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Golf gadgets for seniors

August 2012 • Issue 152

CNY’s Healthcare Newspaper

HighBloodPressure

31.4 percent of adults in Central New York have high blood pressure, the second-highest rate in Upstate New York, according to Excellus. More troubling, many do not take precautions known to help control it. Find out about risks of high blood pressure and how to keep it under control. Page 7

Chiropractic It treats more than out-ofwhack backs

Dr. Kaplan: 50 Years Teaching at Upstate Got Herpes? No Need to Hit the Panic Button

Photo courtesy of Jeff Madison of First Memories Photography in Syracuse

Five Things a New Baby Brings to a Couple’s Life Columnist Melissa Stefanec (pictured with husband Brandon Smith and daughter Stella) talks about how her relationship with her husband changed after the birth of their child.

The Real War

The LaShomb family of Syracuse has several members who have or are serving in the U.S. Air Force. Father Dick LaShomb (front, center) was diagnosed with ALS in 2010. RoseMarie (back, center) is his wife and caretaker. Studies have shown military members are twice as likely to contract the disease. August 2012 •

IN GOOD HEALTH – CNY’s Healthcare Newspaper

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IN GOOD HEALTH – CNY’s Healthcare Newspaper • August 2012

in New York state

Strong job growth predicted for healthcare workers

emand is soaring for healthcare workers, and that is expected to create major opportunities for community colleges. A study by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce says 5.6 million new jobs in the healthcare sector will be created for over the next eight years. That includes all sorts of related jobs—many of which require no more than an associate’s degree—such as medical technicians, pharmaceutical sales representatives and doctor’s office assistants. According to the study, 13 percent of all jobs will be in the health sector in 2020, and one out of every $5 will be spent on healthcare. At the same time, the report finds, the demand for postsecondary education in healthcare will grow faster than any other field except the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and education fields. Eighty-two percent of those 5.6 million new healthcare jobs will require postsecondary education and training—and an increasing number of jobs will require at least an associate’s degree. While 21 percent of all health care jobs required an associate’s degree in 2010, that will rise to 25 percent by 2020.

The ‘upskilling’ trend

Among the trends identified in the study, “upskilling” in nursing is growing especially fast. In 1980, 37 percent of entry-level registered nurses had at least an associate’s degree; by 2008, that figure had grown to 80 percent. Between 1992 and 2008, the report states, the proportion of working nurses with bachelor’s degrees has increased from 31 percent to 40 percent. During the same period, the number of registered nurses (RNs) in management and administration with bachelor’s degrees increased from 14 percent to 20 percent. Meanwhile, the report documents a significant shortage of healthcare workers, due in part to the aging of the existing workforce and an aging population with greater needs for longterm care. The report projects a 26 percent increase in nursing jobs in the next six years, “but that won’t be enough to

meet the demand,” the report states. To address a shortfall of more than 800,000 nursing jobs, it says the United States will have to continue recruiting nurses from other countries. While there are plenty of qualified applicants for college nursing programs, the report states, “existing academic programs don’t have enough classrooms or faculty to move students through the educational pipeline quickly enough to meet the growing demand.” Associate’s degree programs continue to graduate more RNs than bachelor’s degree programs, but “the gap between the two is narrowing,” the report finds. “However, the gap between RNs with an initial nursing education of associate’s degree and RNs with initial nursing education of bachelor’s degree has not narrowed, but rather has been widening.” The report attributes this situation to an increasing number of practicing RNs upgrading their skills by earning bachelor’s degrees, rather than an increase in newly minted RNs completing bachelor’s programs.

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The allied professions

Community colleges still produce nearly 50 percent of the nurses entering the field today, the report finds, while for-profit institutions are producing a growing share of people trained for healthcare support and paraprofessional jobs. Between 1986 and 2010, the percent of healthcare credentials produced by for-profit institutions has grown from 1 percent to 29 percent. During that period, community college market share has declined from 37 percent to 32 percent. The market share of universities (public and private) has decreased even more, from 62 percent to 39 percent. The demand for healthcare support paraprofessionals is expected to grow faster than any other group of healthcare workers, with 4.8 million projected for 2020. The report predicts a 30 percent increase in the number of jobs available in the allied health professions between 2010 and 2020. More than 40 percent of these jobs require a postsecondary vocational certificate or associate’s degree.

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ONONDAGA, OSWEGO, CAYUGA AND MADISON COUNTIES in good A monthly newspaper published by

Health CNY’s Healthcare Newspaper

Local News, Inc. Distribution: 35,000 copies. To request home delivery ($15 per year), call 342-1182.

In Good Health is published 12 times a year by Local News, Inc. © 2012 by Local News, Inc. All rights reserved. Mailing Address: P.O. Box 276, Oswego, NY 13126. • Phone: 315-342-1182 • Fax: 315-342-7776. Editor & Publisher: Wagner Dotto • Associate Editor: Lou Sorendo Contributing Writers: Jim Miller, Eva Briggs, M.D., Gwenn Voelckers, Deborah Banikowski, Deborah Sergeant, Anne Palumbo, Chris Motola, Melissa Stefanec, Matthew Liptak, Alyssa Mammano, Suzanne M. Ellis • Advertising: Jasmine Maldonado, Tracy DeCann • Design: Chris Crocker • Ofﬁce Manager: Laura J. Beckwith No material may be reproduced in whole or in part from this publication without the express written permission of the publisher. The information in this publication is intended to complement—not to take the place of—the recommendations of your health provider. Consult your physician before making major changes in your lifestyle or health care regimen.

sls 18; 2/5/12, 15, #001239; 1stHealthcare proof Newspaper August 2012 • Ed. IN GOOD HEALTH – CNY’s Colors shown may not match publication colors.

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progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually leads to death. For registration and more information, visit www.WalktoDefeatALS. org or www.alsaupstateny.org.

Oswego Health and the Oswego Kiwanis Club will hold a multi-organ blood analysis Aug. 4, Saturday, at Leighton Elementary School in Oswego. The analysis screens individuals for various conditions such as anemia, diabetes and others, as well as for coronary, kidney, and liver diseases. Phlebotomists from Oswego Hospital will be on hand to conduct the blood draw. The cost of the analysis is $35. Typically, these tests can cost more than $340. In addition, there is an optional $20 prostate specific antigen (PSA) test, which is recommended to men older than age 50. Individuals can also ask for a free colorectal kit. The screening will be offered from 6:30 to 10 a.m. and appointments can be made by calling 341-0018. The results of the multi-organ blood analysis will be sent directly to the participant’s home and physician in an easy-to-read format.

Aug. 24

Multi-organ blood analysis takes place in Oswego

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IN GOOD HEALTH – CNY’s Healthcare Newspaper • August 2012

Aug. 4

Horse competition held at Cazenovia College Back by popular demand is the Eighth Annual Independence Open Horse Show for Riders of All Abilities hosted by From the Ground Up Therapeutic Horsemanship, Inc. The focus for this competition is on sportsmanship, horsemanship and showmanship among riders of all abilities. Taking place at Cazenovia College Aug. 5, this is the only show of its kind to be held in Central New York. Classes to be held include showmanship, equitation, dressage, pole-bending, timed race, costume and more. The event is hosted by From the Ground Up Therapeutic Horsemanship, Inc. a nonprofit organization that provides equine assisted activities and riding instruction for persons of all abilities. An average of 35 riders of all abilities compete each year. Many competitors enter this fun, relaxed show to “get their feet wet” in the show ring. For more information, email trosborne01@gmail.com, call 5065220 or visit www.ftguhorses.org.

Sept. 22

Walk to Defeat ALS takes place in Syracuse The ALS Foundation is sponsoring its Walk to Defeat ALS, which will take place at 9 a.m. Sept. 22 at the Syracuse Inner Harbor, Onondaga Creekwalk. ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) is often referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease. It is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The

Women in leadership conference in Syracuse SUNY Empire State College in conjunction with the SUNY Leadership Institute will host a women in leadership conference Aug. 24 at the college’s Central New York Center in Syracuse. The conference, “Leadership Tools for Women Conference: Creating the Right Mentoring Environment for You,” will focus on development of sustainable mentoring relations. The event is part of the SUNY Leadership Tools for Women Conference Series. The conference keynote speaker is Nicole Williams, LinkedIn connection director. She is a best-selling author of three books, the latest of which is, “Girl on Top: Your Guide to Turning Dating Rules in Career Success;” co-founder of WORKS ,the go-to resource for careerminded young women, which was named one of Forbes magazine’s Top 10 Career Websites for Women; a regular guest on TV (Today, Good Morning America, CNN); and often interviewed by publications such as ELLE, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Marie Clair and the Wall Street Journal. For more information, visit conference website at www. cvent.com/d/jcqzs5.

Sept. 30

Festival of Races to stage 20th edition in Syracuse The Syracuse Festival of Races (SFoR) announced the opening of registration for all of the events of its 20th annual edition: Sunday, Sept. 30. The SFoR’s Men’s 5K and Women’s 5K races attract not only runners from throughout Upstate New York area but also visitors from dozens of U.S. states and Canada. The SFoR provides runners of all abilities and levels of experience the opportunity to run their best times at the world’s most popular road race distance. As they have every year since 1994, all race morning events will start and finish outside Syracuse University’s Manley Field House. Along with the dual 5K races, the SFoR includes a pair of non-competitive events: the MVP Health Care 3K Fun & Fitness Run, and the Tops Friendly Markets Community Walk. Designed to encourage full family participation, the SFoR includes runners and walkers ranging from area pre-school children and their families to world-class agegroup athletes as old as 93. Links to both online entry and downloadable versions of the paper entry form are accessible by following the “Register Now” button at: www.festivalofraces. com.

Two New Drugs for Weight Loss Approved FDA gives the go-ahead to Belviq and Qsymia By Alyssa Mammano

or the first time in more than a decade, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a diet pill to aid weight loss for Americans, one-third of whom are obese. Arena Pharmaceuticals’ drug, Belviq (lorcaserin hydrochloride), is the first weight loss drug to be cleared by the FDA in 13 years, and is due to be released in six months. Dr. Jeffrey DeSimone, of Crouse Hospital’s weight-loss surgery program, said, “Recently the FDA announced that they have approved Belviq for use in patients who are overweight or obese, and have certain obesity-related medical conditions such as diabetes, hypertension or hyperlipidemia.” The drug is intended for adults who are obese with a body mass index of 30 or higher, or overweight with a BMI of 27 or higher, and who suffer from one or more weight-related conditions. “The approval of this drug, used responsibly in combination with a healthy diet and lifestyle, provides a treatment option for Americans who are obese or are overweight and have at least one weight-related co-morbid condition,” according to FDA’s drug center director, Janet Woodcock. Belviq works as an appetite suppressant by stimulating serotonin receptors in the brain, which will make the patient feel full or satisfied. “The FDA cited three separate controlled clinical studies on approximately 8,000 patients. The average weight loss was between 3 and 4 percent. Belviq resulted in a 5 percent or greater weight loss in 47 percent of patients treated over a 52-104 week period, and was roughly twice as effective as placebo,” said DeSimone.

Final stages ahead

Arena Pharmaceuticals will be required to conduct six post-marketing studies, including a long-term cardiovascular trial to assess the effect of Belviq on the risk for major adverse cardiac events, such as a heart attack or stroke. Other weight loss drugs have

recently been taken off the market due to negative effects on the heart, heart valves and cardiovascular system. Belviq has not shown significant effects on the heart thus far, DeSimone said. The FDA said patients should stop taking the pill after three months if they fail to lose 5 percent of their body weight. Pregnant women should not take the drug. Belviq may cause seratonin syndrome, particularly when taken with certain medications that increase serotonin levels or activate serotonin receptors. Other side effects include attention troubles and memory loss. DeSimone said Belviq will not benefit his population of patients effectively, as they have BMIs in excess of 40, ranging from 250-450 pounds, and will need a 25-50 percent weight loss to attain a healthy BMI. Belviq only offers a 5 percent loss. “Belviq, however, may offer some options for patients who do not qualify for surgery, or for whom preoperative or postoperative weight loss may be necessary, as an adjunct treatment to diet, exercise, and behavioral changes,” said DeSimone. Michael Kaplan, chief medical officer at The Center for Medical Weight Loss, said, “We are excited to have more medications in our arsenal of potential treatment modalities to help patients with their weight loss journeys. It is important that medication is used along with professional behavioral modification and counseling to be most effective. Belviq is a safe medication with about a 5 percent excess weight loss at 24 weeks in its clinical trials. Qsymia shows more weight loss in the same time period, but has many more side effects and contraindications for its use. Belviq should be easier to prescribe to the masses.” The FDA denied the approval of Belviq in 2010 due to safety and efficacy concerns. The pharmaceutical company resubmitted the drug with additional data earlier this year, and the FDA said it was suitable to use. Staff writer Maggie Ramsay contributed to this story.

Qsymia also approved as new weight loss drug

hortly after the approval of Belviq, the FDA announced the approval of an additional weight loss medication named Qsymia. Qsymia (phentermine and topiramate extended-release) is a combination of two FDA-approved drugs in an extended-release formula. Phentermine is prescribed for short-term weight loss, and topiramate treats certain types of seizures for people who suffer from epilepsy, and is used to prevent migraine headaches. In addition to a reduced-calorie diet and exercise, Qsymia assists chronic weight management for adults with a BMI of 30 or higher (obese) or 27 or higher (overweight), and who have one or more weight-related conditions. Qsymia is not to be consumed during pregnancy, or in patients with glaucoma or hyperthyroidism. Qsymia

can increase heart rate, therefore, it is not recommended for those who have had unstable heart disease or stoke within the last six months. The most common side effects of Qsymia are tingling of the hands and feet, dizziness, altered taste sensation, insomnia, constipation and dry mouth. Qsymia was evaluated for safety and efficacy in two randomized, placebo-controlled trials. Approximately 3.700 adults who were obese or overweight and did not have significant weight-related conditions were treated with Qsymia for one year. All patients also received a prescribed reduced-calorie diet and regular physical activity. After one year of treatment with the recommended and highest daily dose of Qsymia, patients achieved an average weight loss of 6.7 percent and 8.9 percent, respectively, over treatment with placebo.

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IN GOOD HEALTH – CNY’s Healthcare Newspaper

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Meet

Your Doctor

By Chris Motola

Dr. Eugene A. Kaplan Psychiatrist has taught at Upstate for 50 years. He explains why depression is the most common mental disorder and what works better in modern psychiatry, medication or therapy Q: You were recently honored for your 50 years of service at Upstate. A: Right, I’ve been on the faculty for 50 years here at Upstate, but I actually began my association in 1953 as a medical student, so in some ways I’ve been here for almost 60 years. I was appointed an assistant professor of psychiatry in 1961 after I’d finished my training. Q: Tell me the story behind the umbrella and the ceiling. A: I told that story because that was at the old university hospital here in Syracuse. It turns out that the ceiling was crumbling and I didn’t realize this. I had been invited as a senior medical student to assist the professor of ophthalmology in a cataract operation. So, like most young medical students, I was excited to be the first assistant on a cataract operation. It turned out that, since the ceiling was crumbling, it was my job to hold an umbrella over the patient so none of the bits of plaster would fall in the patient’s eyes. The professor was very gracious and explained to me what he was doing even though I was holding the umbrella. That was way back before I joined the faculty. Q: So I take it things have changed a bit? A: Oh yes. There’s a “new” University Hospital that was built in the ‘60s and so the old University Hospital was given back to Syracuse University. The new facility is a very fine facility. Q: Psychiatry seems to be one of the more rapidly evolving specialties with changing diagnoses and prescriptions in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). As a veteran of the field, how much do you feel has changed over the years? A: When I came into psychiatry we were using the plain old DSM, which was originally published in 1952 and lasted until 1968, so I’ve been here for all the versions. There’s a DSM-IV currently and they’re working on a DSM-V. It’s kind of the bible mental health professionals used for diagnosing mental problems. The other thing that’s really changed in psychiatry is that, when I began, the psychoanalytic model, after Freud, was the main theoretical model. There’s still much truth in it, but subsequently there were further developments, shorter therapies. Psychoanalysis that used to take four or five days a week was reduced—or, as I say, watered down—to one or two sessions a week. It’s now called psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Then there was Page 6

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the big change in medications; they became increasingly useful and helpful for relieving symptoms of anxiety and depression and even relieving some of the symptoms of schizophrenic patients. They turned out to be very helpful for the most part. Q: Medication vs. therapy: what is the role of each in modern psychiatry? A: I do much of the teaching here in the department on pyschotherapy. I’m a believer that the so-called “talk therapies” are very helpful for people who are dealing with what my colleague calls “problems in living.” Sometimes if a person is suffering too much, using medication to reduce or eliminate the anxiety or depression symptoms is very helpful. So many of us will sometimes do what we called “combined therapy,” where we encourage the patient to talk about their problems while using medication for symptom relief if necessary. Q: So would you say that therapy is good for treating the sources and medication is good for treating the symptoms? A: That’s a fair summary. I’ve often told my patients and my students that, if a person has a pain in his foot, you don’t immediately prescribe him codeine for his pain, you have him take off his shoe and find out what’s causing the pain. You always look for the source of the pain and suffering. If you can find it with the patient, fine. If you can’t, then medication is still often very helpful. Q: Certain “disorders” come and go with each edition — homosexuality was removed in 1973, histrionic personality disorder may be removed from the DSM-V — or are reclassified

Lifelines Name: Eugene A. Kaplan, M.D. Hometown: Syracuse Education: SUNY Upstate Medical University Afﬁliations: SUNY Upstate Medical University Organization: American Psychiatric Association (distinguished life fellow), numerous others Family: Married (just celebrated 50th anniversary), two daughters, four grandchildren Hobbies: Music, piano, sailing, playing with grandchildren

IN GOOD HEALTH – CNY’s Healthcare Newspaper • August 2012

into other disease categories within the DSM. What’s the difference, do you think, between a mental illness and personality quirk? A: A very fair question. Personally, I think the pendulum has swung too far and we’ve made into illnesses or disorders much of what I’d call the normal human condition. Not all sadness is a depression disorder, not all fear is an anxiety disorder. Now, there are some human experiences that are sufficiently troubling or painful that calling them a disorder is a reasonable thing. Right now there’s a big debate among the framers of the DSM-V, due out in 2013 or 2014, between those who would add to the list of psychiatric illnesses and those who would take them out. I had originally contributed a little to the DSM-II and DSM-III. Q: What do you think is a good litmus test for this? A: Seems to me that if a person wants counseling, then he or she may have some issues that are troubling to them. I really believe in voluntary talk therapy. Sometimes they have anxiety attacks, sometimes they have insomnia. We call them symptoms because, in a way, we’re using a medical model to try to describe them. Q: Are there trends or cycles that correlate to psychiatric problems? A: There is something that we now call seasonal affective disorder, where some people get depressed or sad during particularly bleak winters. Understandably, sometimes people do become depressed during a long, harsh winter. The syndrome, as we call it, is an example of that. We’ve been talking about that, maybe, for the last 20 years. It’s not a severe problem, but it occasionally does require some kind of intervention. Q: What’s the most common disorder you encounter? A: Depression, clearly, in various forms. There are mild and severe forms of this. We use the term “major depression” to describe someone who becomes seriously depressed and may contemplate or attempt suicide. We even have a phrase called “adjustment disorder with depressive features,” which is a very mild depression. But often there’s a cause. Often you and the patient can figure out the cause. Most depressions are launched by some loss or disappointment. Grief is an example of a normal depression, desertion, divorce, failure. Economics: The Great Depression of the 1930s saw a rise in suicides when people lost their livelihoods. Our recent recession with our loss of jobs can reverberate into a person’s emotional life, triggering both anxiety and depression. Q: Since depression is so common, do you think it serves an evolutionary function rather than just being a disorder? A: I think it’s a reaction, usually to bad events. Bad things can happen to people. We look at our returning veterans who have lost arms, legs or friends. The syndrome of post traumatic stress disorder is a mix of both anxiety and depression, a reaction to a terrible experience. In fact,

there’s a whole new field now called traumatology, the study of trauma and its emotional and physical effects on people. Q: Do you still see patients or are you primarily a teacher now? A: I see a few patients still, but I spend most of my time teaching. I like what I do. Medicine is a fine, noble profession. I really like teaching it. As long as the medical school is willing to have me, I plan to continue.

High Blood Pressure Affects 31.4% of Area’s Population

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recent Take Charge Community Health Report issued by Excellus Blue Cross Blue Shield reports that area resident do not control their blood pressure, also known as hypertension, as well as they could. In the greater Central New York region — St. Lawrence, Jefferson, Lewis, Oswego, Onondaga, Cayuga, Cortland, and Thompkins counties — 31.4 percent of adults have high blood pressure, the second-highest region in Upstate New York. More troubling, many do not take precautions known to help control blood pressure. The study said that high blood pressure is so dangerous because it forces the heart to continuously work too hard and become damaged more easily. It weakens the arteries and makes them more vulnerable to rupturing, narrowing, and forming clots. According to the report, of those diagnosed with high blood pressure in the region, only 69 percent have reduced their dietary salt intake, 65 percent have made overall dietary changes, 71.8 have increased physical activity, 38.2 have chosen to abstain from alcohol and 47.2 percent from tobacco, and 82.2 percent take their prescribed medication. Lack of compliance can be for many reasons, according to Michael Gabris, a physician with the New York Heart Center in Syracuse. “They may be in denial,” he said. “They don’t want to think it’s happening to them. Medications are expensive, even generic ones. If they’re taking them for multiple things, it adds up. “It’s not only medication we ask. Lifestyle changes are a lot harder. It’s not that they don’t want to comply but it’s hard.” Though the numbers for the Central New York region are higher than in other Upstate New York regions, they are close to or a little less than the national average. Regardless of geographic location, the same reasons for high blood pressure apply: poor diet, lack of exercise, obesity, and, to a small extend, genetics. Diastolic blood pressure, the “bottom” number in the blood pressure reading, refers to the blood pressure between beats when the heart is at rest. The systolic blood pressure figure, the “top” number, refers to the blood pressure while the heart is contracting. Most doctors categorize blood pressure as: normal (120/80), pre-hypertension (120 to 139/80 to 89), hypertension stage 1 (140 to 159/90 to 99) and hypertension stage 2 (160+/100+). With stage 1 hypertension, patients can improve their numbers with diet improvements, exercise, weight loss, quitting smoking, reducing alcohol to less than two drinks per day for males, and one or no drinks per day for females. Gabris said that if stage 1 hypertension patients don’t improve with lifestyle changes, medication is the next step. “You want to do [control hypertension] without medication if you can,” Gabris said. “Better diet, exercise and weight loss will make overall health better and has no negative side effects.” Some people are genetically predisposed to high blood pressure despite healthful lifestyle choices. Other factors can include lack of education about healthy living and difficulty in afford-

ing or obtaining healthful foods. These factors are not limited to the segment of the population battling hypertension. “It’s the U.S. in general,” Gabris said. “As a society, we’re getting heavier and lazier. In the old days, people walked and took the bike places. They didn’t take a car to the corner store. Now, people sit all day, eat fast food, and eat restaurants’ huge portions. All those things add up.” Along with other cardiac risk factors, high blood pressure increases the risk of cardio vascular disease, stroke, and cardiomyopathy (heart muscle disease). Many people overestimate how much exercise they get. A leisurely stroll down to the mailbox may be better than no movement, but it will not do much to improve your cardiovascular health. To help reduce blood pressure, perform a minimum of two hours and 30 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity weekly. Examples include brisk walking or ballroom dancing. Or, perform one hour, 15 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity such as jogging, aerobic dancing or jumping rope each week. Or, combine moderate and vigorous activities that are equivalent to at least one of the two levels. “Lifestyle changes are hard,” Gabris said. “If you’ve been doing things for years and years, changing is difficult.” A balanced diet should include plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean sources of protein and dairy and few processed, pre-made foods, which tend to be high in sodium. Eat plenty of potassium, which is found in foods like bananas. Sodium is found in many more places on the table than the salt shaker. Unless they are “low sodium” versions, soy sauce, canned vegetables and beans, soups and stews and pre-packaged meals all contain a wallop of sodium. Chips, crackers, many other snacks are high in sodium. Stick with low sodium foods and snacks and cook more items from scratch. For some causes of hypertension such as drug induced kidney disease, diet and exercise wouldn’t help and medication is the only way to treat it. “The No. 1 thing is to get hypertension checked,” Gabris said. “A lot of people think they know when blood pressure is high but it has no symptoms.”

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From Excellus’s Take Charge Community Health Report: • “High blood pressure (also known as hypertension) affects an estimated one of every three adults in the U.S., making it our nation’s most chronic health condition. It is called the ‘silent killer’ because one in five people who has the condition is unaware of it. • Adults who have normal blood pressure at age 50 still have a 90 percent chance of developing high blood pressure during their lifetimes. • About 30 percent of U.S. adults have pre-hypertension, a condition in which blood pressure is above normal but not high enough to warrant a diagnosis of high blood pressure.

NEW YORK

CHIROPRACTIC COLLEGE Finger Lakes School of Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine of New York Chiropractic College School of Applied Clinical Nutrition

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August 2012 •

IN GOOD HEALTH – CNY’s Healthcare Newspaper

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Page 7

Live Alone & Thrive

By Gwenn Voelckers

Practical tips, advice and hope for those who live alone

Eating Alone: Create an Inviting ‘Table for One’

ugust can be a great month for picnics, barbecues and get-togethers with friends on warm, sultry nights. But like any month, August also presents plenty of opportunities for — heaven forbid — dining solo. Let’s face it: For most of humanity dining is a social activity. We enjoy having our meals with loved ones, friends and colleagues. So when we find ourselves alone at the dinner hour, it can feel a little uncomfortable, even lonely. It’s not unusual to fill in the awkward silence with distractions: the company of TV, the comfort of a good book, or the diversion of a favorite magazine. Don’t I know it. I can’t tell you how many of my favorite books contain food crumbs or red sauce stains (or is that wine?). But, I’m not complaining. A good book can be a great dining companion. On the other hand, while living alone gives us the freedom to dine as we please (one of its many benefits), I don’t recommend eating breakfast for dinner or plowing through a bag of Doritos as a substitute for a healthy, well-balance meal. When it comes to eating alone at

home, treat yourself as you would treat a good friend you are having over for dinner. Why? Because you are worth it. Because you will feel better about yourself, both physically and emotionally. When you prepare and enjoy a good meal on your own, you’ll be sending yourself an important message: It’s important to take good care of myself and to treat myself with respect. I matter enough to treat — and feed — myself well. Eating well and right has all kinds of benefits. And what better way to start enjoying those benefits than by creating an inviting “table for one” in your own home. In fact, why not consider the tips below and give it a try tonight? • Stock your kitchen with healthy food. It’s so much easier to put a healthy meal on the table when the good stuff is plentiful and the junk food is in short supply. I’m fully aware of my own downfalls (ice

KIDS Corner Got Kids? Then You’re Less Likely to Catch a Cold

eing a parent reduces your risk of catching a cold—possibly because of unknown “psychological or behavioral differences between parents and nonparents,” according to a study in the July issue of Psychosomatic Medicine, the official journal of the American Psychosomatic Society. The risk of becoming ill after exposure to cold viruses is reduced by about half in parents compared to nonparents, regardless of pre-existing immunity, according to research led by Rodlescia S. Sneed and Sheldon Cohen of Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. The study suggests that other, yet unknown factors related to being a parent may affect susceptibility to illness. The researchers analyzed data on 795 adults from three previous studies Page 8

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of stress and social factors affecting susceptibility to the common cold. In those studies, healthy volunteers were given nose drops containing cold-causing rhinovirus or influenza viruses. After virus exposure, about onethird of volunteers developed clinical colds—typical symptoms of a cold plus confirmed infection with one of the study viruses. The analysis focused on whether being a parent affected the risk of developing a cold, with adjustment for other factors. The results showed a lower rate of colds among parents, compared to volunteers who were not parents. In the adjusted analysis, the risk of developing a cold was 52 percent lower for parents. That might be expected on the basis of immunity—kids get colds,

IN GOOD HEALTH – CNY’s Healthcare Newspaper • August 2012

cream, nuts, cookies, chips) and do not regularly stock these items in my kitchen. Instead, I have on hand a good supply of frozen and fresh vegetables, prepackaged salad greens, fruits in season, and easy-to-grill meats and fish filets. You’ll also find plenty of grab-and-go “power” bars in my pantry for when I’m on the run. • Set the stage. Have some fun with your table setting: put down a placemat, use a cloth napkin, bring out the wine glass, turn on some enjoyable music and position a good book or magazine within reach. Consider lighting a candle. If you’ve never set the stage like this before, it can feel contrived at first, but stay with it. Over time, I’m confident you’ll find it as enjoyable and relaxing as I have. • Indulge your senses. Stimulate your appetite by preparing an item or meal that produces a wonderful, delicious aroma. My secret? I love the scent of sautéed onions, and jump-start and parents may develop protective antibodies against the specific viruses causing those colds. However, the lower risk of colds in parents could not be explained by pre-existing immunity, based on levels of antibodies to the study viruses. Parents were less likely to develop colds whether or not they had protective levels of antibodies. The protective effect of parenthood increased along with the number of children (although there were limited data on parents with three or more children). Parents were at reduced risk of colds even when they didn’t live with any of their children. In fact,

many a solo dining experience with a little butter and chopped onions in my iron skillet. The aroma invites me into the cooking process and within minutes the worries and stresses of my day start to melt away. I also try to incorporate foods with a variety of textures and color — soft, chewy, crisp, and firm — in each meal. These touches serve to make the dining experience more interesting and pleasant. • Select the best seat in the house. While eating in front of the TV may be the perfect choice on some occasions, I encourage you to find dining spaces inside or outside your home that offer more inspiration. Chances are, you’ll appreciate the change of scenery. Consider that special nook where the sun filters in or that table by the window with the great view. Mix it up, experiment with different settings, and see how much better it feels. • Enjoy your own company. When you eat alone, you’re in the company of someone special — yourself! You are with someone who approves of your cooking techniques, appreciates the candle you lit, and knows that life and food are to be enjoyed. Cherish this quality time with yourself. Creating a pleasant “table for one” is a great opportunity to focus on yourself and to nourish your body and spirit at the same time. So, pull up a chair, say a few words of gratitude, and enjoy! Gwenn Voelckers is the founder and facilitator of Live Alone and Thrive, empowerment workshops for women held throughout the year in Mendon, New York. For information about the workshops, call 585-624-7887, email gvoelckers@rochester. rr.com, or visit aloneandcontent.com. parents with no children at home had an even larger, 73 percent reduction in risk. The risk of colds was lower for parents in most age groups. The only exception was parents in the youngest age group—18 to 23 years—for whom the risk of colds was no different than for nonparents. There was no difference in the risk of colds for parents who were married vs. unmarried. “We found parenthood predicted a decreased probability of colds among healthy individuals exposed to a cold virus,” Sneed and coauthors write.

Bullying Can Be a Summertime Issue

he threat of bullying doesn’t stop at the schoolyard gate nor does it end when the final bell signals the beginning of summer vacation, warns Jennifer Caudle of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-School of Osteopathic Medicine. Caudle is a family physician who has lectured on the subject of bullying to thousands of schoolchildren, parents and educators across the country. “Bullying can happen wherever kids gather — in school, at summer camp or in cyberspace,” Caudle said. “Bullying isn’t just limited to the classroom. Talking with your kids about bullying is just as important in the summer as it is during the school year — especially when it is time to head to summer camp.” She also noted that the proliferation of portable devices, such as tablet computers and smart phones, extends the ability of school bullies to reach their victims

anywhere and at any time, well beyond the eyes and ears of concerned adults. Recent statistics from a national survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) demonstrate the pervasive nature of bullying and how it can follow children wherever they go. Slightly more than one in five high school students (grades 9–12) reported being bullied on school grounds and more than 16 percent reported that they had been electronically bullied — through email, chat rooms, instant messaging, websites or texting. Female students were electronically bullied more than twice as often (22.1 percent) as male students (10.8 percent). Girls in 10th grade were the most likely to be victimized online (24.2 percent), followed by 11th grade girls (19.8 percent) and 10th grade boys (18.1 percent). The statistics for New Jersey were similar to the national averages.

St. Joe’s Has Best Website Among CNY Hospitals We rated the websites of six hospitals in CNY By Suzanne M. Ellis

hen we received a press release from St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center in Syracuse about the launch of a redesigned website, we decided to launch something of our own: an informal, unscientific look at how the websites of Central New York hospitals compare to each other. We considered lots of criteria and narrowed it down to these checkpoints: • 1. Is the website easily accessible, especially for someone who doesn’t know the name of the hospital or isn’t terribly computer savvy? • 2. Is the website easy to navigate? • 3. Does the website provide fastworking links to helpful, consumer-relevant information? • 4. Is the information we’re seeking simple to obtain or is it akin to running on a hamster’s wheel, working hard but getting nowhere fast? (For the purpose of this article, we looked for the hospital’s visiting hours for patients in the intensive care and maternity units) Using those questions as a basis for our investigation, we took a look at the websites for the hospitals in our coverage area: Auburn Community Hospital, Crouse Hospital, Oneida Healthcare, Oswego Hospital, St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center and Upstate University Hospital. Our research — which is presented strictly for entertainment purposes — was completed during the week of July 8. All searches were done using Google.

Auburn Community Hospital The top result from our search for “hospitals in auburn ny” was the website for Auburn Community Hospital. Its home page displayed the hospital’s main phone number and address, and it offered a comprehensive array of links for the average person. It included a list of on-staff hospital physicians, though none appeared to have any specific contact information, and an option to search for doctors by their medical specialty, something that could be especially helpful if you don’t know the doctor’s name or how to spell it. There were also links to Programs and Services, Patient Education, Patients and Visitors, Donations/Giving, About Us (hospital history), Directions and a Hospital Phone Directory with numbers listed by department. There was a link for downloading patient forms at home and one for Maternity Photos (WebNursery) where you could see pictures, approved by parents, of babies born during specific months. It took just one click — on the “Patients and Visitors” tab — to get the visiting hours for the intensive care and maternity units. That information also was available by typing “visiting hours” in the on-site search bar on the home page.

Website rating: A

Crouse Hospital We decided to use “crouse irving” for our search, even though that hasn’t been the hospital’s official name in years. Thanks to behind-the-scenes work in cyberspace by Crouse Hospital’s webmasters, that search still got us to www.crousehospital.org, which is exactly where we wanted to be. Crouse’s home page seemed cluttered, a little confusing and not terribly user-friendly, especially for someone in a hurry for information. There were photographs and “headlines” — which changed every three to four seconds — plus six rows of tabs, links or search bars. Across the bottom of the page were the beginnings of three articles under the headings of “Health News Today,” “Crouse Spotlight” and “What’s Happening.” Nowhere on the page was there an address or a main hospital telephone number, but there were highly visible links for people seeking hospital careers, information about the nursing school, reporters looking for media contact information or ways to donate money. Typing “visiting hours” into the search bar yielded “No Results,” and it took three tries, first by clicking on “About Crouse,” then “Services,” and finally, “Your Visit,” to find the hospital’s visiting hours. Because we were unable to locate a comprehensive list of visiting hours for different units, it took more wandering to find what we were looking for. And because there was no obvious “Home” tab to take you back to the home page, we continually clicked the back arrow before discovering that we could hover over the hospital’s name at the top of the page to be taken back.

Website rating: B-

Oneida Healthcare Despite the fact that we deliberately misspelled the city and referred to it as a hospital, our search for “onida hospital” took us straight to the home page of Oneida Healthcare. Once again, we found those (somewhat disconcerting, in our opinion) looping photographs and “headlines,” although Oneida’s changed a bit more slowly than those on the Crouse site. This page wasn’t quite as cluttered, but there was no obvious address or telephone number for the hospital. In our search for visiting-hour information, our preliminary attempts to access the drop-down menus on the home page’s seven main tabs (Our Hospital, Patient Care Services, Physician Directory, Education, Giving, Job Center and Contacts) were extremely frustrating. As soon as we started scrolling, the drop-down menus disappeared; when we were finally able to get to the menu beneath “Our Hospital,” we found a wealth of information — including the various visiting hours — under the

secondary heading of “Visitor Information.” Logically speaking, “Our Hospital,” seemed like a place one would find historical and geographical information rather than hospital visiting hours, so it was one of the last places we looked. However, a different route — typing “visiting hours” in the home page’s search bar — yielded positive results.

Website rating: B+

Oswego Hospital Not being entirely certain about the correct name of the hospital, we decided to go with a basic “oswego hospital” search. Google’s top result took us to a bright, clean home page (with none of those annoying scrolling photographs or words), a summary of the hospital’s history/news as the main informational element, and 16 links down the left side that included ”Patient/Visitor Information.” Clicking on that link gave us a side-saddle menu and a “Visiting Hours” link that provided comprehensive information on the times and rules for the hospital’s Intensive Care, Intermediate Care, Maternity/Gynecology, Pediatrics and Behavioral Service units. During our journey, we liked the fact that there is a prominent “Home” link, no matter how far we wandered, across the top of every page. But interestingly, that click took us to a slightly different home page than the one we were taken to in the initial search. This “secondary” home page had those popular scrolling photographs, but it also offered an informative “What’s New” section. Oddly, the 16 convenient links that appeared on the first home page were shortened to 11 links on the secondary home pages.

Website rating: A-

St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center Feeling a bit courageous, we chose the casual “st. joe’s” for our search. Even with information that sparse, the hospital’s home page was the second link on Google’s results screen. The top result was for St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, which obviously isn’t a hospital. Changing it to “st. joe’s syracuse” resulted in St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center being the top result. The hospital’s newly redesigned website — which, you may recall, is what started all of this — offered five prominent tabs, including our personal favorite, “How May We Help You?” The related drop-down menu took us August 2012 •

to five subheadings that included “Patients and Visitors” and easily accessible information about the hospital’s visiting hours. The nice thing about this website is that the information we were seeking was readily available in other ways as well, including via the main “Patients and Visitors” tab. Like some other sites we visited, St. Joseph’s home page had a tremendous amount of information. But we didn’t get that cluttered feeling because everything was laid out horizontally, even those scrolling photos. Kudos for the excellent “Visitor Guide” which provided a wealth of information on lodging, dining, ATMs, wireless Internet, directions, and even a printable parking tutorial that included current prices. The only negative we found was the site’s tendency to take you somewhere you didn’t want to go if your mouse sat idly too long.

Website rating: A+

Upstate University Hospital With so many changes over the years and the sometimes confusing connection to the State University of New York educational system, not to mention the recent opening of Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital — all under the same umbrella — we’re not sure the staff even knows what the hospital is called on any given day. Not wanting to cheat by researching the accurate name, we went with “upstate hospital” for our initial search. That took us to a link titled “University Hospital-Welcome/SUNY Upstate Medical University” and then, thankfully, to a home page with prominent links to the three entities: Upstate Medical University, Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital and Upstate University Hospital Community Campus. Once we clicked on the latter, we found a “Patients and Visitors” tab that got us to the information we were seeking on visiting hours in the maternity and intensive care units. Some of the other links we chose took us to pages with no easy exit; the only way to get back to the main page was to repeatedly hit the back arrow or close out of that screen altogether and start over.

Website rating: B

IN GOOD HEALTH – CNY’s Healthcare Newspaper

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Page 9

My Turn

By Eva Briggs

Got Genital Herpes? No Need to Hit the Panic Button Medicines don’t cure the disease, but control the symptoms.

ometimes patients burst into tears about their medical problems. Often it’s because their diagnosis is life threatening or life altering, even if only temporarily. (Think the triathlete with a broken ankle.) Other times people cry because although the disease is common and controllable, our society stigmatizes the problem. An example is genital herpes. Studies using blood tests to search for antibodies to the causative virus estimate that in the U.S., about 16 percent of people carry HSV-2 (herpes simplex virus type 2). Because herpes virus infection doesn’t always cause an obvious breakout, as many as 88 percent of people who test positive aren’t aware that they are infected. The herpes virus comes in two closely-related strains, or serotypes. The first, herpes virus type 1 (HSV1), usually causes cold sores on the lips and face. HSV-2 typically affects the genital area. But there is a lot of overlap, and either serotype can cause disease in either area. Transmission of genital herpes occurs by direct skin contact. Herpes lesions are the most likely to spread the disease. However sometimes herpes lesions are mild and are

mistaken by patients for something else: insect bites, razor burn, and other skin irritations. Sometimes normal-appearing skin sheds the virus. Lesions often occur in areas not covered by condoms. Condom use still reduces transmission of herpes but it doesn’t completely prevent infection. Three typical patterns of genital herpes occur. Primary infections happen when someone who has never had herpes develops a first episode. Primary infections are the most severe, and the most likely to bring a patient to the doctor. Painful blisters and sores in the genital area may be accompanied by fever, swollen glands, and malaise. Urine may burn as it passes over blisters, fooling people into believing they have a infection. Non-primary infection is first episode of genital herpes in person with a prior herpes infection affecting a different area, such as genital herpes in someone who has had lip cold sores. It’s usually less severe than a primary infection, but may still cause systemic symptoms like fever, and swollen glands. Recurrent herpes occurs because once acquired, herpes virus remains dormant in the body, and can reactivate

intermittently. Recurrent episodes are usually milder, with fewer lesions, and few systemic symptoms. The incubation period — the time between exposure to the virus and infection — is short, usually two to 12 days. But here’s the rub: the initial infection doesn’t always produce symptoms, or symptoms severe enough to be recognized. In fact, the first recognized outbreak of herpes might occur several years after someone acquires the virus. So a patient with more than one sexual partner can’t always figure out the source. That seems to be where people run into psychological trouble. Unfortunately people feel an unwarranted shame and/or anger, and a need to blame someone. But remember, herpes is a virus, and like the cold virus, it is an equal opportunity infection: it doesn’t care whether you are young or old, dirty or clean. Blame and anger won’t undo the disease, but will compound suffering and distress. The good news: there are antiviral medicines to treat herpes. These medicines don’t cure the disease, but control the symptoms. Zovirax (acyclovir) and Valtrex (Valcyclovir) started as soon as

the infection is recognized shorten its duration and severity. Some people get a prodrome of tingling or pain before the rash appears, and can start the medicine then. Many people with herpes get recurrent episodes. At first the episodes may be frequent, several times per year. Overt ime they often become less frequent and less severe. Patients with frequent or severe recurrences can take antiviral medicines regularly to prevent outbreaks. A very small percentage of patients with herpes develop serious illness, such as meningitis. Patients who are immunosuppressed, such as those with HIV infection, can also become very ill. And newborn infants infected during the birth process can become very sick with herpes. So it’s important for a pregnant woman who has had herpes to discuss this with her obstetrician. But for most people, there’s no need to hit the panic button. The diagnosis does not mean that you or your partner are bad people. And there are medicines that help. Eva Briggs is a medical doctor who works at North Medical Urgent Care in Liverpool and Fulton Urgent Care in Fulton.

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QUALITY CARE FOR PATIENTS OF ALL AGES Page 10

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IN GOOD HEALTH – CNY’s Healthcare Newspaper • August 2012

The Real War Military vets battle with mysterious ALS By Matthew Liptak

yracuse resident Dick LaShomb has had a long and productive career serving his country. But just two years ago, he came into contact with an enemy that wouldn’t back down— amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Dick hasn’t backed down either. His story is a distinguished one. After four years of duty in the Air Force military police during Vietnam, two years in the Reserves and then decades of work as an employee at the Department of Defense’s Defense Contract Management Agency, he found yet another chance to serve. And he took it. He was to go Afghanistan in 2010 for a six-month deployment as a civilian management analyst. That’s when ALS attacked him. “He decided he wanted to do one deployment as a civilian before he retired,” said his wife and caretaker RoseMarie. “He had a full medical clearance in June from the military and in August he started showing signs of ALS.” “I was about ready to go to Afghanistan,” Dick said. “That’s when they first suspected I had it. I was about four or five hours away from getting on a plane to go to Afghanistan. So close.” Unfortunately, Dick’s story isn’t as uncommon as one might think. Multiple studies, at least one done at Harvard, have shown that those who have served in the military are twice as likely to get ALS as those who haven’t served. Nobody knows why. “We’re not quite sure how it’s connected to the military and that’s one of the research questions that we’re trying to figure out,” said Kathy Lahey, the executive director of the Upstate Chapter of the ALS Association. “Researchers internationally are trying to comb through data that has been supplied so that future research can target it to certain things, not just the military. We do know that after the (first) Gulf War, there seemed to be a high spike in those military service members who were in that war—a higher spike in ALS.” In 1999, the Department of Defense undertook an epidemiological study finding that among 2.5 million eligible military personnel, 107 confirmed cases of ALS were found. There was a higher rate of the disease among those who had been deployed to the Gulf in 1991. Since then, additional studies have shown that all military persons, from World War II through Korea and Vietnam and even into the present era, have a higher likelihood of getting ALS. Although it is a rare disease, ALS is a devastating one. Those who have it often die within just a few years of its diagnosis. It kills by destroying nerve cells that control muscle movement. As muscles weaken, paralysis eventually occurs and organs fail. According to the ALS Association, about 30,000 people are thought to have the disease in the United States and 8,000 are diagnosed every year. Every 90 minutes someone is diagnosed with ALS and someone dies from it.

Brain unaffected

“The one thing is that it doesn’t affect is the brain so even though the brain is what actually controls every other part of the body, it doesn’t affect the intellectual side of the brain,” Lahey said. “So you will live with your brain intact and unfortunately you can’t move any part of your body but your brain is quite aware of what is happening to you. So it’s not like the brain will break down. Its the organs that eventually will break down.” But some progress has been made. A registry was enacted by an act of Congress in October of 2008 to gather data on ALS. It was created by and is run through the Division of Health Studies at the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a part of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The registry includes surveys that offer questions about risk factors such as health history, tobacco use, alcohol consumption and military service. “The registry will be in effect because when you’re talking about research and you see one section of the population that is being affected more than another, it starts to bring about certain questions,” Lahey said. Efforts are under way to make the registry of military vets with ALS as complete at possible. The CDC and and ALS Association have teamed up to start a program to locate veterans with the disease. “What we’re doing is working with

baseball teams,” Lahey said. “We’re working with the area’s minor leagues. What we’re doing is like a tribute to military heroes. It will enable us hopefully to come into contact with veterans of the military who have ALS. Then we can help them to ensure that they get registered. So that will hopefully bring about more patients who get involved from a clinical standpoint where they are actually registering and taking some of those surveys.”

Seeking answers

Hopefully the questions will lead to some new answers to this mysterious disease. Scientists from the CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry think they could even lead to a cure eventually. “The ATSDR hopes the national databases will result in better data collection and enhanced knowledge ... to ultimately develop a cure for the disease,” read the minutes from the ATSDR’s Board of Scientific Counselors meeting that took place in October of 2010. In that month, Dick LaShomb’s ALS was just beginning to progress. Now he is confined to a hospital bed without the use of his arms and legs. His voice isn’t as strong as it once was, but he is able to keep in touch with his buddies in Afghanistan through the Internet with a special computer device called a DynaVox. Meanwhile, his wife does whatever she can to make his life easier and help August 2012 •

him. “I married him for better or for worse in sickness and in health and you know this is my job now—to take care of him,” she said. They have support from friends, family and medical staff. Both Dick and RoseMarie said getting the proper caretakers in the fight with ALS is vital. In fact, that is part of the advice Dick would like to give to those recently diagnosed with the disease. “You better get a caregiver eventually,” he said. “Have all the respect of that caregiver, your family, your friends, and enjoy life to its fullest.” As Dick and RoseMarie strive for that goal each day, his children have chosen to carry on in their father’s footsteps by serving their country. “Our daughter is a captain in the Air Force and she did a deployment and our son-in-law is a captain in the Air Force and he’s already done three deployments,” RoseMarie said. “We’ve got 21-year-old twins and they are going to be seniors next semester and when they graduate they are going into the Air Force.” Although RoseMarie worries about her kids and the ALS-military connection, one can’t help but be buoyed by her husband’s positive outlook. Asked how it feels to be part of a military family, Dick had a simple answer: “It’s excellent.” For more information on the National ALS Registry, go to www.cdc. gov/als.

IN GOOD HEALTH – CNY’s Healthcare Newspaper

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Page 11

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The New Ronald McDonald House...

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New home in Syracuse to open in September ��

By Matthew Liptak

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Page 12

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onald McDonald House Charities of Central New York has enjoyed great success in its mission to build a new house in Syracuse. The organization has raised $5.8 million of its $6 million goal and is on track with construction to have its grand opening this September. The new house, located at 1100 E. Genesee St. across the street from the old facility, offers temporary housing to families who live far away and have children hospitalized in Syracuse. “I think it’s so successful because again it’s that same model of grassroots community effort,” said Beth Trunfio, the nonprofit’s executive director. “It has taken many hearts to build this one home and that’s what makes it such a tremendous success.” Groundbreaking for the new home started last year and, in the time since, a new 35,000 square foot building has sprung up at the new location. It has more features than the old 10,000 square facility. For starters the new home has 25 guest rooms compared to the 16 of the old home. There’s even plans to expand the new building to eventually house 39 families. The new guest rooms have private bathrooms to boot. The old building only provided shared bathrooms to families. There are other improvements as well. “There will be 46 parking spaces,” Trunfio said. “There will be some nice private outdoor space for folks to relax and rejuvenate. We’ll have the large kitchen, the elevator. We have a large family-great room. Half of the room will be a sitting area centered around a fireplace. The other half of the room will have computers.” The goal of the home is to make the families stay in the area as comfortable and easy as possible. That means the charity is aware that the needs of a modern family may have changed a bit from what they were when the first house got it’s start. Simply put, Americans are more connected then they were in the last century and the new Ronald McDonald House will make allowances for that. “The whole house will be wireless,” Trunfio said. “A lot of families who come to us still work. They have to maintain their livelihood.” One of the biggest changes in the

IN GOOD HEALTH – CNY’s Healthcare Newspaper • August 2012

new home is that it is handicapped accessible. The old home didn’t offer access for individuals who are handicapped and that was a serious detriment, according to Trunfio. The new home will have dual kitchens, one of which is entirely designed for handicapped users. “Currently, in this home, we don’t have any handicapped accessibility,” Trunfio said. “There’s no elevator. That’s been a barrier to some of the needs that guest families have, or potential guest families.” One class of patients who will now have access to the house that didn’t before are expectant mothers who may be experiencing difficult pregnancies. “We’re looking at expanding our services to moms who are high risk,” Trunfio said. “We’re really excited to be opening our doors to moms who may come from the Ogdensburg, Massena, Watertown area who are high risk that actually receive ongoing care here in Syracuse in the perinatal center.” Although the house is expanding, the staff isn’t, but the house also has an abundance of volunteers in the form of local college students who fill the gap. Annie Dashnaw, the housekeeper, makes sure they know the ins and outs of how things should get done. According to House Program Coordinator Lee Wilder, the students do a great job. “We’re going to have to have a whole lot more volunteers to begin with,” she said. “It will be a work in progress. I mean going from a 16-family house to eventually a 39-family house, we don’t plan on growing our staff so we have to grow the volunteers. We’re going to need a lot more helpers to do that. There’s tons of them — it’s just organizing them and getting them trained the way Annie likes to do things.” But Trunfio said the most amazing things that come out of the Ronald McDonald House don’t come from the staff or the volunteers — they come from the families who stay there. “Really the most magical thing that happens in the Ronald McDonald House, and it happens largely in that kitchen area just like any other home, is people gather and they really share each others experiences on their child’s journey to wellness,” she said. “They really receive that emotional support

that is so critical. It’s what they get from each other that’s so extraordinary. There’s no one that really can empathize with them in the way that they can with each other because they are going through very much the same thing.”

Donations

Fundraising for the new home started in 2006 and because of the success of the effort the old home didn’t even have to close while the new one was constructed. It costs three quarters of a million dollars a year to keep the old home in service, according to Trunfio, but the financial challenge of keeping service up and running proved to be within the charity’s grasp. Money continues to come in. The regional owner-operators organization of McDonald’s Corp. has pledged $500,000 to the project and anticipates giving more. The Allyn Foundation has provided a $50,000 matching grant to the charity. Every dollar the community contributes to the new home the foundation will match, up to $50,000. Trunfio said the heart of the organization is the help from community members. “This organization started off 30 years ago,” she said. “We’re celebrating our 30th anniversary this fall and we are fundamentally the same. We are a grassroots organization that has a very modest staff that relies on the community at large to support the organization through fund raising, through volunteering. That has been our model. From day one it helped us through very difficult economic times. We don’t receive any state funding, or any United Way funds or any other kind of government funding for our ongoing operations. We never relied on that. It was really through these grassroots community efforts and that has sustained us for 30 years.” “The expectations are really no different from this house,”Trunfio said. “We will continue to take care of families and keep them together during very difficult times. I hope what they take away is a sense of comfort and security, the sense that they didn’t have to think about anything while they were with us other than caring for their child and that they felt like they were at a home away from home.”

August 2012 •

IN GOOD HEALTH – CNY’s Healthcare Newspaper

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Page 13

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ne of the latest trends in the food market and among celebrities is going gluten-free. Snack giant Frito-Lay has announced it will introduce new glutenfree labels and products, and Miley Cyrus has credited her recent weight loss to a gluten-free diet. Experts at Kansas State University say going gluten-free may be a good choice for some individuals, but that just because a product’s label says it’s gluten-free doesn’t means that it’s healthy. Going gluten-free was an obvious choice for Kathryn Deschenes, a Kansas State University master’s student in food science. She has celiac disease, which runs in her family. The disease is a digestive disorder triggered by eating gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley and rye. Those with celiac disease often experience symptoms like nausea and diarrhea. “It can have funny symptoms like depression, acid reflux and it can stunt children’s growth,” Deschenes said. For the 1 percent of the population with celiac disease, giving up gluten products usually takes away those symptoms. Deschenes went glutenfree in high school and likes the recent gluten-free trend. “It’s been beneficial for the market,” she said, adding that it means more companies are producing glutenfree products and labeling their products as such. But are products labeled “glutenfree” healthier? Take a good hard look at those labels, recommends Mark Haub, associate professor and interim head of Kansas State University’s department

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of human nutrition in the College of Human Ecology. Haub studies whole grains and dietary fiber. “Just because a product says it’s gluten-free doesn’t mean it’s healthy,” he said. The glutenfree product likely contains as many calories as gluten options, Haub said, because a gram of sorghum, corn or rice flour appears to be metabolically similar to a gram of wheat flour. Haub said that gluten isn’t bad for the average person. “People have been eating wheat, rye and barley for thousands of years, and there are people who live to be 100 who eat wheat products and don’t seem to exhibit any types of health issues,” he said. Gluten-free diets are now being adopted by people without celiac disease. Haub said as long as they do their research about the diet, he’s fine with the trend. “I’m totally supportive of people selecting and choosing lifestyle habits that best suit their needs and preferences, and this would fit that category,” he said. If someone eats more varieties of vegetables and fruits and engages in portion control of other foods, then this type of gluten-free living may elicit health benefits, he said. Deschenes cautions that glutenfree is not necessarily a weight-loss program and can be a bad diet if you aren’t aware of the things it lacks, such as a sufficient amount of fiber. To help add more fiber to her diet, Deschenes buys breads with more fiber. She also said you can add flax seed to your diet, which is high in fiber.

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IN GOOD HEALTH – CNY’s Healthcare Newspaper • August 2012

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SmartBites

By Anne Palumbo

The skinny on healthy eating

What Makes Radishes So Remarkable

lthough radishes are available year-round, I associate them with summer, when my dad would unearth a few from the garden and make his famous sliced-radish sandwiches. A simpleyet-delicious assembly of bread, butter, salt and sliced radishes, they were screamed for more than ice cream. These days, I remain a big fan of radishes and enjoy them raw, roasted, and lightly sautéed. Nutrition-wise, radishes are a lot like Marilyn Monroe: pretty on the outside and a lot more substantial on the inside than you’d ever imagine. To begin, this cheery little vegetable is an excellent source of vitamin C, with one cup (sliced) providing nearly a third of your daily needs. A vital nutrient and powerful antioxidant, vitamin C works hard to keep your tissues and immune system in tip-top

potassium: According to the American Heart Association, this crucial mineral helps to regulate blood pressure by lessening the negative effects of too much sodium. What more makes radishes so remarkable? They are naturally low in calories (only 19 per cup, sliced); they have no fat or cholesterol; and they’re a pretty good source of fiber. Fiber, which helps to lower cholesterol by ferrying it out of the body, promotes regularity, stabilizes blood-sugar levels, and keeps us satiated longer. Lastly, like other brightly colored vegetables, radishes are rich in anthocyanins, beneficial compounds that may strengthen the immune system and help prevent certain diseases.

Helpful tips

shape. Radishes may also contribute to the health of your heart, thanks to their decent concentrations of folate and potassium (about as much as a small banana, per cup). Folate, which should top every pregnant woman’s must-consume list for its role in reducing birth defects, may benefit the rest of us by lowering the levels of an amino acid that has been linked to narrowing and hardening of the arteries. As for

Choose firm, smooth radishes, with their greens intact. The leaves, which should be green and fresh-looking, are both tasty and nutritious (high in calcium and vitamin C). To store radishes in fridge: lop off greens and store separately; put radishes in a plastic bag so they don’t dry out, and place in vegetable bin. Radishes last about a week with proper storage.

Roasted Radishes with Asparagus and Thyme 2 bunches radishes, trimmed 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus 1 teaspoon

1 bunch thin asparagus, ends removed, cut diagonally into 2-inch pieces 1 teaspoon dried thyme Kosher salt and coarse black pepper, to taste 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Wash radishes, pat dry, and quarter; transfer to a large bowl. Drizzle 1 tablespoon olive oil on the radishes, then sprinkle with thyme, salt and pepper. Toss to combine. Place radishes on a sheet pan and roast for 20 minutes, turning once while cooking. While radishes are cooking, prep asparagus and place in same bowl used for radishes. Drizzle the remaining teaspoon of oil on asparagus and mix well. Toss asparagus with the roasted radishes (at the 20-minute mark) and roast for another 10 to 15 minutes, until the asparagus is tender. If pan seems too crowded, place asparagus on a separate sheet pan and roast alongside radishes for remaining time. Put roasted vegetables in bowl, sprinkle with lemon juice, salt and pepper and serve hot.

Anne Palumbo is a lifestyle columnist, food guru, and seasoned cook, who has perfected the art of preparing nutritious, calorie-conscious dishes. She is hungry for your questions and comments about SmartBites, so be in touch with Anne at avpalumbo@aol.com.

“I had cancer. Cancer never had me.” Yesterday, I got out my fishing rod. I couldn’t help thinking of everyone at HOA. It was last spring when I found out. I was overwhelmed, distraught - and scared. I thought my fishing days were over. Then I went to HOA. My medical team all said, “We have the technology to fight this thing!” and showed my the CyberKnife. It sounded scary, but when I learned how it worked and how safe it was, I had hope for the first time. Your attitude really inspired me, your staff always encouraged me and your plan of action worked. I may have had cancer, but cancer never had me. Today, my kids and I are heading up to the lake.

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IN GOOD HEALTH – CNY’s Healthcare Newspaper

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Page 15

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Parenting By Melissa Stefanec

Five Things a New Baby Brings to a Couple’s Life

ringing a child into a relationship isn’t for the weak, selfish or semi-invested. It’s game day and only the strong will be left standing (all be it in a pile of baby gear and dirty laundry). Milestones are a time for reflection. Watching my daughter Stella meet the 1-year mark is nothing short of amazing. Some days are a struggle, but most are a celebration. This month’s column is dedicated to the person who has seen me through those ups and downs, my husband, Brandon. Here are my reflections on going from a plus-one to a plus-two. Having a child is not only a life-changing event; it’s a relationship-changing event. Our relationship changed the moment we decided to try for a baby. It started us into uncharted territory, a territory where we would be forever connected by something other than promises, legal papers and oaths. When we got married, I often joked that I found the one special person I wanted to annoy for the rest of my life. He said the same. We knew there was no turning back once we had our child. We were committed for the long haul (and annoying an additional person for the rest of our days). Committing to a lifetime together is one thing, but making that lifetime one predominantly filled with support, joy and love is quite another. The latter hinges on a lot of self-evaluation and improvement. We had some changes to make. One of the things any parent wants to avoid is passing their undesirable traits on to their children. I would like my daughter to be all the best parts of me, but with parenthood came the reminder that actions speak louder than words. The first relationship my daughter would be witnessing would be between her mommy and daddy, and we owed our best behavior to her.

Change No. 1. It was time to put on our big-kid pants (a.k.a suppressing the urge to kill)

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The first thing we had to do is try to act like grown-ups. Acting like a grown-up on your best days is fairly simple, but acting like one when you are over-worked and stressed-out is quite another. I’d like for a couple out there to say they never act childish in the face of disagreement. We all do it, it’s pathetic, but it shouldn’t be the standard. How could we expect our daughter to learn to rein in her emotions when her parents threw temper tantrums whenever things didn’t go their way? We couldn’t, so we had to make some improvements. We had to check our tempers and egos at the door. Do we always do this? No, but we try harder each day for our daughter.

Change No. 2. Babies take all the fun out of dimly-lit sushi restaurants

Life with baby is different and we aren’t the same people. I see so many parents desperately hanging on to all the aspects of their pre-baby lives. It doesn’t work. You end up cheating everyone involved. We had to make some cutbacks in our personal lives. If you are married, you shouldn’t have to be a single parent. Keeping outside commitments to a reasonable level and knowing when to keep baby in tow are necessary for everyone’s sanity and happiness.

Change No. 3. Learning the magical arts of compromise and standing down When it was just the two of us, we got to have our own way a lot. Now it’s not my way or the highway, it’s our way or the highway. Parents need to operate as a unit and that means standing down when something isn’t that important. Brandon and I are better than ever about letting the small stuff slide. After all, we have something very small, fast and mischievous to focus on.

Change No. 4. Living with our new scheduled and boring selves There was a time when we could be there in five minutes. Now, an hour seems laughable. Sometimes you have to book us months in advance. When we do catch up with family and friends, the conversation inevitably touches upon taxes, insurance, daycare, meal planning and baby bodily functions. Such is life. We aren’t as cool as we used to be. That’s OK; we are growing less cool together. It’s part of a good life and a good relationship. However boring we are, we allow ourselves a little time for some shenanigans. All work and no play make a relationship dull and lifeless.

Change No. 5. Adjusting to a lot more love Having a child will ruin a weak relationship, but it will test and strengthen a good one. There has never been more love in our house than there is now. We love and laugh so much, it’s like a cheesy movie. It’s easy to let negativity seep into the best days of your life. Being parents has changed our outlook on the life and each other. It makes us more positive and a lot more fun, though slightly less cool. At the end of the day, the first year of Stella’s life has brought about the realization of how lucky I am. I’m lucky to have a wonderful family who is there for me no matter what. So, here is to Brandon and all the fathers out there who make this world a better place. Thanks for loving us through our life changes, like the change from mini skirt to baby-crudded yoga pants.

New Vitamin D Tests are Inaccurate

lood tests to measure vitamin D deficiency are among the most frequently ordered tests in medi-

cine. But a Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine study of two new vitamin D tests found the kits are inaccurate in many cases. Earle W. Holmes and colleagues examined how well the two new tests, Abbott Architect and Siemans Centaur2, performed on 163 randomly selected blood samples. In 40 percent of the Abbott Architect specimens and 48 percent of the Siemans Centaur2 specimens, results were at least 25 percent too high or 25 percent too low. “There has been an exponential increase in the number of vitamin D tests ordered for patients,” Holmes said. “But our study of two newly approved tests showed they had pretty poor performance.” The study by Holmes and colleagues included 163 specimens — 123 from women (median age 54) and 40 from men (median age 59). Researchers used the two new test kits on the specimens, and compared results with findings from a gold standard method called LCMS, which has been shown to provide accurate vitamin D measurements. (LCMS stands for liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry.) The new tests tended to overestimate vitamin D deficiency. According to the LCMS measurements, 33 of the 163 specimens showed

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vitamin D deficiency. But the Abbott test showed that 45 specimens had vitamin D deficiency and the Siemens test showed that 71 subjects had vitamin D deficiency. Such inaccuracies could lead to overtreatment of vitamin D deficiency, Holmes said. Holmes said inaccurate test results could lead to misdiagnoses of patients and confound efforts of physicians,

nutritionists and researchers to identify the optimal levels of vitamin D for good health. People get vitamin D from their diet, from exposure to the sun and from supplements. Vitamin D aids in the absorption of calcium, which is needed for strong bones. Vitamin D helps increase bone density and decrease fractures.

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IN GOOD HEALTH – CNY’s Healthcare Newspaper

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Golden Years How Home Health Care Can Help Home help can be an ideal alternative to going to a nursing home, experts say By Deborah Jeanne Sergeant

ome healthcare has risen in popularity as the silent generation (pre-baby boomers) has sought alternatives to nursing home care. Staying in one’s own home saves money and offers more comfort, freedom and flexibility than an institutional setting. Though home health workers may be called “nurses” by many patients in their care, the range of services they provide are very different. Registered nurses (RNs) and licensed practical nurses (LPNs) provide skilled medical services such as administering medication, wound care and case assessment. They must complete the same training as the RNs and LPNs employed in doctor’s offices and hospitals. Physical therapists help clients with mobility and strength issues, oftentimes after they have experienced a

fall or other injury. They can also make recommendations for home modifications and other changes that can make getting around easier. Occupational therapists help clients overcome problems that hinder clients from doing everyday tasks like eating, personal care and household chores. This may include changing how they do things and using adaptive equipment. Speech therapists help people regain their ability to communicate through speech after an injury or a stroke. They can also aid in helping clients swallow and breathe better. Home health aides help clients with personal care, but do not typically administer medication. They may

How Do I Select the Right Home Care Provider?

nce you acquire the names of several providers, you will want to learn more about their services and reputations. Following is a checklist of questions to ask providers and other individuals who may know about the provider’s track record. Their insight will help you determine which provider is best for you or your loved one. • How long has this provider been serving the community? • Does this provider supply literature explaining its services, eligibility requirements, fees, and funding sources? Many providers furnish patients with a detailed “Patient Bill of Rights” that outlines the rights and responsibilities of the providers, patients, and caregivers alike. An annual report and other educational materials also can provide helpful information about the provider. • How does this provider select and train its employees? Does it protect its workers with written personnel policies, benefits packages, and malpractice insurance? • Are nurses or therapists required to evaluate the patient’s home care needs? If so, what does this entail? Do they consult the patient’s physicians and family members? • Does this provider include the patient and his or her family members in developing the plan of care? Are they involved in making care plan changes? • Is the patient’s course of treatment documented, detailing the specific tasks to be carried out by each professional caregiver? Does the patient and his or her family receive a copy of this plan, and do the caregivers update it as changes occur? Does this provider take time to educate family members on the care being administered to the patient? • Does this provider assign supervisors to oversee the quality of care patients are receiving in their homes? If so, how often do these individuals make visits? Who can the patient and his or her family members call with questions or complaints? How does the agency follow up on and resolve problems? • What are the financial procedures of this provider? Does the provider furnish written statements explaining all of the costs and payment plan options associated with home care? • What procedures does this provider have in place to handle emergencies? Are its caregivers available 24 hours a day, seven days a week? In addition, ask the home care provider to supply you with a list of references, such as doctors, discharge planners, patients or their family members, and community leaders who are familiar with the provider’s quality of service. Source: National Association for Home Care & Hospice (www.nahc.org). Page 18

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IN GOOD HEALTH – CNY’s Healthcare Newspaper • August 2012

remind clients, however. Homemakers or personal companions help clients by providing camaraderie, assisting with light housekeeping and meal preparation, and running errands such as taking them to doctor’s appointments and shopping. None of their job duties are medical. Full service agencies such as VNA Homecare in Syracuse offer a complete spectrum of care from companions to nurses to therapists. M. Kate Rolf, president and CEO of VNA, said that most people tend to think of all the company’s employees as either housekeepers or nurses but the agency provides far more services. Some of VNA’s employees are nurses or perform housekeeping services, but many employees do far more than these duties. Many times, their presence in the home, along with that of social workers, “provides care coordination and services like helping them through mounds of paperwork and understand the different services available,” Rolf said. When transporting clients, personal care aides do more than drop them off at the curb like a taxi. “They need an escort to get there safely,” Rolf said. “It’s a help for family members who may not be able to take off time from work.” A steadying arm to lean on and companionship through a doctor’s visit can make a big difference. Home Aides of Central New York in Syracuse, employs home health aides, homemakers, and companions. Though they’re not applying for skilled nursing positions, applicants are carefully screened to ensure clients will be in safe hands. “We have an excellent screening to be accepted into the training program,” said Mary Anne Hankins, director of human resources for Home Aides of Central New York. “We do reference checks, drug/alcohol testing, criminal background checks and a physical exam. All that screening goes into play before applicants are accepted into the training program.” The 14-day training program includes communication skills, hygiene, meal preparation, infection control, and more. Home Aides also offers respite services, both in-home and referrals to

temporary out-of-home placement in an assisted living facility so the client’s family may take a break from care giving for a few hours or days. Though Home Aides does not include skilled nursing services, all employees are under the supervision of a team of nurses at the office. “They do the original assessment and create a care plan,” said Laurie Walker, director of development. “The home health aides [carry out] the care plan with the client. Our nurses monitor it and the client.” Giving family a helping hand with care of their elderly loved one represents one of the most important function of VNA and similar companies. As needed, VNA can help clients with home safety modification, advising placement of grab bars and other safety items that may increase their home’s safety and the length of time they can safely live independently. VNA also helps clients look beyond their own agency to others that can help. VNA’s diabetic educators and nutritionists can educate clients about their diet, especially when their doctors give dietary advice. “Often people leave the doctor’s office and forget what the doctor says,” Rolf said. “Or the doctor says, ‘Go on a diabetic diet’ and they don’t know what that means. A sample menu won’t help them much.” By teaching clients about food, VNA’s diabetic educators and nutritionists can help prevent a health crisis. “Our goal is to do whatever we can to help people maintain their independence and stay home as long as possible,” Rolf said. “Being able to support caregivers is important. They are heroes to take this time out from work. They need this break from the stressors of taking care of these family members. Having a resource for respite time to maintain your own mental health and enjoy your life is good.” Physician recommendation is usually required for insurance companies, Medicare or Medicaid to cover skilled home care. The jobs of home care workers vary, but one commonality remains: the care of their patients is their top priority.

Golden Years Seniors Discovering the Power of Sign language They find it a powerful tool communicating with babies as young as 8, 9 months By Matthew Liptak

precious 8-month-old baby girl goes down for a good night’s sleep in her crib. Moments later, when her mom has left the room, the crying starts. The concerned mom goes back into her daughter’s room to find out what’s wrong with her restless baby. To her mom’s surprise, the daughter makes a swooping sign with the flat of her hand in front of her nose and points to the window. The mother instantly recognizes the American Sign Language sign for elephant — a pantomime of an elephant’s trunk in front of the face. “No, there’s no elephant,” the mom reassures her daughter. But then mom looks at the open window and realizes it’s the first time the baby has been put to bed with it being open. From it comes the familiar sounds of traffic and car horns—familiar to an adult. The baby associates the noises with those of an elephant and is frightened. Mom closes the window. The daughter goes to sleep. Problem solved. This is just one example of how using sign can help open the communication line between parents and grandparents and their little ones. “A lot of grandparents watch their grandchildren now, either before school or after school, and they’re always looking for things to do with their grandchildren,” said sign language teacher Nancy Jayne. “Signing is a great project they can do with them

because they can teach their grandchildren the signs and at the same time they’re helping themselves because they might need their grandchildren to sign instead of talk. “A lot of times grandchildren’s voices are a little bit higher pitched and some of those sounds are harder for adults to hear. The grandparent is teaching them sign and the grandchild uses it with them then the grandparent will understand just what the grandchild wants.” Jayne, a 60-year-old from Whitesboro, had her life changed when she went into a library eight years ago with her grandson. She found a book on baby signing. The grandmother didn’t really think her grandson would pick up on signing. After all, he was just a baby. She was pleasantly surprised when he did. She described the moment of his first sign as being akin to a child’s first word.

New way to communicate

“I didn’t really think babies could sign, but I thought it would be fun to do,” Jayne said. “I was actually looking for something to do with my grandson and by teaching him sign language at 8 or 9 months, little did I know then that it would change my life. I was retired and then I got into something totally new.” Not only did teaching sign open up a communication line to her grandson, but it gave a new outlet to Jayne—a new passion. Before she knew it she had accumulated over 50 books on signing and she was being asked to teach baby signing to others. She now teaches baby sign language at Trinity United Methodist Church in Whitesboro. It wasn’t long though before Jayne saw another need to fill. Seniors could use sign too. She quickly started a class for signing seniors. “Even with an adult, when they start losing their hearing, it’s very frustrating and it affects everybody in your house because you don’t know how to communicate with them and they don’t know how to communicate with you,” Jayne said. Sign language teacher Nancy Jane and a young student work “It gets to be a very together to learn to communicate together with their hands.

Sign language student Barbara Joswick gives an example of a sign at one of Jayne’s classes. Joswick likes learning about sign so much that she has been to ﬁve classes. lonely life and the conversation stops. That’s why I’m teaching this class that I’m teaching for the seniors because I hope they can keep communicating.” She keeps things simple so learning is attainable for everybody. She doesn’t concentrate on the grammar of American Sign Language but focuses on basic useful words like “eat” and “drink.” The former schoolteacher likes to keep things fun. She said when a teacher shows excitement for a subject, the students will be better learners, seniors included.

Great mind exercise

“I try to make it meaningful to them,” she said. “I try to do daily activities and I try to go into emotions they would have—things that they would want a lot. The more they learn the easier it became. They enjoy it. The class is very useful for every day communication. It’s fun. It keeps their mind active and alert. They also enjoy meeting other people with the same interest.” There is no doubt that Jayne’s sign classes are popular, very popular with some. Barbara Joswick, 71, of Whitesboro has taken the class five times. She said signing is something she has August 2012 •

always wanted to learn. “It helps with your mind,” Joswick said. “You’re using both sides of your brain as I understand it. You have to think about when you’re signing.” Joswick has paid Jayne the best compliment of all. She plans to take the class a sixth time in the fall. As for Jayne, she plans to keep on helping others with their pursuit of sign. She has even written a book, “Seniors Can Sign: Conquer the Silence,” and is shopping for a publisher. It’s a second career she couldn’t conceive of a decade ago, but with the birth of her grandson eight years ago, her life changed. Now she is changing the lives of others, one sign at a time. “The people that come to my class are wonderful,” Jayne said. “They’re interested and it’s just like we’ve known each other for years. They come in and you get talking and you have a common interest and they believe that signing can help them. It’s great. I’ve really had a lot of fun with both my babies and the adults.” For more information on signing, go to Jayne’s website at www. time4sign.com or email her at nsigning@gmail.com.

IN GOOD HEALTH – CNY’s Healthcare Newspaper

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IN GOOD HEALTH – CNY’s Healthcare Newspaper • August 2012

What They Want You to Know:

Home Health Worker By Deborah Jeanne Sergeant

nder the umbrella term “home health worker” are a variety of unskilled, skilled and medical specialists who help elderly, sick and/ or disabled people in their own homes. They can include companions, aides who assist with errands, household chores and meals, personal care aides, nurses and therapists. While each job has its own function, training and, depending upon the job, licensure, they all work to help people stay comfortable and healthy in their homes. • “The biggest misconception [people have about home aides] is they think it’s having someone come in and clean their house with a nursing component. • “I’ve managed to keep people in their homes vs. multiple hospitalizations. Reducing hospital stays is huge. • “Consistency in care with a team of the same nurses is important. They get to know you and what the expectations are. Some people think that a nurse does an assessment and they’ll see us in a month. But it’s week by week most of the time. • “A lot of times, they think [all we do are] the simple tasks. I am a nurse that does in-home chemotherapy. We are doing a lot more high-tech things. We do a lot of infusion care. • “We also offer tele-health monitoring in the home. It’s almost like another set of eyes on the patient. It has a blood pressure monitor, pulse, oximetry and a blood glucose monitor, if needed. We set it up with parameters. A team of nurses here in the office initiate the teaching in the home. And the client in the home can test whatever frequency needed and it comes to the monitor at VNA. The nurses can see if the results are within the parameters the doctor has set. If they’re not, they will contact the case manager, myself, and alert them. • “We care for everything from pediatric care to end of life. • “Many things people can’t conceive of being cared for in the home 10 years ago, we can bring to the home. • “When I get repeat people who ask for me specifically, that’s great. It’s such an honor to have these referrals. They’re trusting me to go into their homes. That’s an intimate thing. I’m not just dealing with the patient and whatever their challenge might be, but the family dynamic. Home care is unique in that when I go in, I’m looking at the whole picture. It’s not just giving meds or trying to get blood pressure on track. It’s looking at if they have food in their homes or physical limitations. If I were in a hospital or doctor’s office, I wouldn’t have the luxury of knowing that.

• “To be with someone through a fight until the end is such an honor. The families trust me enough to be there with them to the end. If it wasn’t rewarding, I wouldn’t be in home care for more than 20 years. You meet such wonderful people and you provide all you can for them on their terms.” Michele Hettler, case manager with VNA Home Care • “When I walk into a client’s home, I am there to provide the best care possible. My client is the most important person to me.” Carolyn Adams, home health aide with Home Aides of Central New York • “My clients are very important to me, and I care about them like family. My job is to keep them safe and make them comfortable in their own home, where they want to be.” Vilma Benjamin, home health aide with Home Aides of Central New York • “This is not a job to me, this is my life. My clients are so special to me and feel like a part of my family. My interaction with my clients is so very important.” Jeannene Bolen, home health aide with Home Aides of Central New York • “I am very dedicated to my job. I am dedicated to my clients and providing them with quality care. I take this all very seriously.” Terry Boyce, home health aide with Home Aides of Central New York • “I am glad to be able to help. I believe that you treat others the way you would want to be treated because one day I know I could be in their shoes, and I hope that someone with compassion would be there for me.” Heidi Claxton, home health aide with Home Aides of Central New York Deborah Jeanne Sergeant is a writer with In Good Health. “What Your Doctor Wants You to Know” is an ongoing column that appears monthly to give our area’s healthcare professionals an opportunity to share how patients can improve their care by helping their providers and by helping themselves.

HOME DELIVERED MEALS ARE A LIFELINE TO MANY FRAIL ELDERLY SENIORS Nutritious, hot noon meals are available throughout Cayuga County for those seniors unable to prepare a meal for themselves. Meals can be home delivered or available at one of six senior meal sites. (There is a suggested donation)

By Jim Miller

How to Find Help Paying for Your Hearing Aid

If you know someone who could beneﬁt From a hot noon meal, call the: Cayuga County Ofﬁce for the Aging Senior Nutrition Program 253-1427

nonprofits that offer hearing aids at Dear Savvy Senior, deeply discounted prices, or for free. Are there any resources or Some good ones to check out include: programs that help seniors with the high cost of hearing aids? HEAR Now Can’t Afford To Hear Sponsored by the Starkey Hearing

Dear Can’t, It’s unfortunate, but millions of Americans with hearing loss don’t get hearing aids because they simply can’t afford them. Hearing aids are expensive, typically costing between $1,000 and $3,500 per ear, and most insurance companies, including traditional Medicare, don’t cover them. While there’s no one simple solution to finding affordable hearing aids, there are a variety of options you can look into that can help. Check Insurance

Your first step is to check with your health insurance provider to see if it provides any hearing aid coverage. If you’re a Medicare beneficiary, you need to know that while original Medicare (Part A and B) and Medicare supplemental policies do not cover hearing aids, some Medicare Advantage (Part C) plans do. If you have an Advantage plan, you’ll need to check with your plan administrator. Medicaid also covers hearing aids in some states to people with very limited means. Your county social service office can give you more information. Or, if you’re a federal employee or retiree, hearing aid coverage may be available through some insurance plans in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. Or if you’re a veteran, the VA provides free hearing aids if you meet certain conditions such as being compensated for any servicedconnected disability or if your hearing loss is connected to military service. See va.gov or call 877-222-8387 to check your eligibility.

Financial Assistance

Depending on your income level, there are various programs and foundations that provide financial assistance for hearing aids to people in need. Start by calling your state rehabilitation department (see www. parac.org/svrp.html for contact information), or the nearest chapter of the Hearing Loss Association of America (hearingloss.org) to find out if there are any city, county or state programs, or local civic organizations that could help. There are also a number of

Foundation (starkeyhearingfoundat ion.org, 800-328-8602), this program provides hearing aids for people with net incomes below $19,058 for a single or $25,743 for couples. Your only costs are a hearing test and an application fee of $125 per hearing aid request.

Lions Affordable Hearing Aid Project

Offered through some Lions clubs throughout the U.S., this program provides the opportunity to purchase new, digital hearing aids manufactured by Rexton for $200 per aid, plus shipping. To be eligible, most clubs will require your income to be somewhere below 200 percent of the federal poverty level which is $22,340 for singles, or $30,260 for couples. Contact your local Lions club (see lionsclubs. org for contact information) to see if they participate in this project.

Sertoma

A civic service organization that runs a hearing aid recycling program through its 500 clubs nationwide, refurbishes them, and distributes them to local people in need. Call 800-5935646 or visit sertoma.org to locate a club in your area.

Audient

This program (audientalliance.org, 866-956-5400) helps people purchase new, digital hearing aids at reduced prices ranging from $495 to $975 for one hearing aid, or $990 to $1,575 for a pair. To be eligible, your income must be below $27,075 for a single or $36,425 for couples. For a list of more programs, visit the Better Hearing Institute website at betterhearing.org, and click on “Hearing Loss Resources,” then on “Financial Assistance.” Or, call the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders at 800-241-1044 and ask them to mail you their list of financial resources for hearing aids.

Send your senior questions to: Savvy Senior, P.O. Box 5443, Norman, OK 73070, or visit www.savvysenior. org. Jim Miller is a contributor to the NBC Today show and author of “The Savvy Senior” book.

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IN GOOD HEALTH – CNY’s Healthcare Newspaper

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IN GOOD HEALTH – CNY’s Healthcare Newspaper • August 2012

By Deborah Banikowski, District Manager in Syracuse.

Social Security and Women Women are less often covered by private retirement plans, more dependent on Social Security in their retirement years than men

ug. 26 is known as more dependent on Social Women’s Equality Day. Security in their retirement On that date in 1920, the years. 19th Amendment to the U.S. And, women tend to Constitution was signed, giving live about five years longer women the right to vote. than men, which means more Social Security treats men years depending on Social and women equally. Men and Security and other retirement women with identical earnings income or savings. histories are treated exactly the If a woman is married to same. However, there are things a man who earns significantly women in particular should more than she does, it is know about Social Security. likely she will qualify for a Banikowski Although treated equally by larger benefit amount on his Social Security, there are trends and record than on her own. differences in lifestyle that can affect Want to learn more? Visit our benefits. women’s page at www.socialsecurity. For example, women tend to care gov/women. Follow the link on that for many people: spouses, children, page to our publication, “What Every and parents. Taking time away from Woman Should Know.” You can read the workplace to care for a newborn it online, print a copy, or listen to it child or aging parent can have an on audio. We provide alternate media impact on your future Social Security as well to reach as many women as benefits. possible and to provide the information Also, despite significant strides the way you’d like to receive it. through the years, women are more Learning about your future Social likely to earn less over a lifetime than Security benefits and how men and men. Women are less often covered by women are treated just the same in the private retirement plans, and they are eyes of Social Security: what better way to celebrate Women’s Equality Day?

Q&A

Q: How can I get a copy of my Social Security Statement? A: If you are age 18 or older, you may get your Social Security statement conveniently online at any time after creating an account at www. socialsecurity.gov/mystatement. The statement provides estimates for retirement, disability and survivors benefits, as well as a way to determine whether your earnings are accurately posted to your Social Security record. Social Security sends paper Social Security statements in the mail only to people age 60 and older and, beginning July 2012, to workers the year they turn 25. If this applies to you, you should receive your statement about two to three months before your birthday. Also, you can get an instant, personalized estimate of your future retirement benefit using our online Retirement Estimator at www. socialsecurity.gov/estimator. Q: My child, who gets Social Security, will be attending his last year of high school in the fall. He turns 19 in a few months. Do I need to fill out a form for his benefits to continue? A: Yes. You should receive a form, SSA-1372-BK, in the mail about three months before your son’s birthday. Your son needs to complete the form and take it to his school’s office for certification. Then, you need to return page two and the certified page three

back to Social Security for processing. If you can’t find the form we mailed to you, you can find it online at the following address: www.socialsecurity. gov/schoolofficials/ssa1372.pdf. Q: My neighbor, who is retired, told me that the income he receives from his part-time job at the local nursery gives him an increase in his Social Security benefits. Is that right? A: Retirees who return to work after they start receiving benefits may be able to receive a higher benefit based on those earnings. This is because Social Security automatically re-computes the retirement benefit after crediting the additional earnings to the individual’s earnings record. Learn more by reading the publication, “How Work Affects Your Benefits,” at www. socialsecurity.gov/pubs/10069.html. Q: Can I get both Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security benefits based on my disability? A: Many people eligible for Social Security disability benefits also may be eligible for SSI. The disability decision for one program is the same for the other, but you must meet additional resource and income limits to qualify for SSI benefits. Learn all about SSI and whether or not you may qualify by reading the publication, “You May Be Able To Get Supplemental Security Income” (SSI) at www.socialsecurity. gov/pubs/11069.html.

Complementary Medicine

Chiropractic Treats More Than Out-ofWhack Backs By Deborah Jeanne Sergeant

any people associate chiropractors only with spinal adjustments for when someone “throws out” his back; however, chiropractic can address other bodily issues that originate from or relate to muscular/skeletal issues of the spine. New York state licenses chiropractors to treat only disorders of the spine; however, Fuyuko Oddy, chiropractor with Complete Chiropractic Care in Syracuse, has found chiropractic can treat headaches and peripheral numbness in some cases. “Numbness in the arms and legs from nerve irritation from disc problems or other injuries may be helped by chiropractic,” Oddy said. Oddy added that there is no research on this, but “sometimes patients say they can smell better or see better after an adjustment. We’re not trying to improve that but nervous system improvement sometimes happens. But we don’t say we treat this, though.” Chiropractor Thomas Anderson, who practices in Syracuse, works with many patients who suffer from migraines and tension headaches. In fact, he estimated that one-third of his business involves these issues. “Headaches and migraines can be caused by restricted cervical vertebrae and tension,” Anderson said. “People have a lot of tension between their shoulder blades that develops into pain.” Like Oddy, Anderson treats peripheral numbness and pain. “Most people realize chiropractors treat necks, but not arm or hand pain that is associated with neck pain,” he

said. “Some people have neck pain that goes away but lingering pain in their arms that was a pinched nerve or inflammation in the neck.” The same holds true for foot or leg pain that really originates in the lower back. “A lot of people might not realize that scoliosis relates to the spine,” Anderson said. “It responds well to chiropractic. It’s not going to cure it but it helps get them out of pain and helps it from progressing.” Chiropractor Michael Stirpe, who practices in Syracuse, said that some of his patients receive relief from chronic stress ulcers after spinal adjustment. “The nerves from the middle part of the back support the stomach area,” he said. “If you carry that in the back, it affects your stomach. You can get those nerves freed up if an ulcer is stress related.” He said that since there’s a connection between the spine and brain and nerves connected to the spine relate to many areas of the body, irritation of those nerves caused by a mis-aligned spine can affect areas of the body seemingly unrelated to the spine. Bringing those areas of the spine back into alignment can help improve health problems. “This isn’t everyone but a lot of people get relief from allergies,” Stirpe said. “A lot of people become chiropractors because they had allergies and eczema and their parents take them to a chiropractor and they get relief.” Stirpe treats many children who have chronic ear infections, too. Although chiropractic cannot replace

antibiotics, Stirpe said that an adjustment can help the body heal. “If there’s nerve irritation the Eustachian tubes won’t allow for drainage for the middle and inner ear,” Stirpe said. “It’s worth a try to have an adjustment to take pressure off a nerve and allow the inner ear to open and allow it to drain.” Like most chiropractors, Stirpe received training in nutrition while studying chiropractic. He was fascinated with nutrition’s affect on health. Since then, he has continued his education in nutrition through further training. “A lot of chiropractors say they can cure everything but that isn’t so,” Stirpe said. “I can’t cure cancer.” Stephen Wechsler, chiropractor in Syracuse, views the real value of chiropractic as not just treating maladies but

Golf Gadgets That Can Help Older Golfers By Jim Miller

here are actually a number of golfing gadgets and accessories on the market today that can help older golfers who struggle with arthritis, injuries or loss of mobility. Here are some possible solutions that can help keep your dad on the golf course.

Gripping Helpers

Gripping a golf club is a very common problem for seniors with arthritis or those who have hand or elbow injuries, or any condition that affects their hand strength. To help alleviate this problem there are specially designed golf gloves and grips that can make a big difference. Depending on the severity of your dad’s problem, an inexpensive option to check out is the Bionic Golf Gloves (bionicgloves.com, 877-524-6642), which are ergonomically designed to improve grip with less effort. Or

the Power Glove (powerglove.com, 800-836-3760) that uses a Velcro strap to secure the club to your hand. These gloves run between $20 and $30. Another option to consider is to get oversized grips installed on your dad’s clubs. These can make gripping the club easier and more comfortable, and are also very good at absorbing shock. Oversized grips are usually either onesixteenth-inch or one-eighth-inch larger in diameter than a standard grip, and cost around $5 to $10 per grip. Your local golf pro can help with this. Or, for a grip-and-glove combination fix, check out the new Quantum Grip (quantumgrip.com, 855692-3784) that incorporates hook Velcro golf grips and companion golf gloves that have mating loop Velcro material in the palm. This insures gripping power and prevents the club from

slipping in your hand. The price: $30 per grip or $189 for a set of seven, plus $40 per glove.

Bending Solutions

If back, hip or knee problems or lack of flexibility is also hampering your dad on the golf course, there are a number of innovative gadgets that can eliminate the bending and stooping that comes with teeing up the ball, repairing divots, marking the ball on the green, retrieving a ball or tee on the ground, and picking a club, sand rake or flag stick up off the ground. These stoop-proof devices run anywhere from a few dollars up to $70 and can be found at sites like kool-tee. com, teepalpro.com and uprightgolf. com.

Ergonomic Golf Carts

There are also a number of great August 2012 •

as improving the body’s ability to heal itself. “When the body has better structure and function, the body’s immune system works better,” he said. “When the nervous system works properly because the body is aligned, it gets better feedback from the organs.” Though back pain motivates many clients to visit Wechsler and other chiropractors, he views chiropractic as just one aspect of preventive wellness, “a lifestyle of how to move, eat and breathe to help structure and function,” he said. “The better people take care of themselves, the less they need to come to get adjusted, but people wait until they’re in so much pain it takes a while to get them back in shape. I tell patients they would come the same amount during the year than if they came when they’re in acute pain.”

ergonomic golf carts that can help older golfers who still like to walk the course. These are three or fourwheeled, light-weight push carts that provide great stability, can be adjusted to fit your body size, and fold into a compact size in a matter of seconds for easy transport. Sun Mountain Sports (sunmountain.com), Bag Boy (bagboycompany.com) and Caddytek (caddytek.com) are three companies that make these type of carts at prices ranging anywhere from $130 to around $200. Or, for seniors with severe mobility loss or who are disabled, there’s the SoloRider golf cart (solorider.com) that provides the ability to play from a seated position. Retailing for $9,450, this cart is lightweight and precisely balanced so it can be driven on tee boxes and greens without causing any damage. And federal ADA laws require that all public golf courses allow them. Jim Miller is the author of Savvy Senior, published monthly in this newspaper.

IN GOOD HEALTH – CNY’s Healthcare Newspaper

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Page 23

H ealth News New practice administrator at Oneida Medical Practice Mike Fifield has been hired as practice administrator for the Oneida Medical Practice (OMP), P.C. and primary care practices of Oneida Healthcare. Fifield has 19 years of human resources experience in manufacturing and healthcare. Before joining Oneida, he spent eight years working at St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center in human resources. Fifield is a graduate of SUNY Geneseo and is a certified employee benefits Fiﬁeld specialist. In his new position, he has oversight of the hospital’s community health centers in Canastota. Chittenango and Verona, as well as the Maternal Health Center in Oneida and OMP’s orthopedic, ENT and neurology practices.

Fulton’s mammography services certiﬁed by ACR The Fulton Medical Center’s mammography service has been awarded a three-year term of accreditation in mammography following a recent review by the American College of Radiology (ACR). Mammography is a specific type of imaging test that uses a low-dose X-ray system to examine breasts. A mammography exam, called a mammogram, is used to aid in the early detection and diagnosis of breast diseases in women. The ACR gold seal of accreditation represents the highest level of image quality and patient safety. It is awarded only to facilities meeting ACR practice guidelines and technical standards after a peer-review evaluation by board-certified physicians and medical physicists who are experts in the field. Image quality, personnel qualifications, adequacy of facility equipment, quality control procedures, and quality assurance programs are assessed. The findings are reported to the ACR Committee on Accreditation, which subsequently provides the practice with a comprehensive report they can use for continuous practice improvement. The ACR is a national professional organization serving more than 34,000 diagnostic/interventional radiologists, radiation oncologists, nuclear medicine physicians, and medical physicists with programs focusing on the practice of medical imaging and radiation oncology and the delivery of comprehensive health care services.

The Centers at St. Camillus receives $57 K award The Centers at St. Camillus has been awarded a grant of $57,000 from the Community, John M. & Mary L. Gallinger, Durston Sanford & Doris Sanford, Charles F. Brannock, and Carriage House Foundation Funds. Officials say this award comes Page 24

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at a good time for The Centers at St. Camillus. Due to a federal mandate, St. Camillus must upgrade its sprinkler system. The new system will be installed throughout one of three buildings and in a portion of another. Both buildings house residents who receive long-term nursing care. Although St. Camillus, like many healthcare facilities, is dealing with increased economic challenges, the multi-million dollar sprinkler project is its first fundraising priority, as it must be completed by August 2013 in order to remain open and continue to provide care to those who need it most. The funds from this grant will be added to The Centers at St. Camillus Sprinkler Project Fund.

EMS Council honors Crouse providers The Central New York Region Emergency Medical Services Council honored Crouse Hospital employees for their dedication, compassion and expertise in the field of emergency medicine July 17 during the council’s annual awards dinner in Syracuse. Michael Jorolemon, senior quality officer in the emergency medicine department, received the CNY Physician of Excellence Award (covering Cayuga, Cortland, Onondaga, Oswego and Tompkins counties). Jorolemon has also been nominated for the NYS Jorolemon Physician of Excellence Award, with the winner to be announced at the EMS Council’s New York State conference in October. He was selected for his leadership, dedication and expertise in the field of emergency medicine. The council presented ER night shift Nurse Manager Jan Crumb Crumb with this year’s Registered Professional Nurse of Excellence Award. She was selected for her dedication, responsibility, professional behavior, ingenuity, and special skills and insights in the ER environment. Rural/Metro Medical Services, which nominated Crumb for the award, also recognized her for nursing excellence in 2011 with its Above and Beyond Award. In addition, the EMS research team, led by Jorolemon, was awarded the “Michael Jastremski, MD, Award of Excellence in EMS” for its exceptional contributions to EMS activities.The team includes members from Crouse Hospital, CNY EMS and Rural/Metro. Crouse employees on the team, besides Jorelemon, include Rob Pikarsky, director of respiratory and cardiac services; Lorissa Plis, cardiac care center manager and chest pain center coordinator, Mike Allain, and Lynette Johnson quality analysts and Six Sigma black belts Karen Sigona. Crouse Hospital’s emergency services cares for more than 66,000 patients annually between the emergency

IN GOOD HEALTH – CNY’s Healthcare Newspaper • August 2012

St. Joe’s: Nation’s Most Wired Hospital St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center has been recognized as one of the nation’s most wired for the third year in a row, according to the results of the 2012 most wired survey released in the July issue of “Hospitals & Health Networks” magazine. It is the first and only hospital in Central New York to achieve this designation. Health care’s most wired hospitals must meet certain requirements in four designated focus areas: infrastructure, business and administrative management, clinical quality and safety, and clinical integration. The 2012 most wired survey revealed that hospitals are focused on expanding and adopting information technology (IT) that protects patient data, and optimizes patient flow and communications. St. Joseph’s has implemented a new kind of IT, computerized physician order entry (CPOE), through a computer application called SJOrders. This technology streamlines the ordering process, as clinicians can communicate orders electronically either directly to specific departmental computer department and PromptCare urgent care service.

News from

Auburn Community Hospital Announces Reduction In Beds and Staffing — In response to a trend of decreasing in-patient census, which has resulted in financial losses, Auburn Community Hospital announced in mid July that it will be decreasing the number of staffed beds at the hospital. This will result in a reduction of staff and the closure of the four central nursing units. The hospital’s average daily inpatient census has dropped to a level of 75 beds in the past five months — down from its previous average daily census of 85. The hospital is accredited and will continue to be accredited for 99 beds by the New York State Department of Health. The reduction is being made at this time to match the current staffing demand at the hospital. The reduction will directly impact approximately 25 employees from a cross-section of nursing, housekeeping, coding and billing, and management. If the census shows a sustained improvement in the months ahead, staffing will be restored to previous levels. “We know that this is difficult news, and we regret that this action

systems or to staff accessing the orders in the appropriate locations. The CPOE process also allows for electronic order confirmation and updated test results. “The implementation of CPOE is just one of the ways that St. Joseph’s has shown its commitment to improving the efficiency of the overall hospital network,” said Marty Mulderig, director of information services at St. Joseph’s. “St. Joseph’s investment in information technology allows those within the hospital to do their jobs more simply and more effectively, while creating the necessary channels to deliver quality patient care and clinical outcomes.” St. Joseph’s has also improved the continuity of its data systems with the creation of a new primary data center in a geographically disparate location. The development of this data center has allowed the hospital to divide redundant infrastructures for critical business and clinical information systems between two data centers, thus creating a reliable backup system.

must be taken at this time. However, we need to ensure that the hospital operates within its means so that we can provide the greatest level of care to the members of our community,” said Scott Berlucchi, president and CEO. “We are continually grateful for all of our employees’ tremendous dedication and commitment to service,” he added. The hospital is continuing with its search for an affiliation partner who is willing to make a financial commitment to the hospital and the community it serves.

News from

CROUSE HOSPITAL

Logan

New Trustees — Melvin Stith, chairman of the Crouse Health Foundation, has announced the appointment of four new trustees to the foundation’s board: • Doug Logan, director of Time Warner Cable Sports. A long-time community supporter, Logan formerly served as sports director for WIXT TV9 in Syracuse. For several years he has served as chairman of the Crouse Health Foundation’s tribute evening committee. • Christine O’Connell More,

H ealth News president of O’Connell More Consulting & Real Estate. She serves in a variety of leadership positions with the Salvation Army. She has previously served on the foundation’s tribute evening underwriting committee. • Corinne Ribble, Ribble principal of Riverview Strategies LLC. Ribble previously served as director of philanthropy for The Community Foundation of Herkimer and Oneida Counties and director of development for Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences. • Frank Smith, Smith chief of pediatrics for Crouse Hospital and partner in Pediatric Cardiology PC, he is a 20-year board member of the Ronald McDonald House of CNY. He also has also served as chairman of the Crouse Health Foundation’s medical staff underwriting committee. Married Physicians Join the Crouse as Hospitalists — Crouse

Hospital recently welcomed two physicians to its team of hospitalists: Silviu Pasniciuc and his wife, Isabella Pasniciuc, who came to Crouse from Sylva Medical Center in Sylva, North Carolina, where they served as internists. Silviu Pasniciuc Pasniciuc received his medical degree from the University of Medicine and Pharmacy Carol Davila in Bucharest, Romania, and completed a residency at The Cleveland Clinic — Huron Hospital. Board-certified in internal medicine, he also holds an master’s degree in biophysiPasniciuc cis from Ohio State University. Isabella Pasniciuc, board certified in internal medicine, also received her medical degree from the University of Medicine and Pharmacy Carol Davila, and completed an internship and residency at The Cleveland Clinic — Huron Hospital. Prior to joining Crouse, both physicians served as internists at Sylva Medical Center in Sylva, North Carolina.

Crouse Receives National Quality Recognition for Heart Failure Care

Accepting the award are from left Lynn Shopiro, nurse manager for 4 South Irving (Crouse’s cardiac care unit); Lorissa Plis, manager of cardiac care services; and Rob Pikarsky, director of cardiac care services. Crouse has become the first hospital in New York state to become a nationally accredited heart failure center as designated by the Society of Chest Pain Centers (Crouse also has national Chest Pain Center accreditation). Recently, members of the hospital’s cardiac care team were

presented with a Silver ‘Get With the Guidelines’ performance achievement award from the American Heart Association for providing a consistently high level of care to cardiac patients using the most up-to-date guidelines and recommendations.

Oswego Health Auxiliary Makes Generous Donation to Health System

Members of the Oswego Health Auxiliary have made a $50,000 donation to the local health system. The money was raised through the hospital snack bar, the organization’s annual fall bazaar and special sales of uniforms, purses, jewelry and books that are held throughout the year. It will be used to ensure that medical services are available locally. In the photo seated left to right are Auxiliary Treasurer Sheila

News from

New Director of Physical Medicine and Rehab — Megan Hickey Miller has been appointed director of physical medicine and rehabilitation services. In this role she will oversee physical therapists, speech-language pathologists and occupational therapists in the acute care and outpatient settings throughout St. Joseph’s system of care. Miller has worked for St. Joseph’s for eight years, first as a physical therapist Hickey and then as a coordinator and manager of physical medicine and rehabilitation. A resident of Liverpool, she holds Master of Science and Bachelor of Science degrees in physical therapy from Ithaca College. St. Joseph’s Welcomes New Docs —The following medical doctors joined St. Joseph’s active medical staff: Saeed A. Bajwa of Endicott, neurosurgery; Karen I. Bertrand of Manlius, family medicine; Daniel D. Galyon of Binghamton, neurosurgery; Khalid A. Sethi of Binghamton, neurosurgery Hospital Earns Quality Respiratory Care Recognition — St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center has earned Quality Respiratory Care Recognition (QRCR) under a national program August 2012 •

Gurdziel; Oswego Health President and CEO Ann C. Gilpin; Auxiliary President Barbara Handley-Place and Oswego Hospital Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Nancy Deavers. Standing from the left are Mary Margaret Restuccio, Mary Roman, Laura Suchnicki, Marion Duplessis, Margaret Maniccia, Director of Volunteers and Auxilians Sarah Weigelt, Terri Smith and Noreen Zuccolotto.

aimed at helping patients and families make informed decisions about the quality of respiratory care services available in hospitals. About 700 of the 5,000 hospitals in the United States have been named a Quality Respiratory Care institution. St. Joseph’s has received the award each year since the program’s inception in 2003. The QRCR program was started by the American Association for Respiratory Care (AARC) to help consumers identify those facilities using qualified respiratory therapists to provide respiratory care. Hospitals earning the QRCR designation ensure patient safety by agreeing to adhere to a strict set of criteria governing their respiratory care services. To qualify for recognition, St. Joseph’s provided documentation showing it meets the following conditions: • All respiratory therapists employed by the hospital to deliver bedside respiratory care services are either legally recognized by the state as competent to provide respiratory care services or hold the CRT or RRT credential. • Respiratory therapists are available 24 hours. Other personnel qualified to perform specific respiratory procedures and the amount of supervision required for personnel to carry out specific procedures must be designated in writing. • A doctor of medicine or osteopathy is designated as medical director of respiratory care services. • Hospital policy prohibits the routine delivery of medicated aerosol treatments utilizing small volume

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H ealth News nebulizers, metered dose inhalers, or intermittent positive pressure treatments to multiple patients simultaneously. Circumstances under which this practice is permitted are defined by policy. • Use a process that periodically compares performance of the respiratory department on efficiency and quality metrics with similar departments for the purpose of identifying and achieving best practice. St. Joseph’s Prolonged Mechanical Ventilation Multidisciplinary Team has worked to improve the overall quality of the respiratory care program. Formed in September 2011, the team consists of a number of specialists including: a pulmonologist, physician assistant, nurse practitioner, nurse, hospitalist, respiratory therapist, physical therapist, occupational therapist, speech language pathologist, social worker, pharmacist, mental health professional and dietician. The members of this team meet daily to review patient opportunities. “The purpose of the multidisciplinary team is to facilitate communication and improve overall respiratory care from all angles throughout the patient’s stay,” said Stephen Swierczek, director of respiratory care. “The success of our team and the reception of the QRCR award each year demonstrate St. Joseph’s commitment to quality care and clinical outcomes.” Since its inception, the team has decreased the time it takes to wean patients off ventilators and transition them out of the hospital from 79 days to less than 20 days. This improvement is significant, as prolonged ventilator use greatly increases the risk of ventilator-associated pneumonia and airway trauma. St. Joseph’s Achieves Heart Failure Accreditation And Chest Pain Reaccreditation —St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center has received heart failure accreditation and has been re-accredited as a chest pain center with PCI from the Society of Chest Pain Centers (SCPC). As an accredited chest pain center, St. Joseph’s ensures that patients who arrive at the hospital complaining of chest pain or other symptoms of a heart attack receive the treatment necessary during the critical window of time when the integrity of the heart muscle can be preserved.To receive heart failure accreditation, St. Joseph’s engaged in rigorous reevaluation and refinement of its cardiac care processes in order to integrate the healthcare industry’s successful practices and newest paradigms into its processes for the care of heart failure patients. These practices and paradigms were published in the first set of written recommendations for heart failure patients, “Society of Chest Pain Centers Recommendations for the Evaluation and Management of the Observation Stay Acute Heart Failure Patient,” developed by SCPC’s acute heart failure

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committee in 2008. Recognizing that heart failure is a leading cause of mortality in the U.S., St. Joseph’s new status in heart failure accreditation demonstrates its commitment to effectively managing the increasing numbers of heart failure patients presenting to emergency departments. By following risk stratification protocols, St. Joseph’s ensures appropriate placement of patients based on clinical presentation and initial response to treatment. With a goal of reducing inappropriate hospital admissions and re-admissions, St. Joseph’s seeks to improve patients’ quality of life while avoiding the cost of unreimbursed expenses. By being heart failure accredited, St. Joseph’s has enhanced the quality of care for heart failure patients and has demonstrated its commitment to higher standards. “Heart failure continues to increase in both incidence and prevalence,” said John Cannizzaro, cardiovascular service line administrator for St. Joseph’s. “More Medicare dollars are spent for diagnosis and treatment of heart failure than any other disease. At St. Joseph’s, we are pleased to have taken measures through heart failure accreditation to do our part to improve the lives of our heart failure patients while keeping costs down as much as possible.” To become reaccredited as a chest pain center, St. Joseph’s engaged in rigorous reevaluation and refinement of its cardiac care processes in order to integrate the healthcare industry’s successful practices and newest paradigms into its cardiac care processes. Protocol-based medicine, developed by leading experts in cardiac care, to reduce the time from onset of symptoms to diagnosis and treatment are part of St. Joseph’s overall cardiac care service. The hospital’s state-of-the-art heart care encompasses the entire continuum of care for the ACS patient and includes such focal points as dispatch, emergency medical system, emergency department, cath lab, quality assurance plan, and community outreach program. “People tend to wait when they think they might be having a heart attack, and that’s a mistake,” said Ronald Caputo, cardiologist. “The average patient arrives in the emergency department more than two hours after the onset of symptoms, but what they don’t realize is that the sooner a heart attack is treated, the less damage to the heart and the better the outcome for the patient.”

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Clear Path Diagnostics is ﬁrst in Upstate to offer advanced test for HPV Test considered an important tool in assessment of cervical cancer risk ClearPath Diagnostics, a physician-owned pathology and cytology laboratory located in Syracuse, is the first laboratory in Upstate New York to perform the Cervista HPV HR test to screen for the presence of high-risk types of the human papillomavirous, which is strongly associated with the development of cervical cancer. FDA-approved Cervista HPV HR is the first new screening test for highrisk HPV in more than a decade. It provides more reliable test results along with important laboratory efficiencies. According to the National Cancer Institute, approximately 11,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with cervical cancer each year and about 4,000 die of the disease. Cervical cancer is highly treatable in most cases if detected early. The Cervista HPV HR test is used in combination with Pap testing, sharing the same cervical specimen. Cervista additionally performs genotyping testing on the same Pap specimen to more specifically determine if the patient is positive for certain high-risk

cell variations, which, when combined, are the cause of 70 percent of cervical cancer cases. Cervista HPV HR detects the presence of 14 high-risk HPV types. Studies have noted that women with high-risk HPV infections are at greater risk of developing cervical cancer and its precursor conditions in the future. “Just as the ThinPrep Pap was an improvement over the conventional Pap, Cervista is an improvement on prior methods of HPV testing,” said physician Michael Mazur, ClearPath Diagnostics lab director. “ClearPath Diagnostics” is committed to providing our patients with the leading technology to detect disease early,” said Michael A. Jozefczyk, a physician who ClearPath Diagnostics president. “With Cervista HPV HR, we can confidently provide more accurate test results on half the patient sample size. Cervista is the first high risk HPV assay that includes a quality control check, which will greatly reduce the number of false positive results.”

St. Joseph’s Celebrates 15th Anniversary Of Its Electrophysiology Lab

Kathryn H. Ruscitto, president and CEO at St. Joseph’s (center) with the team that runs the electrophysiology (EP) lab at St. Joe’s. St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center celebrated the 15th anniversary of its electrophysiology (EP) lab recently with an internal reception and renewal blessing. The lab first opened July 1, 1997, and has since provided services to thousands of individuals throughout the Central New York community. St. Joseph’s EP lab has grown substantially, due to increased demand for the diagnosis and treatment of cardiac arrhythmias. The lab performs more than 500 electrophysiology procedures in lab and more than 1,700 overall, annually. It also does advanced threedimensional mapping techniques to evaluate paroxysmal and highly complex arrhythmias, and does more than 350 implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) annually, among other services.

“The significant growth of our lab demonstrates the need for these services in our community,” said Gina Cusworth, registered nurse and manager of the EP lab. “When we started the lab in 1997, we were told that we would be lucky if we received 100 cases during the first year. Within seven months, we had done 320 procedures and that number has continued to rise over the years.” The EP lab at St. Joseph’s is the only one in the region that offers laser lead extraction, a high-risk procedure that removes pacemaker and defibrillator leads once they deteriorate or become infected. These procedures are performed by Ali Al-Mudamgha, a physician in charge of electrophysiology services.

August 2012 •

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