'Junk food' may significantly hike risk of stroke

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 3 (HealthDay News) -- People who eat a so-called "Western diet," which is high in fat, salt and sugar, are at significantly greater risk for stroke or premature death, according to a new study involving rats.

Researchers from Canada found this type of food, also known as the "cafeteria diet," creates what they called "a ticking time bomb of health problems."

For the study, the researchers gave sedentary rats a choice of nutritional food pellets or junk food items including cookies, sausage and cupcakes. The animals were also given a choice of water or a 30 percent sugar solution that imitated soft drinks.

Like humans, the researchers said, the rats preferred the treats. And after eating a high-calorie, high-sugar and high-sodium diet for just two months, they developed symptoms of a condition known as metabolic syndrome, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol and blood sugar levels, and obesity -- factors that increase the risk of stroke and other health problems. Next...

Aphasia Increases Cost of Care After Ischemic Stroke

In ischemic stroke patients, aphasia is associated with greater morbidity, higher mortality, and increased length of stay, and adds $1,703 per patient to the cost of stroke-related care, according to research published online Feb. 16 in Stroke.
FRIDAY, Feb. 17 (HealthDay News) -- In ischemic stroke patients, aphasia is associated with greater morbidity, higher mortality, and increased length of stay, and adds $1,703 per patient to the cost of stroke-related care, according to research published online Feb. 16 in Stroke.
To quantify the contribution of aphasia to the overall cost of stroke care, Charles Ellis, Ph.D., of the VA Center for Disease Prevention and Health Interventions for Diverse Populations in Charleston, S.C., and colleagues conducted a retrospective study of 3,200 Medicare beneficiaries who experienced ischemic stroke in 2004.
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Schaumburg man doesn’t let his loss of speech crush his spirit

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	Looking to his wife, Mary Beth, to supply the words, Steve Riedner points to photographs and drawings of what he wants to say. The 63-year-old Schaumburg man suffers from Primary Progressive Aphasia, a dementia that initially attacks the part of the brain that processes language and speech.   JOE LEWNARD | Staff Photographer
	Using notebooks, photographs and a whiteboard helps Steve Riedner communicate with his wife, Mary Beth. The 63-year-old Schaumburg man suffers from Primary Progressive Aphasia, a dementia that initially attacks the part of the brain that processes language and speech.   JOE LEWNARD | Staff Photographer
	While a rare brain disorder called Primary Progressive Aphasia is robbing Steve Riedner of the ability to say “I love you,” the Schaumburg man still manages to get that message across to Mary Beth, who has been his wife for nearly 39 years and now is also his caretaker.   JOE LEWNARD | Staff Photographer

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By Burt Constable

The sight of me standing outside his front door in Schaumburg sends Steve Riedner into one of his belly-shaking, blue eyes-a-twinkling chuckles. He points to the jaunty, herringbone tweed newsboy hat on my head, reaches into his closet and pulls out an identical cap.
The very idea that I’d wear the same hat as Steve — a flag-flying, lifetime NRA member and Vietnam veteran who enthusiastically challenges some of my opinions — gets me to giggling, too. Then Steve puts it into words.

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“Tay dot den den tane net not be de da,” a grinning Steve says, his cadence and expression giving me the impression that he might be meaning to say, “You’ve got the same hat as me now, so you can start following my lead on the important issues.”
Or maybe not, says Mary Beth, a better translator of Steve’s intent based on her almost 39 years of being married to the man.
When we last got together in 2007, Steve had just been diagnosed with Primary Progressive Aphasia, a rare, incurable form of dementia that strikes people as young as in their 40s and destroys the brain’s ability to communicate. Five years ago, he tol....................
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Can grapefruit stop stroke?

Grapefruit and oranges “appear to protect against having a ‘brain attack’”, the Daily Mail has reported. The Mail says that these and other citrus fruits can protect the brain from stroke due to their antioxidant content.
The research behind this story involved almost 70,000 women taking part in the Nurses’ Health Study in the US. They were asked to complete food frequency questionnaires (which asked them to recall how frequently certain foods were consumed during a specified period of time) every four years and over around 14 years of follow-up the researchers documented the numbers of strokes that occurred, overall and by type.
The researchers found that women who had the highest intak..........
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Will Drinking Diet Soda Increase Your Risk For A Heart Attack?

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According to the Daily Mail, the New York Times’ “rival” as the most-read English language newspaper in the world, “research” has revealed that“drinking just a single can of diet fizzy drink every day can increase the risk of a heart attack or stroke.”
It should be noted that “research” has also revealed the risk of the Daily Mail misreporting a study’s findings, especially when there’s an opportunity to write an alarming headline. As Dorothy Bishop, a Professor of Neurodevelopmental Psychology at Oxford University, noted in giving the paper her “Orwellian Award for Journalistic Misrepresentation” the Mail sets the standards for inaccurate reporting of academic research....
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Medical mysteries: Was crying caused by man’s severe depression?

Helayne Seidman/FOR THE WASHINGTON POST - Richard Anderson and his wife Rose in their Staten Island home. Richard suffered a severe traumatic brain injury at 47 which developed into uncontrollable crying. A new drug has helped treat his disorder called pseudobulbar affect

By Sandra G. Boodman, Published: February 20

Of all the adjustments forced on Rose Anderson and her family, among the hardest was dealing with the crying jags.
Around 9 p.m. on Aug. 4, 2004, while Anderson and her family were crossing the street from a New Jersey beach boardwalk to their hotel, a drunk driver barreled into her husband, Richard. He was flung 26 feet before slamming headfirst onto the pavement.

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A 47-year-old manager for the New York City government, Richard underwent emergency brain surgery and spent three weeks in a coma, followed by nearly two months in the hospital. He suffered a severe traumatic brain injury that left him with permanent cognitive and speech problems and robbed him of his sense of smell and taste.
“They were preparing me for a lifetime of therapies,” recalled Rose of the weeks her husband spent at Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in East Orange, N.J.
But no one prepared the Andersons for Richard’s unpredictable and uncontrollable weeping, which began weeks after the accident and seemed to worsen with time.
“He would cry with almost anyone,” his wife recalled. Thoughts of his dogs, his family or even happy occasions could trigger tears. His teenage daughters found the incidents, which occurred several times a week, almost unbearable.
“As things got better, this shined brighter,” said Richard Anderson, who describes himself as a “very chauvinistic kind of guy” who was mortified by his inability to control his emotions. “It was very upsetting to me to have tears just rolling down my fac....
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Transformed Patient Unveils ‘New Self’ to Inspire Guests at Heart & Stroke Seminar

Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women over the age of 25, in the United States, regardless of race or ethnicity. More than 8 million women are affected by this disease – a statistic that Long Beach Memorial doesn’t take lightly. The Center for Women’s Cardiac Health and Research at Long Beach Memorial focuses on prevention of heart disease, exclusively in women, offering cardiovascular screenings and individualized care plans.

Read more http://www.everythinglongbeach.com/transformed-patient-at-heart-stroke-seminar/

Pet Therapy: How Animals And Humans Heal Each Other

03:44 am

March 5, 2012

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Maggie Starbard/NPR Ryan Shank-Rowe, 9, takes part in a therapeutic riding program at Little Full Cry Farm in Clifton, Va., last month.

Those of us who own pets know they make us happy. But a growing body of scientific research is showing that our pets can also make us healthy, or healthier.
That helps explain the increasing use of animals — dogs and cats mostly, but also birds, fish and even horses — in settings ranging from hospitals and nursing homes to schools, jails and mental institutions.
  Take Viola, or Vi for short. The retired guide dog is the resident canine at the Children's Inn on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. The inn is where families stay when their children are undergoing experimental therapies at NIH.
Vi, a chunky yellow Labrador retriever with a perpetually wagging tail, greets families as they come downstairs in the morning and as they return from treatment in the afternoon. She can even be "checked out" for a walk around the bucolic NIH grounds.

Melissa Forsyth/NPR Thelma Balmaceda, age, 4, pets Viola, the resident canine at the Children's Inn on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. Families stay at the inn when their children are undergoing experimental therapies at NIH.

"There really isn't a day when..............
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Aspirin lowers stroke risk from trans fat’ in older women

Washington: Older women whose diets include a substantial amount of trans fats are more likely than their counterparts to suffer an ischemic stroke, a new study has shown.

However, according to the findings from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers, the risk of stroke associated with trans fat intake was lower among women taking aspirin.


The study of 87,025 generally healthy postmenopausal women aged 50 to 79 found that those whose diets contained the largest amounts of trans fats were 39 percent more likely to have an ischemic stroke than women who ate the least amount of trans fat......
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Physicians Order Costly, Redundant Neuroimaging for Stroke Patients

ANN ARBOR, Mich., March 5, 2012 — U-M researchers found that most patients underwent both MRIs and CTs; neuroimaging biggest source of escalating stroke care costs
ANN ARBOR, Mich., March 5, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Neuroimaging for stroke patients may be unnecessarily costly and redundant, contributing to rising costs nationwide for stroke care, according to University of Michigan research.
The research, published in the Annals of Neurology, found that 95 percent of stroke patients who received magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) also had a computed tomography (CT) scan.
"Compared to CT, MRI is a more accurate test for stroke," says James F. Burke, M.D., lead author of the study and a clinical lecturer in the University of Michigan Medical School's Department of Neurology. "But our results showed that MRI is not replacing CT as the primary stroke neuroimaging study — instead, patients are getting bo

Read more here: http://www.bradenton.com/2012/03/05/3918899/physicians-order-costly-redundant.html#storylink=cpy

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Drug Might Limit Stroke Brain Damage

An experimental drug could help protect against brain damage during a stroke, reducing the risk of permanent disability.

An experimental drug could protect stroke victims from brain damage. The treatment has shown very promising results in animal tests, and early results with humans are also encouraging.

There is currently only one effective treatment for stroke. Tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) can dissolve the blood clots that cause a stroke.
But it has to be given very soon after symptoms appear, and doctors first have to make sure that the stroke was not caused by a ruptured blood vessel, in which case tPA can make the situation a lot worse...
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Bill Lohmann: Seeking the right words about aphasia

Elaine Ackman has spent much of her life speaking — in voice and deeds — on behalf of others.
Now she struggles to find the right words.
Ackman, 80, of Henrico County, suffers from aphasia, a communication disorder that affects the expression and comprehension of language — the same condition that afflicts Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, whose aphasia was brought on by a brain injury caused by a gunshot wound to the head.
In Ackman's case, the culprit was a stroke, the most common cause of aphasia, according to the National Aphasia Association. As far as speaking, she has had to relearn almost everything.
"I couldn't remember anything," Ackman said Tuesday, sitting at her kitchen table Tuesday morning, as she tried to recall that day almost five years ago when the words went away.
The road back has been long. Through intensive therapy and the great support of family and friends, Ackman has regained much of her ability to communicate, but not all. To look at her, you would have no clue she has any problem at all, no idea of the frustration she feels when she tries to express herself and simply can't.
"She gets stuck on a lot of words, and she doesn't have a lot of confidence when it comes to talking to people," said Lynn Burris, one of Ackman's four children. She sometimes finds it easier to just say nothing.
Which is why Burris thought it would be helpful for her mother to connect with other aphasia patients. She believes meeting others facing the same challenges would make her mom less self-conscious and could go a long way to helping her grow more comfortable talking to others....Next

Traffic police arrested a woman for drink driving when she was actually dying from a stroke,

Traffic police arrested a woman for drink driving when she was actually dying from a stroke, an inquest heard today.
Julie Hawkins, 55, crashed her car and was tended by another motorist who noticed the side of her face was drooping.
But when police arrived on the scene they arrested her on suspicion of drink driving - even though another driver told them Mrs Hawkins was displaying the classic symptoms of a 'catastrophic' stroke.

Tragedy: Julie Hawkins, 55, suffered a 'catastrophic' stroke while she was behind the wheel, but was arrested by police for drink driving, an inquest heard

The officers breathalysed the mother-of-three because her speech was slurred and she could only give them one-word answers.
The inquest heard mother-of-three Mrs Hawkins collapsed as she was taken from her car in Pontyclun, Wales, on October 14 and died of a stroke less than five hours later.
A post mortem examination showed Mrs Hawkins, from nearby Pontypridd, had no alcohol in her blood or urine at the time of the accident, as she drove home for a 50th birthday party.

 

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• Schoolgirl, 16, killed by pensioner who drove onto the pavement three days after failing eye test and refusing to surrender his licence

Driver Jonathan Sharpe told the inquest how he went to help after seeing Mrs Hawkins’ Peugeot 107 swerve into an oncoming car.
He said: 'I opened the car door and at first I thought maybe she had too much to drink.
'But then I saw her face was drooping, I think on the left-hand side.
'They were the classic symptoms of a stroke. I would liken it to the advert on TV.'

Arrest: Mrs Hawkins crashed her car in Pontyclun, pictured, and when paramedics tended to her they found her lips had turned purple

Mr Sharpe said as soon as police arrived he told them about Mrs Hawkins' symptoms but they went ahead and arrested on suspicion of drink-driving.
After Mrs Hawkins collapsed and an ambulance arrived paramedics noticed her lips were purple.
Pc Rhodri Wilson told the inquest Mrs Hawkins gave only single word answers to his questions and he arrested her on suspicion of drink driving.
He said her speech was slurred and she replied 'no' when he asked if she had been drinking.
A spokeswoman from South Wales Police said: 'The officers acted in good faith based on the information presented to them in difficult circumstances.'
The Cardiff inquest heard Mrs Hawkins was taking painkillers for headaches in the weeks before the crash.
She died at 3.30am on October 15 at the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, after a scan revealed a stroke.
Mrs Hawkins is survived by sons Kristian and Nicholas and daughter Laura, all in their twenties.
Pathologist Dr Allen Gibbs told the hearing: 'In my opinion she lost control of the car when she began to have a stroke which later became catastrophic.'
The jury returned a narrative verdict that Mrs Hawkins, of Llanharan, near Pontypridd, South Wales, died of a stroke.

 

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innocent until proven guilty? i think the police went the extra mile to try and get a conviction and to hell with the poor womans health, crazy crazy world we live in now where the innocent are treat as the criminals!

- judge M, rotherham, 13/1/2012 19:50

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First and foremost, a Police Officers duty is to the Safety and Wellbeing of the public. They should of ruled out Stroke before an arrest was made. It's time they open their eye's, the world isn't black and white! A Little common sense on the Force would go a long way!

- Thor, Valhalla, 13/1/2012 19:44

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Did someone comment that the police treat everybody as criminals? Rubbish they only treat the good guys like criminals as they appear to be afraid of going anywhere near the thugs and crooks. R.I.P. Mrs Hawkins Sincere sympathies to her family and friends.

- Patsy B, UK, 13/1/2012 19:42 .....Next

Scott Douglas, driving force behind UM Entertainment Management program, fighting back after stroke

His right shoulder hangs slightly lower than his left. His brow is constantly knitted in a look of combined puzzlement and intense concentration. His eyes are steady as ever, but in place of Scott Douglas' once-piercing gaze is the look of a man uncertain, searching.
"You started off basically paralyzed on the right side," says Judy Douglas to her husband.
"Yes, paralyzed," he nods, speaking slowly. "Leg and arm and feet."
"So you're walking now," she says.
"Yes."
"And building ..."
"... Muscles. The mass for my arm. Doug, the acupuncture ..."
"... Has been helping. And lots of physical therapy."
"Yes. Occupational. Speech. And Doug. And, uh ..."
He picks up a pen, carefully positions a sheet of yellow paper on the table in front of him, then writes a name in neatly printed letters and gazes at it intensely for a mom

Read more: http://missoulian.com/news/local/scott-douglas-driving-force-behind-um-entertainment-management-program-fighting/article_7c3240e0-39b4-11e1-b040-0019bb2963f4.html#ixzz1jIy3jpw2

Telemedicine Robots Give Time-Sensitive Stroke Care

Hospitals are starting to use telemedicine robots to extend the reach of specialists who are not available onsite. These robots are particularly useful in time-sensitive situations, such as when patients suspected of having had strokes arrive at the emergency room.
Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, for example, has been using a robot from InTouch Health since 2010 to help care for stroke patients. Jefferson's neurologists are now doing stroke consults via robots in 22 community hospitals (another three will come on board soon).....Next

Tragedy Leads to Hope: Mark Kelly Opens Up at the Anniversary of Giffords' Shooting

MONDAY, Jan. 9, 2012 — Yesterday marked one year since the tragic shooting of 19 people in Tucson, Ariz., that rocked the nation and nearly took the life of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (six others did not survive). While Giffords clung to life after a bullet pierced the left side of her brain that day, the woman we have all come to know as “Gabby” has made remarkable strides in her recovery. Yesterday, she surprised and delighted those gathered in Tucson for a candlelight vigil commemorating the events of Jan. 8, 2011, as she proudly climbed an outdoor stage and led the pledge of allegiance.
After a year of rehab and therapy to learn how to talk and walk again, the congresswoman — still limping but holding her head up high — stood before her constituents, bringing a much-needed sense of healing to the remembrances of the tragic events on that day. She was back in her hometown with her beloved husband, Navy Captain and former astronaut Mark Kelly, by her side, as he has been since that fateful day.
Everyday Health spoke with...Next

I Shot Asteroids – With My Eyes [VIDEO]

LAS VEGAS — The concept of eye-tracking has been around for more than a century, but it’s only in recent years that we’ve seen it applied to computing. Early implementations let you control, say, your cursor with your eyes, but only if you kept your head perfectly still and only moved your eyes. Tobii Technology breaks out of that boundary by making a 3D model of your eyes that allows for eye tracking and head movement. Mashable took the innovation for a test drive at CES 2012.
To start using Tobii, you sit about a foot-and–a-half from the screen and, at least initially, do have to keep your head still and stare at the screen while it calibrates. The screen shows you a series of objects that you have to look at without moving your head. Two infrared cameras shoot your eyeballs and create 3D models of your eyes than can now track their position and movement. (The whole process takes about 10 seconds.) Those cameras, by the way are art of a Tobii’s add-on eye-movement and control response system that can be used with desktops or laptops.
The technology has been programmed to work with an Asteroids-like game and even the Windows 8 Metro interface. I tried it out with the Asteroids game and found it remarkably effective — even if my asteroid-destroying skills stunk. It got so bad, I started to wish I had eight eyes instead of two..... Next

French doctor confirms Kim had stroke in 2008

AP)  PARIS — A French neurosurgeon confirmed Monday that Kim Jong Il had a debilitating stroke in 2008, and described secretly treating the reclusive dictator while the North Korean public and world remained unaware of his condition.

Dr. Francois-Xavier Roux — speaking to The Associated Press on Monday — described Kim's concerns for his future, the challenge of working under constant surveillance, and Korean doctors' fears of making final decisions about how to save their supreme leader.

North Korean state media announced Monday that Kim had died Saturday at age 69.

Roux, the chief of neurosurgery at Sainte Anne Hospital in Paris, said he was urgently flown to North Korea in August 2008 to examine Kim who was unconscious and "in a bad way" and in intensive care at Pyongyang's Red Cross Hospital, in the communist nation's capital.

The two-month trip and medical exam gave Roux unparalleled access for a Westerner to the North Korean regime and an intimate view of its enigmatic, weakened chief.

North Korean officials first contacted Roux by phone in 1993 after Kim suffered a "small head injury following a horse-riding accident," the doctor said, adding that he never understood why they had sought him out.

And then, three years ago, North Korea contacted Roux again after Kim suffered the stroke — never formally acknowledged by authorities. This time officials arranged for the doctor to come to Pyongyang with a few other French doctors.....   Next

Merck Blood Thinner Study Ends in Stroke Patients, Limiting Possible Sales

A study of Merck & Co.’s vorapaxar, an anticlotting pill that had potential for $5 billion in annual sales, was halted and a second trial narrowed in scope, limiting the drug’s possible use.
All participants will stop taking the drug in the trial of 13,000 patients who began the medicine at the time of a heart attack or chest pain, researchers at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston and the Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, North Carolina, said today. A second study, of 26,500 patients with prior heart problems, will be stopped for the 25 percent who had suffered a stroke.
Shares of Whitehouse Station, New Jersey-based Merck declined the most since April 2009. Vorapaxar was touted by the company as its most promising experimental drug from the $49 billion purchase of Schering-Plough in November 2009. The company doesn’t know if it will be able to file for approval on the basis of a remaining study, for long-term clot prevention, said Peter Kim, president of Merck Research Laborato.... http://bloom.bg/gpWbiR

An Explosion of New Anticoagulants

News from the World of Pharmacology

An Explosion of New Anticoagulants

There has been a lot of activity in the anticoagulant arena over the past year. Dabigatran (Pradaxa®), approved in October 2010, became the first orally available anticoagulant contender to compete with age-old warfarin, at least in the atrial fibrillation market. While dabigatran, a direct thrombin inhibitor, offers some advantages over warfarin, such as more predictable pharmacology (ie., minimal potential for pharmacokinetic, life style or dietary interactions or genetic variability), easier dosing options and little or no need for monitoring in most patients, it is still far from the perfect oral anticoagulant. Stomach upset and the requirement for b.i.d dosing threaten compliance and, in this case, poor compliance can result in treatment failure and thrombotic events. Conversely, in the case where the anticoagulant causes hemorrhage, as all anticoagulants can do, there is no antidote to turn to, like vitamin K (warfarin) or protamine (heparin).
Enter Xarelto® (rivaroxaban), an oral Factor Xa inhibitor approved in July 2011 for prevention of DVT following orthopedic surgery. Much like Pradaxa, Xarelto has more predictable pharmacology than warfarin and no requirement for monitoring. One potential advantage it offers over Pradaxa is once daily dosing. It is also less likely to cause GI distress; that's a big plus for compliance. So far, so good, right? Not so fast. Xarelto, unlike Pradaxa, is cleared through the cytochrome P450 system (CYP3A4) and, therefore, the possibility for drug interactions could complicate therapy. There is also no specific antidote if hemorrhage occurs.
Both drugs are actively looking to compete with each other's currently approved indication: Pradaxa is looking for approval for prevention of DVT following orthopedic surgery (RE-NOVATE, RE-MODEL) and, just this week, Xarelto got a favorable nod from an FDA advisory committee for approval in the atrial fibrillation arena (ROCKET-AF). Of course, both would like to get approval across the board for everything thrombosis...........
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