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THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC
A SPECIAL PUBLICATION CREATED BY REPUBLIC MEDIA CUSTOM PUBLISHING
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HEALTHCARE NEWS YOU CAN USE FOR YOUR WHOLE FAMILY
Vol. 3, No. 6
June 2013
IN THIS ISSUE: COVER/03: HEART HEALTH COVER: CLINICAL TRIALS COVER: RUOK? 02: DNR ORDERS 04: FACE IN THE MIRROR 04/05: SUPPORT GROUPS 05: TOP EVENTS
HEALTHCARE News
RUOK? Are You Okay? aids vulnerable community members with daily telephone checks RUOK — Are You Okay? — is a free telephone service offered by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO). It is designed to help the elderly and others by offering a daily automated check-in phone call. “The system will call them at a designated time of day to make sure everything is okay with them,” said MCSO communications supervisor Lisa Leitch. About 115 people now take advantage of the free program which was started about ten years ago by the Sun City Posse but is now run by MCSO.
How it works
“The system will call a number three times and if there is no response, it goes to an audible alert. A call for service is entered and we will notify the local Sheriff’s Posse to visit the residence. If there is no Posse in the area, a Sheriff’s deputy will respond,” Leitch said. RUOK is now set up in Sun City, Sun City West, Litchfield Park, Youngtown, Queen Creek, Cave Creek, Carefree, Fountain Hills and other areas covered by the MCSO. While RUOK is mostly for the elderly or those in a vulnerable position, Leitch said it can be done on a short-term basis if someone is sick and has no one to check on them, for the disabled, and even for latch-key kids.
RICK D’ELIA
BY RODNEY PLATT
Cardiologist Warren Breisblatt, M.D., of the John C. Lincoln Heart Institute in Phoenix said that since high blood pressure (hypertension) puts people at increased risk for heart attack, most cardiologists want the majority of their patients’ blood pressure to register under 120/80.
Heart news and you Knowing the facts can help keep you heart-healthy
BY DEBRA GELBART
B
ecause heart disease is usually incremental, many people have an opportunity to prevent it before the disease becomes severe. And for those who can’t avoid heart disease, new medical and surgical advancements can help them live longer than those in any previous generation. We asked local heart specialists how they define heart disease, what can be done to prevent it and what the most prominent risk factors are as it relates to heart disease.
How to sign up
Leitch said there are no set qualifications to sign up for the program. “You just sign up with two forms: a waiver of liability and a field interview form,” she said. “With the field interview form, we ask a lot of confidential information such as family members, emergency contacts, a neighbor who has a key, clergy, etc.” Leitch said interested people should call 602-876-1000 and ask for the RUOK coordinator, or you can contact the local Posse and set it up with them. “A Posse member can go to your home, explain the process and get your information, which is then entered into an MCSO database,” Leitch said. A list of local Posses is online at mcso.org/About/Posse.aspx. Litchfield Park has the form online as a free service to the community at litchfield-park.org.
What is heart disease?
Technically, “any condition that limits your abilities, function, comfort or lifespan can be part of heart disease,” said Robert Strumpf, M.D., an interventional cardiologist with the Arizona Heart Institute in Phoenix. “Cardiovascular disease affects the brain and the extremities, too.” Heart disease can be a problem with blood flow, rhythm or structure, such as the valves of the heart, explained Kevin Brady, M.D., a Phoenix cardiovascular surgeon at Southwest Heart and Lung and affiliated with St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center. “When we say ‘heart disease’, there may be other things going on, such as kidney disease, blockages in the carotid artery or a problem with the blood supply to the legs.” Doctors continue to emphasize heart disease prevention, “because when the horse is out of the barn we can’t always get it back in,” Strumpf said. “It’s much easier to prevent a problem than to treat it.”
Risk factors
Kevin Brady, M.D., a cardiovascular surgeon at Southwest Heart and Lung, said that transcatheter aortic valve replacement is a solution for people who are not a good candidate for full surgery.
All risk factors except family history or genetic predisposition can be modified, said Strumpf, Brady and cardiologist Warren Breisblatt, M.D., of the John C. Lincoln Heart Institute in Phoenix. The greatest risks come from smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, stress, obesity and a sedentary lifestyle. In addition, elevated levels of C-reactive protein (a protein found in the blood that rises in response to Continued on page 3 HEART HEALTH
Clinical trials – an overview First in a series about clinical trials in Arizona
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lot of people mistakenly believe that patients in clinical trials have no other options for survival, said Joyce Schaffer, R.N., M.S.N., the patient care coordinator for clinical cancer trials at Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center. The Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center Clinical Trials Program is a partnership between Scottsdale Healthcare and the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Phoenix (TGen); all of the cancer trials are conducted at the Piper Cancer Center.
Myths vs. realities
“It’s a myth that most patients in clinical trials are terminally ill,” Schaffer said. “The best candidates for clinical trials are people in otherwise good health. Ideally, we’re looking for patients who not only meet the study’s criteria, but also have good liver
“Depending on the type of cancer you have, one of the best times to enroll in a clinical trial can be right after you’ve been diagnosed.” — Joyce Schaffer, R.N., M.S.N., Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center
and kidney function and can walk and take care of themselves. Depending on the type of cancer you have, one of the best times to enroll in a clinical trial can be right after you’ve been diagnosed.” Another myth associated with clinical trials concerns placebos. It’s unusual for cancer patients to receive only a placebo
BY DEBRA GELBART
in a clinical trial, Schaffer said, noting that currently no cancer trials in her program are using a placebo. “Placebos can be administered in a clinical trial for rare cancers for which there is no evidencebased standard of care treatment,” she said. More typically, said Shaun Opie, Ph.D., research operations director at Banner Research, “patients receive at the very least the standard of care for the particular diagnosis connected to the study.” He added that placebo use is more common in non-cancer patients, but its use in any clinical trial is always carefully evaluated and approved by an ethics committee.
Finding a trial
Schaffer said that primary care doctors and specialists may not know about every trial, therefore, she encourages
patients and family members looking for cancer clinical trials to call her directly at 480-323-1339. Opie commented that interested individuals can also visit the U.S. National Institutes of Health website (clinicaltrials.gov) where there is a wealth of information related to clinical trials across the country.
Resources Banner Health: bannerhealth.com Mayo Clinic: mayo.edu Scottsdale Healthcare: shc.org St. Joseph’s: stjosephs-phx.org TGen: tgen.org