Sea Crest Health Care Center

Choosing a doctor for any procedure can be a difficult and frustrating task. How can you possibly gauge whether any given doctor will do a good job? While it’s difficult to know for sure, here are some tips to help you reach an educated conclusion on the best doctor for you.

You can find out about any doctor by looking him up. Yup – the state medical board has an online database of every practicing doctor, and a printed version of the database may be available in your local library. The entry for each doctor lists his education, training, certification, specialties, and any legal history involved with his practice. This research can give you a good background when choosing from a field of doctors. If you have a very specific condition or are looking for a very specific treatment, take a careful note of the specialties. A doctor may be a cardiologist, but specializes in prevention or nuclear cardiology.

Magazines, such as New York magazine have an annual supplement dedicated to rating doctors. If it’s not on the stands when you begin your search, the public library should certainly have a copy.

Hospital are another thing often rated, and you should check these carefully too. If a hospital has a reputation for excellent care in a specific area, the doctors will be working harder to uphold the reputation. While a large hospital may have better resources, the small may have doctors able to provide more personalized care. Do some research on you hospital’s reputation before settling on it.

If you’re going in for surgery, find out how experienced your doctor is in performing it. Practice makes perfect, even in surgery. And while every doctor needs practice, you probably don’t want it to be on you.

Finally, don’t forget to check for bedside manner. If the doctor doesn’t listen to your concerns or treat you patiently, you can be sure their attitude will not improve when you are under their care. Choose doctors who will treat you well and listen to you. If anything feels wrong, you want to know that you have a doctor you can trust.

 High-temperature broiling, grilling, or frying can be deleterious for the cardiovascular system, a study shows. It increases toxins called advanced glycogen endproducts (AGEs) which are associated with inflammation and oxidative stress. AGEs tend to build up in the body with age, leading to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease. These AGEs are released into the body when the food is eaten, and may lead to inflammation and disease over time.

Instead, boiling or steaming foods will prevent the food from cooking at too hot a temperature, and preserve most of the nutrients.  

Preliminary studies suggest that cutting one’s AGE intake in half could possibly increase one’s lifespan by reducing stress on the metabolism and organs.

by Stan Readley

It’s long been known that beta amyloid, a disruptive plaque substance, forms on the brain as Alzheimer’s disease progresses. What is not known is if the plaque causes the disease, or is caused by it. Particularly confusing: some people have beta amyloid in their brain and no Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Ganesh M. Shankar and Dr. Dennis J. Selkoe of Harvard Medical School led a study that collected beta amyloid samples from cadavers donated to science and injected them into the brains of mice. Surprisingly, not all the mice developed Alzheimers. Only the mice who received a particular strain of beta amyloid developed the neurological disease. The two-molecule, soluble beta-amyloid seems to clog the synapses and disrupt communication between sections of the brain.

The study seems to directly inculpate a single form of beta amyloid as the cause of Alzheimers. If further studies corroborate these findings, we could be on the way to discovering the cause and cure for the degenerative neurological disease.

By Ruth Folger Weiss

I’m going out to have a good time and incorporate some exercise while I’m at it.
I decided it was time to leave the desk after reading the latest studies on how crucial exercising (alright, particularly in midlife) is in warding off dementia and Alzheimer’s disease decades later.
In a study of more than 1,400 adults involved in the “Cardiovascular Risk Factors, Aging, and Incidence of Dementia ” (CAIDE) project, which involved 1,449 men and women in Finland, those who were physically active in their free time during middle age were 52% less likely to develop dementia 21 years later than their sedentary counterparts. Their chance of developing Alzheimer’s disease was slashed even more, by 62%, and even stronger in those carrying the ApoE e4 gene, which is associated with a higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

“Free Time” is the definitive term here; exercise done as occupational activity, such as heavy lifting, didn’t have the same protective effect as leisure-time exercise have the same effect.

Suvi Rovio, MSc, a researcher at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, concurs. “By being physically active in midlife, people who carry the ApoE e4 gene can lower their risk of Alzheimer’s to the same level as someone not carrying the gene.”

But Maria Carrillo, PhD, director of medical scientific relations at the Alzheimer’s Association, says that physical exercise “does not have to be strenuous or even require a major time commitment. It is most effective when done regularly, and in combination with a brain-healthy diet, mental activity, and social interaction.

“We know that physical exercise is essential for maintaining good blood flow to the brain as well as to encourage the development of new brain cells. “It also can significantly reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke, and diabetes, and thereby protect against those risk factors for Alzheimer’s and other dementias.”

contributed by Anne Lacey

Falls during rehab. Slips in the shower. Accidents on the stairs. They don’t happen often, but when they do happen, you want them cared for rapidly.

The traditional care for suspected fractures – a trip to the x-ray via the emergency room – isn’t fast, efficient, or remotely painless. For the elderly or disabled, double the discomfort quotient. Even once the x-ray has been taken, there’s a delay while it develops and is read by a specialist.

Which is why long-term care, assisted living, and rehab facilities should consider a recent option: portable digital x-rays.

Portable – that means that instead of you going to the x-ray facility, the x-ray machine comes to you. Yup – the back of a van. As soon as the accident happens you call the portable x-ray service and they send someone over. No need to move patients with limited mobility and who are in pain. Keep them comfortable and rested while you wait.

Digital – that means no waiting for results. The x-ray is available immediately both for you and for the service’s experts back at the base. They’ll look at the x-ray in real time and give you their reading on the spot.