and it is difficult to determine whether clinicians are aware they are prescribing met formin against a black-box warning," the researchers said. Lead researcher Cheryl Horlen said the problem isn't unique to the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill hospital pharmacy, where the study was done. University of Pittsburgh researchers and See Diabetes on C4 Photo by Ronald Asadorian/Splashncws Phylicia Rashad at last year's Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony in New York City. Actress to embark on awareness trek for diabetes SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE NEW YORK - Last week Phylicia Rashad, best known for her role as Clair Huxtable on "The Cosby Show," launched Take Diabetes to Heart! - a nationwide campaign to educate people about type 2 diabetes and its link to heart disease - the number one killer in the United States and the leading cause of diabetes-related deaths. Rashad, who will be travel ing throughout the nation to share her personal connection to the disease, is eager to motivate people with type 2 diabetes to take action to control their dia betes early and aggressively. "My father, who had dia betes. died of a heart attack. When I read his death certifi cate, I learned that the root cause of the heart attack was diabetes. I had never made the association between heart disease and dia betes," said Rashad, a two-time Emmy Award nominee and Peo ple's Choice Award winner. "So few people with dia betes realize how strongly these diseases are linked, and the importance of working with their health-care team to active ly and effectively manage their type 2 diabetes." Rashad said. Take Diabetes to Heart!, led by the American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE) and the Association of Black Cardiologists (ABC) and spon sored by GlaxoSmithKline, will seek to address the growing epi demic of type 2 diabetes. Dia betes affects an estimated 17 million Americans, several mil lion of whom remain undiag nosed. This chronic disease is one of the most costly health prob lems in America, with total eco nomic costs in 1997 estimated at $98 billion. In large part this is due to its potentially serious complications, which include cardiovascular disease, blind ness, limb amputation and kid ney failure. In fact, people with type 2 diabetes are two to four times more likely to suffer from heart disease or stroke than peo ple without the disease. Research indicates that car diovascular disease and type 2 ~ diabetes share a common root - insulin resistance. Insulin resist ance occurs when the body does not respond properly to its own natural insulin, a substance criti cal for blood sugar to enter the body's cells and be converted into energy. Insulin resistance may be linked to heart disease because Set Actress on C4 Employment settings of nurses changing See Employment on C5 SPEC!\l ro rHECHRONiq I RALEIGH - A report released by the N.C. Center for Nursing (NCCN) examines the employment characteristics of the RN and LPN work force in North Carolina (Tver the period 1982 through 2(XX). The report found that the dis tribution of registered nurses in North Carolina over various employment settings is very simi lar to the national profile of regis tered nurses, with 58.1 percent of N.C. nurses working in hospitals. l.t> percent in nursing homes. 13.4 percent in community agencies, and 8.5 percent in medical offices. HMOs and insurance companies. Although more than half of registered staff nurses have always been and continue to be employed in hospitals, since the 1990s the proportion in hospitals has fallen at the rate of about I percent per year. This reflects the increasing shift of staff nurses from hospitals to community set tings - such as public health departments, home health, hos pice and mental health agencies - throughout the 1990s. Over the past two decades. LPNs in North Carolina have experienced major changes in the location of employment opportu nities. In 1982. about 62 percent of the LPNs in North Carolina worked in hospitals and 15 per cent in nursing homes. In 2000 those proportions were 19.9 per cent in hospitals and 35.2 percent in nursing homes. In addition, the proportion of LPNs in community agencies has risen from I percent of the total LPN work force in 1982 to 8.7 percent in 2000. and the percent age in medical offices has dou bled. from 8.4 percent in 1982 to 16.6 percent in 2000. File Photo Many states have been experienc ing nursing short ages in recent years. A new report says that North Carolina is one of those states dealing with the problem.
Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.)
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May 23, 2002, edition 1
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