health

Saving One Baby at a Time

Posted on 03/13/2013 by | Volunteering | Comments

VolunteeringThis is a guest post by Philip L. Graitcer and the second in a five-part series about a group of dedicated Rotary volunteers helping to eradicate polio in Kaduna, Nigeria.   Fomwan Maternity Hospital, Kaduna For most of the team, this is a new experience. They’ve never been in a developing country or given polio immunizations. Now, on our second day in Kaduna, they’re getting their sea legs — learning how to give polio immunizations in a maternity clinic, where 40 crying infants, held by their …

Learning to Say No to Doctors

Posted on 03/8/2013 by | Caregiving | Comments

Caregiving | Home & Family | Personal Health | Your LifeThrough a post on the New York Times’ New Old Age blog, I learned of a great initiative by the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Foundation to help patients understand they’re allowed to just say “no.” The effort is called “Choosing Wisely,” and it’s bringing together many medical specialties to help patients and doctors understand when specific tests and treatments do — and don’t — make sense. (AARP also has covered the program). If you’ve spent any time helping …

The Fiscal Crisis of Families

Posted on 02/28/2013 by | Public Policy | Comments

Money & SavingsWashington and the news media have long been focused on a series of budget deadlines and fiscal dramas. But a different headline stood out for me the other day, as I read a story in the Washington Post: “Fiscal Trouble Ahead for Most Future Retirees.” The story provided dramatic support for recent findings of AARP’s Public Policy Institute that the security of middle class Americans is under attack from all sides. AARP’s Middle Class Security Project and the Post article …

Another Flu Season -Ahhh, the Memories!

Posted on 02/18/2013 by | Caregiving | Comments

Caregiving | Home & Family | Personal Health | Your LifeFlu season will forever remind me of my father. “That’s an odd association,” I can almost hear you saying. “Was he particularly prone to the illness? Did a particularly bad case of it hit him hard?” Well, no to both those questions –aside from all his chronic conditions, Dad was generally healthy as a horse. The connection resides in his lifelong refusal, in the face of nurses’ please and doctors’ dire warnings, to ever get vaccinated. Those conversations arose at …

When the Flu Strikes, Laughter Is the Best Medicine

Posted on 01/25/2013 by | Fat to Fit | Comments

Personal HealthWhen you’re flat on your back with the flu, the ceiling becomes a blank slate on which you can write your thoughts.  Still bedbound on day five of what experts say is usually a three-day event (I would love to personally update these “experts”), I have moved on from feeling sorry for myself to thinking about the advantages of this dramatic interruption in my life’s reel. I found 10 benefits to offset the inconvenient and uncomfortable minuses: 1. You save …

Managing Life’s Wounds

Posted on 01/25/2013 by | Caregiving | Comments

Caregiving | Home & Family | Personal Health | Your LifeYou may have seen some coverage of the report released this past fall on the growing importance of caregivers in providing help that would require a registered nurse if the patient were in a hospital. “Home Alone: Family Caregivers Providing Complex Chronic Care” was jointly researched and written by AARP and the United Hospital Fund. Managing prescription and non-prescription medications took up the biggest chunk of these surrogate nurses’ time. But more than a third of those providing what otherwise …

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »