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NEWS:
Head Injury is Associated with Doubled Mortality Rate Long-Term, Penn Study Finds
Adults who suffered any head injury during a 30-year study period had two times the rate of mortality than those who did not have any head injury, and mortality rates among those with moderate or severe head injuries were nearly three times higher, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, published in JAMA Neurology.
In the United States, over 23 million adults age 40 or older report a history of head injury with loss of consciousness. Head injury can be attributed to a number of causes, from motor vehicle crashes, unintentional falls, or sports injuries. What’s more, head injury has been linked with a number of long-term health conditions, including disability, late-onset epilepsy, dementia, and stroke.
Studies have previously shown increased short-term mortality associated with head injuries primarily among hospitalized patient
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5 Things To Know About The New Alzheimer’s Drug, Leqembi
On January 6th, the Food and Drug Administration approved, via the Accelerated Approval pathway, a new treatment for Alzheimer’s disease called Leqembi. While older Alzheimer’s drugs may ease symptoms for a time, they do nothing to stop the relentless downward course of the disease. Leqembi is the second of a new class of drugs that are designed to slow the progression of the disease.
“This treatment option is the latest therapy to target and affect the underlying disease process of Alzheimer’s, instead of only treating the symptoms of the disease,” said Dr. Billy Dunn, director of the Office of Neuroscience in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. Here are five things to know about the new Alzheimer’s drug, Leqembi.
How effective is Leqembi?
The new treatment may slow declines in memory and thinking skills in those in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, but it
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Lock Your Meds Gives Adults A Voice to Keep Kids Safe from Prescription Medication
Did you know that 53% of misused medications come from family and friends, not a stranger/drug dealer or the internet? The Lock Your Meds® campaign, created by the National Family Partnership and its affiliate Informed Families/The Florida Family Partnership is a universal prevention campaign intended to save lives by preventing prescription drug misuse, which is the fastest growing substance misuse problem in America.
Currently, the drug problem has a different identity and must be addressed with new combat tactics. To think that you, as parents and grandparents, could unknowingly be a supplier of prescription medications to your children is disturbing. Through our established, national network of supporters such as Community Impact North Carolina and Publix Pharmacy®, we can begin to educate our nation on the Lock Your Meds® initiative and help parents implement preventative steps to
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Bangladesh to Ukraine: Penn Medicine Doctor Brings Life-Saving Tech to Global Conflict Zones
According to the medics, the lines seemed to stretch on forever. At clinics in towns just across the Ukrainian border in Poland, countless Ukrainian refugees who were injured defending or fleeing their homes now stood in queues for hours hoping to receive medical care. Back home, many had loved ones experiencing exactly the same thing in the country under Russian attack.
As the patients arrived one after another, clinicians, some fresh out of school, were forced to make life-altering decisions for their patients at a rapid pace. Making matters worse, they had only a fraction of the clinical materials and tech that much of the world takes for granted, like CT scans that offer detailed images of inside the body. But a fresh view recently changed that — and it’s making a dramatic difference for Ukrainians in harm’s way.
Nahreen Ahmed, MD, MPH, a physician with Penn Medicine, is an expert
