Caring Currents

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Recently I went to a workshop on stress and health, and it was scary. Doctors have begun to take stress seriously as the trigger for many serious health concerns. In fact, the medical profession now considers stress a primary contributor to:

• Back Pain

• Headaches

• Heart Disease

• Stroke

• Diabetes

Research also documents a strong connection between stress and cancer. Even more convincing, stress can make the difference between surviving cancer -- and not. Studies have found, for example, that women who suffer from stress are more likely to develop a recurrence of breast cancer.

But there's a problem. When doctors tell us we need to reduce the stress in our lives, we roll our eyes. We're doing too much, thanks for telling us, but what's to be done? We have family members who need us, money to be earned, a house to keep, so much work to be done.

Turns out, though, that there's a fairly simple step we can take to relieve stress...  Read more

One of the most popular discussion topics among family caregivers is the insanely high cost of prescription medications and the failure of Medicare to cover that cost. It's a topic that comes up over and over again, and for good reason. When you can't afford the drugs you need to stay healthy, it's a serious situation.

Now comes new evidence that this crisis is very real, and is affecting more and more of us across the country. According to a report issued this week, manufacturer prices for the brand-name prescription drugs most commonly used by people on Medicare rose 9.7 percent for the year ending in March — the biggest annual jump since 2002, when the AARP started tracking prices. The price of specialty drugs, such as many used for cancer, rose even more, by 9.2 percent.

In fact, every single drug in the list of the top 25 prescription medications cost more this year than it did the year before...  Read more

Would you cut back your work hours if you knew that working long days could -- literally -- kill you? This week researchers announced data showing that stress from overwork can indeed kill.

There were actually two studies released showing similar results. The first study found that people who work more than ten hours a day are about 60 percent more likely to develop heart disease or have a heart attack than people who clock just seven hours a day. This study was conducted by following British civil servants. Those who put in three hours of overtime had higher rates of myocardial infarction (MI), angina, and death from a coronary attack.

In a second study showing similar results, female nurses in Denmark who felt they were under "too much" pressure at work were found to have a significantly increased risk of developing angina or myocardial infarction (MI).

The real shocker: The people who worked longer hours were actually healthier, overall, than the other people studied...  Read more

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After last week's post on how to break up with your doctor, I received numerous comments and e-mails sharing heartbreaking stories and asking an important follow-up question:

How do I find a good doctor who listens to me, respects my participation as a patient or as a caregiver, and takes a proactive role in caring for my health or the health of my loved one?

Most articles on this subject cover the basics of cost and convenience, so we'll breeze over those. Of course you need to find a doctor whose office is convenient, who's covered in your insurance network or accepts Medicare or Medicaid if you're on it, and who's affiliated with the local hospital you prefer to use.

But there's much much more to it than that. What we want most of all is a doctor who listens, respects what we have to say, and works with us to provide the care that we want. In other words we want someone who realizes that the doctor-patient relationship is a two-way communication channel...  Read more

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Recently an interesting discussion has been taking place at Caring.com. The subject? What to do when the doctor isn't listening to you or the person you're caring for, not carrying out your wishes when it comes to treatment and medication choices, or recommending drugs or treatments that seem inappropriate for much older patients. Here are a few examples.

• LindaSD says her mom's doctor tries to make her feel guilty when she asks to remove a medication from her mom's regimen or refuses a procedure. Her mom, who is 90, is in late-stage Alzheimer's, so she decided not to give Aricept and to refuse a colonoscopy, but had to fight those battles with the doctor who disagreed.

• Grannylove2 feels it's important to honor her mom's decision not to take Aricept for her advancing Alzheimer's, and told a story of her mom being admitted to the ER for a cracked ankle, then falling off the bed whihile having X-rays and shattering her heel and arm...  Read more

Okay guys and gals, let's talk about one of the most confusing and most common types of cancer: prostate cancer. Prostate cancer causes endless confusion and worry, because in many cases doing nothing -- also called "watchful waiting" -- is the best approach. But in other cases, the cancer can be aggressive, move to other parts of the body, and then it's another story altogether.

There's big news this week that can help us figure out what we need to do.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University announced that an updated version of the standard prostate cancer test, which they've dubbed the Prostate Health Index, can improve predictions about which men need immediate treatment, and which don't. It's basically an amped-up version of PSA screening, which measures the blood levels of a protein produced by prostate cells called prostate-specific androgen. The new test measures blood levels of three different types of PSA, called pro-PSA, free PSA, and serum total PSA...  Read more

If you or a family member is going to have surgery, you should know about an all-too-common danger and how to protect yourself. The danger is from blood clots that can form in other parts of the body, then move to the lungs, where they can cause death. I've been researching blood clots for Caring.com and need to issue this warning based on what I've found out. First, the scary facts.

Fact: "One of the most common causes of death among hospitalized patients is pulmonary embolism." (Source: Government report.) Pulmonary embolism is a fancy name for what happens when a blood clot moves from elsewhere in the body and lodges in the lungs.

Fact: Routine autopsies estimate that from 10 to 25 percent of all deaths in hospitals involve a pulmonary embolism from a blood clot. That's a lot - as high as one in four.

Fact: "Following general surgery, the approximate risk for deep venous thrombosis (DVT) is 15-40 percent...  Read more

"All I want to know is, how soon until we can apply for the new government insurance that doesn't allow them to refuse you for a pre-existing condition?" a friend asked me the other day. Her husband, who's in his late 50s, has been diagnosed with precancerous colon polyps that need to be removed. He had been on COBRA after being laid off from a financial services job two years ago -- and it just ran out.

One area of the new health care bill that's not controversial -- at least not to those who've been denied health insurance because of a pre-existing condition -- is the section that says insurers can no longer decline someone from coverage just because they're not in perfect health.

There's been so much arguing back and forth about what the bill does and doesn't promise that I thought we should take a close look at this particular issue, which affects so many Caring.com members. Those of us caring for family members with health problems are right in the line of fire on this issue...  Read more

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How many times have you left the doctor's office with a suggestion or recommendation only to realize, once you get home, that you have no idea how to carry it out? It happens to me all the time. For instance, when accompanying an elderly friend to a recent medical appointment, we discussed his high blood pressure and the doctor reminded us again to cut down the salt in his diet. In the car, I mentioned the doctor's advice, and my friend shrugged; it was clear he had no idea what that meant in practical, day-to-day terms. After all, he's a lifelong bachelor who lives alone and tends to resort to canned soup and microwave meals when I'm not cooking him dinner.

When I got home, I googled "low salt diet" - and immediately felt overwhelmed. It would have been so nice to leave the doctor's office with some clear, simple instructions on how we could go about lowering salt intake.

Thinking about this, I realized it all comes down to one little word: How...  Read more

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There's no way to sugar coat how hard it is waiting for someone we love to die. The last stages of life, when a person we love is slowly slipping away from us, are as close to unbearable as an experience can be. They're also exhausting; it's a huge job to take care of someone at any time, but watching someone we love grapple with pain and grow weaker with every passing day takes a special kind of toll.

Reading a moving thread on this topic in the Caring.com community, I was reminded again of the many times Caring.com members have praised hospice services. And the many times I've heard people say (or said myself) that once they experienced the relief of having help from hospice, they wished they'd asked for hospice help much sooner.

Give Yourself the Gift of Hospice Help

Recently I saw a Brown University study that said that one in ten hospice patients is referred too late, with not enough time left to provide the services that hospice could have offered...  Read more

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Researchers startled the American College of Cardiology this week by presenting data that show that women die after having heart attacks in much higher numbers than men.

But the real shocker? The reasons why:

• Women are less likely to be screened via angiography

• Women are less likely to receive treatment with angioplasty

This is important because it adds to a growing body of data that shows that women's heart symptoms simply aren't being taken as seriously by doctors - and possibly by women themselves -- as men's.

What really surprised me, for example, was the finding that women are more than twice as likely to die within the month following a heart attack as men. That's the period during which you'd think everyone would be paying the most attention and making sure a woman received adequate diagnosis and treatment.

The experts quoted in the news reports all mentioned that...  Read more

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Could the subject of red meat and health get any more confusing? This week the American Heart Association presented big news: Processed and cured red meats are seriously bad for the heart. Their recommendation: One serving a week at most.

What I noticed, though, in all the news coverage, is that the bad news overshadowed some surprising good news: Red meat itself is no longer getting such a bad rap.

This is definitely one of those good news/bad news situations, and it's worth taking the time to sort out because following the new suggestions could make a big difference in your family's heart health. (Unless, of course, you're a vegetarian, in which case, come back tomorrow for the next post.)

Bad News First: Cured meats, which means meats smoked, processed with salt, or preserved with preservatives, aren't good for your heart...  Read more

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If so, you have plenty of company. Generally speaking, men don't handle illness well. Psychologists have lots of theories on this topic, having to do with men needing to be in control and all that, but when it comes right down to it, all we need to talk about here is the fact that many men make lousy, grouchy, and often ungrateful patients. And cancer, with it's complexities of understanding and treatments that can be almost as hard to endure as the disease, is not going to bring out the best in most people to begin with.

So when a man in your life has cancer, and you're running around and trying to understand medical-ese and dealing with doctors and cooking tempting meals and he's being - well, let's say it -- plain old mean -- what do you do? It's awfully hard to take. We're doing this out of love - is it too much to ask to feel loved while we do it?

This has been a hot topic among Caring...  Read more

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When a stroke leaves someone you love changed, it's hard. This has been the experience of two close friends of mine, both of whom are trying to help their mothers cope with the after-effects of stroke.

One friend's mom has paralysis and palsy on one side, leaving this formerly feisty and independent woman fearful of falling and embarrassed to eat in public. The other friend's mom lost some of her speech; she can't remember words, and she's difficult to understand. An energetic and active community volunteer just a few months ago, she's become isolated and dependent.

I thought of these friends when I read about some startling research published this week showing that women who have a stroke and don't receive the clot-busting drug tPA have much worse outcomes than men whose stroke goes untreated. After following 2100 stroke patients for six months, the researchers found that 70 percent of men were in good shape, while only 58 percent of women were functioning well...  Read more

When you live far away from a friend or family member who's diagnosed with cancer, it's really tough to know what to do.

Do you jump on a plane? Wait until surgery or other treatment is scheduled and come to help out then? Some people wonder if they should relocate temporarily if a loved one has a terminal diagnosis and not much time left.

There are five questions I hear frequently about long-distance caregiving for cancer. I've also seen some really good advice on this topic coming from Caring.com readers and experts. I thought I'd summarize them here, so people in this situation have somewhere to start.

1. When I hear that someone I love has cancer, should I go home right away?

The answer depends on a lot of factors, but the first thing to consider is how advanced the cancer is. If the person has a stage I, stage II, or stage IIIa cancer, the situation is less urgent, and it's easier to wait and pinpoint when you'll be most useful...  Read more