Health Information for Seniors

NIHSeniorHealth is an "easy-to-use website [which] features health and wellness information for older adults from the [US] National Institutes of Health." Health information is organized alphabetically by name or in categories such as:
* Bones and Joints
* Cancer
* Diseases and Conditions
* Healthy Aging
* Heart and Lungs
* Memory and Mental Health
* Treatments and Therapies
* Vision and Hearing

Also available: "Exercise stories" with seniors sharing their experiences with various activities, a collection of health videos (with the option of reading the transcripts), and a training module called: Helping Older Adults Search for Health Information Online: A Toolkit for Trainers.

Iceberg Newsletter on FASD

Iceberg is a quarterly international educational newsletter on FASD (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders) from FASIS (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Information Service), a parent/professional partnership based in Seattle, WA. Visit the website for events, resources and the current and back issues of this excellent newsletter.

"Because the problems we readily see are only the tip of the iceberg."
--Iceberg website

Study Explores Value of Recording Medical Visits for Cancer Patients

Patients can find it hard to absorb what their doctors tell them during stressful moments. Recordings or transcripts of office visits could help people with cancer—or their family members—recall medical information they might otherwise have missed, a new review suggests.

“It is important to consider anything that can improve the cancer patient’s experience, especially interventions that can be easily accommodated within the normal office visit,” said lead author Marie Pitkethly, co-coordinator of the Scottish Primary Care Research Network in Dundee.

The review included 16 studies of 2,318 adults who either had cancer themselves or were dealing with a close relative with cancer. The researchers looked at the effects of providing recordings or summaries of doctor-patient interactions on information recall and understanding, participation in follow-up visits, satisfaction and other concerns.

The review appears in the latest issue of The Cochrane Library, a publication of The Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates medical research. Systematic reviews like this one draw evidence-based conclusions about medical practice after considering both the content and quality of existing medical trials on a topic.

Richard Frankel Ph.D., a professor of medicine and geriatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine, said many people who receive cancer information at the doctor’s office do not accurately remember what the physician said.

“Anything that can be done to increase their potential for retaining information is worth trying,” he said. “This review shows that the use of audio or videotapes can be very useful in some patients, but not all patients. The primary lesson this review teaches us that there needs to be an individualized approach to having difficult conversations with patients.”

For more on this study:
Pitkethly M, et al. Recordings or summaries of consultations for people with cancer. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Issue 3, 2008.