Category: Public Health

Learning To Live Well With Dementia

Two leading experts on caring for people with Alzheimer’s offer ways to make life better for patients and their caregivers.

As Opioid Crisis Rages, Some Trade ‘Tough Love’ For Empathy

An approach known as Community Reinforcement and Family Training, or CRAFT, coaches families to deal with a loved one’s substance abuse with compassion.

Trying To Pinpoint Hurricane’s True Toll, Researchers Say 1,139 Died In Puerto Rico

The estimate, published in the journal JAMA, dwarfs the government’s toll of 64 but is far lower than another highly touted analysis.

How Rival Opioid Makers Sought To Cash In On Alarm Over OxyContin’s Dangers

Fentanyl and other painkillers marketed as safer than Purdue Pharma’s blockbuster drug left their own trail of overdose deaths.

For Many College Students, Hunger Can ‘Make It Hard To Focus In Class’

With rising college costs, up to half of college students’ finances are stretched so tight they report that they were either not getting enough to eat or were worried about it, studies find.

Medicare Reconsiders Paying For Seniors’ Spine Operations At Surgery Centers

After a USA Today Network-Kaiser Health News investigation, Medicare announced last week that it is re-evaluating whether these procedures “pose a significant safety risk” to patients.

Community Frets As Buyer For Cherished Rural Hospital Slips From View

Some residents of remote Surprise Valley in Northern California fear their hospital will close like so many others around the country, as hope wanes for financial support from a Denver entrepreneur. The businessman, Beau Gertz, had planned to raise money through lab billing for faraway patients.

A Transgender Woman’s Quest For Surgery Caught In Political Crosswinds

Dramatic policy swings, from an unprecedented expansion of transgender rights under the Obama administration to the unpredictable reduction of trans rights under President Donald Trump, have left many trans Americans feeling the whiplash.

A Transgender Woman’s ‘Bait-And-Switch’ $92,000 Surgery Bill

After being promised a significant discount for paying cash upfront and forgoing insurance, a Wisconsin patient gets caught in the middle between hospital and insurer — and feels snookered by a last-minute surprise and billing snafu.

How Soon Is Soon Enough To Learn You Have Alzheimer’s?

Only about half of people with Alzheimer’s symptoms get a diagnosis, partly out of fear of an incurable decline, doctors suspect. But Jose Belardo says facing the future allows him to plan for it.