Health

Our lives have become dependent on instant communication. We spend every waking hour talking and texting, so it is hard to imagine a scenario in which you suddenly lose the ability to speak, write, and comprehend what you hear and read. This is called “aphasia” – the loss of language – and most often it is a result of a stroke, traumatic brain injury (TBI), or other neurological condition. Aphasia is not a well-known condition, possibly because our fast-paced, communication-driven culture does not recognize individuals who cannot speak up.

A recent Washington Post article by Richard A. Lovett has the cautionary title “Desk jobs can be killers, literally.” Since most of America's jobs are sedentary, ergonomics is becoming a necessity. 

As we celebrate National Minority Health and Health Disparities month, it is important to reflect on the events that shaped the movement and the potential for new initiatives to influence serious change. While significant progress has been made in some areas; in others, it has remained stagnant.

What is public health? Not getting polio. Buckling your seat belt. Not inhaling secondhand smoke. Laying your sleeping infant on her back. Getting a glass of water without worrying it will make you sick. Putting on a bike helmet. Decreased infant mortality rates. Increased safety in the workplace. The past contributions and ongoing work of the public health community touch our lives every day, through the things we see and do, and more importantly – through the things we no longer see and do.

The human heart, the size of a fist and the strongest muscle in the human body, beats about 100,000 times a day or about 2.5 billion times over a 70 year lifetime. With each beat, blood is pumped from the left chambers of the heart throughout the body, delivering oxygen and nutrients, and collecting waste products, then returning to the right chambers of the heart. Waste products are removed as the blood circulates through the liver.

So it’s the beginning of the New Year, now what? Like many other people, you may have made the resolution to get healthy by improving your diet and increasing the amount you exercise. Transitioning into a healthier lifestyle is not easy.

Retiring Senator Tom Harkin and I have common interests. We share a passion for improving the quality of life for people with disabilities and we both support the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. We have both been to Cuba twice and we have both been criticized for our comments about Cuba’s healthcare system. 

Neither Senator Harkin nor I said that Cuba has better healthcare than the US - what we said is we think Cuba’s healthcare “system” is impressive.

When I think about American cities that can best illustrate the complex relationship between health and environment there is no more interesting picture than the one painted by New Orleans, the venue for the November 2014 American Public Health Association (APHA) 142nd annual meeting. The theme of the meeting was “Healthography: How Where You Live Affects Your Health and Well-being,” a concept gaining a lot of momentum in public health and across various private and federal, state and local initiatives.

November is National Caregiver Month, a time to pay tribute to the 44 million individuals caring for older adults and people with disabilities in the United States. Family caregivers have an increased risk of negative health outcomes, including the erosion of physical, emotional and financial health. What can we do to ease their burden?

October 29, 2014 is World Stroke Day and the launch of I am woman: Stroke affects me, a two-year, world-wide campaign sponsored by the World Stroke Organization (WSO) and supported by national organizations like the American Stroke Association (ASA). According to the WSO, women have a higher risk of stroke than men, a higher mortality rate from stroke than men, have worse outcomes from stroke than men, and often receive less care than men, despite responding equally well to care.