Dr. Marie’s Healthy Dose

Hardly a week goes by that I don’t hear about someone losing the battle to colon cancer. And each and every time I ask how this could happen, when today we have the ability to diagnose colon cancer years before it will spread — and often in a precancerous polyp stage.

Why weren’t they screened for colon cancer? Didn’t they know the statistics? Except for lung cancer, which is usually caused by smoking and diagnosed in late stages because there are no reliable early screening tests, colon cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in men and second only to breast cancer as a cause of cancer death in women.

Flu season is just around the corner. This is a good time for our seniors to size up their immunization history and see that they have all the protection they need as the fall and winter months approach. Older adults are at greater risk for many vaccine-preventable diseases than any other group. In 1999 approximately 90 percent of all influenza and pneumonia-related deaths occurred in individuals aged 65 and older. And equally worrisome, older Hispanic and African-American adults are much less likely to be vaccinated against the flu and pneumonia than others. So it is the perfect time for each on6 of us to see that our seniors get the protection they need.

I hope you never need to use the emergency room — either for yourself or a loved one. But the truth is that there are more than 115 million ER visits each year in this country, so a trip to the ER at some time is bound to befall you or someone you know.

The ER has been lifesaving for many members of my family over the years — my mother with a sudden heart attack, my father with dangerous heart palpitations and my son with a fracture and dislocation of his knee. My patients, including elderly nuns, end up in the ER for emergency care and attention, too. These personal and patient experiences have taught me a lot about how to get the best ER care.

I was a nurse before becoming a doctor. When I started out as a nurse more than 30 years ago, the hospital was a place for people to rest and recover from illnesses. The average hospital stay was over one week and nurses were plentiful.

While hospitals still provide extraordinary technology and care, people today are admitted to the hospital only when absolutely necessary and for as short a time as possible. And although the nursing staff is better trained than ever to handle just about anything, the day-to-day “nursing” care, such as taking vital signs and helping with bathing and eating, often falls to nursing assistants.

Two weeks ago I talked about the importance of giving your children a copy of their medical information as you send them off to college. Last week I shared with you my father’s Emergency Room story. When faced with a serious heart problem from one of his heart medications, the ER doctor was handicapped because he didn’t know my dad was taking the drug digitalis because he didn’t carry a complete list of medications with him.

But whether leaving home for the first time, faced with a new diagnosis, or caring for yourself and for your aging parents, keeping a complete set of your medical records and carrying a list of your critical health information can be life-saving.

A few years ago, my then-73-year-old father was rushed to the hospital after my mother noticed that something was “just not right.” He had heart bypass surgery only a few weeks before.

By the time I arrived at the hospital two hours later, he was gasping for breath, suffering from a potentially lethal heart arrhythmia. Doctors on duty were at a loss as to how they should treat him when the most likely culprit — a drug he was taking called digitalis — did not turn up in the bag of medicines that my mother had brought. “He is taking digitalis!” I said, but without the bottle present, and with doctor offices closed for the evening, I was helpless to verify that fact.

Attention to Shots, Medical History Crucial for College-Bound Kids

A few years ago, an 18-year-old college freshman telephoned my radio show inquiring about the meningitis vaccine. He had heard that a former high school mate had died from complications of meningitis at college. He wondered whether the vaccine was right for him.

It was an intelligent question to ask. Just last year, a college freshman died at my alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, from meningococcal meningitis.

Knowledge can mean survival when it comes to our children knowing their medical histories and seeing that their tests and shots are up-to-date.

As with many things in life, timing may be everything when it comes to hormone therapy.

A new study from Kaiser Permanente, presented at last week’s Alzheimer’s Association International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease in Chicago, reported that women who began hormones at menopause had a 24 percent reduced risk for all forms of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. Older women who started hormones at age 65 or so had up to a 46 percent increased risk of dementia.

As I have said so often before, for the millions of women going through menopause, I don’t think there is anything more frustrating than trying to make sense of all the confusing research on hormones.

Heading to the doctor’s office? You might want to persuade a friend to tag along. New research suggests that older adults who bring companions to medical visits are more satisfied with their medical care.

The study by researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health was published July 14 in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Frankly, their findings were no surprise to me! I suspect that the study would also find that these patients had better health outcomes, too.

A report last week by a panel of experts evaluating the pros and cons of breast self-examination and clinical breast examination by a trained practitioner stirred up a lot of controversy.

Wonderfully angry responses by women (and their men for that matter) fueled the controversy, arguing that it is absurd to tell women not to examine their breasts. Many of these women found their breast cancers as a result of their own breast exams.