Search results matching tag 'health'

Hospice Makes Every Day Count

wag.mado@evpl — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 20:56:00 GMT

Do you know how hospice care is different from other medical care? Or, have you ever wondered what services hospice provides and who is eligible? The next Savvy Senior Series program will answer this question and many more.

On Thursday, March 29 at 2:00 PM a representative from VNA Hospice will present "Hospice Makes Every Day Count". This program will provide answers to your questions and will demonstrate how hospice can enrich the lives of those they care for, as well as the lives of their family members.

Please join us for this informative program. This program is free and open to the public.

For information on upcoming Savvy Senior Series programs, please click here.

Oh My Aching Feet!

wag.mado@evpl — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:14:00 GMT

Do your feet hurt no matter which pair of shoes you decide to wear? Have you noticed any pain, numbness, tingling, or aching in your feet? If so, you may want to join us for the next Savvy Senior Series program.

Dr. Charlotte Reisinger and Dr. Dusky Farmer are presenting, “Oh My Aching Feet: Age Related Foot Problems” at River Pointe Health Campus on Thursday, February 9 at 2:00 PM. This program is free and open to the public.

Come join us and for an informative discussion.

If you have additional questions related to this program, please call 428-8246.

For a list of upcoming Savvy Senior Series programs, click here.

Maintain Your Brain

wag.mado@evpl — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 17:58:00 GMT

Are you committed to keeping your mind healthy and active? Do you sometimes wonder if your memory is as good as it should be? Or, would you just like to have some fun using your brain?

Next week, the EVPL’s Savvy Seniors Series will feature “Maintain Your Brain” presented by JoAnna Weiss from the Alzheimer’s Association. We will have some fun exercising our brains. And, information will be provided on how to keep your brain healthy, some of the age-related changes we all can expect, as well as when you may need to talk with your doctor.

The program will be held on Thursday March 31 at Central Library in the Large Group Room on second floor at 2:00 PM.

Come join us!

This program is part of the new Savvy Seniors Series and is free and open to the public. Click here for a full list of upcoming programs.

Questions about what the new Health Care Act means to you?...Part 1

SuDocQueen@evpl — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 20:36:00 GMT

True, a lot of people and lawmakers still want to end, or make changes to, last year's Health Care act, so who knows what will happen to it in the future, but for now parts of it are up, operational, and affecting individuals' lives. It is those operational parts I want to address here. The federal government has created a new website to help people understand and utilize the new act, www.healthcare.gov.

I started writing this blog with the expectation that I would review the enitre site at once, but as you may have guessed from the "Part 1" in my title, I found that impossible. The site covers so much information that I decided this blog would deal with everything but how to find insurance coverage. So, if that's all you are interested in, keep an eye out for Part 2 coming soon. However, I really hope you read on. You will learn about the new law, how it affects you, and you will get good advice about insurance coverage and other health topics.

The home page offers direct access to a plethora of health-related information. Toward the bottom is a video about using the site to find insurance coverage. There are links to the page's social media accounts. The site's blog posts are located in an obvious box just about the video link and they have an RSS feed. And, just to the left of the blogs is a nice "Five Things To Know" set of links. The five colored boxes at the top of the page are the most direct links to the site's deeper information.

We're saving the first box for Part 2. The second box, "Learn About Prevention" includes links to deeper pages as well as links that take the user beyond the healthcare.gov's website. The outside links sends the user to healthfinder.gov, another gateway to tons of information on healthy living, -- that site would have to be a blog all its own -- and the national initiative to solve childhood obesity. The links that lead to deeper into the healthcare.gov's website deal with the preventative services people need depending on their age and sex (notice the information is available in Spanish as well) and what preventative services insurance companies are supposed to cover under the new health care law.

The third box "Compare Care Quality" allows you to compare hospitals, nursing homes, home health care agencies, or dialysis facilities. The page where you choose which subject to search is still on healthcare.gov, but you are sent to medicare.gov for the actual searches (healthcare.gov sensibly chose not to reinvent the wheel). Depending on which subject you're searching you can search by city, state, or zip code, and the nursing home search also allows you to set a miles radius on the search. I used my grandmother's zip code each time, and was impressed with the extensive and detailed results. It was nice to know the nursing home we used when she broke her leg was a five star home. Along with all the good information from the searches, each subject's search page offers additional links to useful information on what to consider and what to ask when choosing care.

The fourth one, "Understand The Law." Strives to help people do just that, understand the new law. The main page offers a brief introductory video. Below the video are links to further information for seniors, special interest groups, and coverage options for those with pre-existing conditions. When you click on one of these links you're taken to a new page with in-depth information and more links to additional information on the topic. As you explore the topics, note that the deeper yellow of the "Understand the Law" tab, extends across the page in a bar. Within that deeper yellow bar are other links, sub-links so to speak. Note that there is always a little carrot sign below the "sub-link" you're currently on, to help orient you to where you are in the broad "Understand the Law" topic. Clear as mud? The "Timeline: What's Changing and When" link is pretty neat. It is a moveable timeline that shows you each change that has already taken place to health care as well as the expected dates of the rest of the changes up to 2015. "About The Law" strives to explain the law, offers the full PDF of the law, or separate links to each section of the law, and a chronological breakdown of the major portions of the law. "Provisions" addresses each major facet of the law, while "In Focus" and "Initiatives" discuss the issues the law is meant to address.

Returning to the different colored boxes, the last one, "Information For You," is helpful when you just want to know how the law affects your individual situation. For example, if you have a family of four, you're not going to be as interested in how the law affects seniors or individuals. When you mouse over the tab, a drop down menu will appear and you'll choose your "subject": individual, family with children, senior, etc. For most of the choices, this brings up the page customized to your interest. For a couple of them you'll have to make additional choices. Several of the pages open with an available video. All of them include an additional list of links on the left, a blue box on the right were you can start immediately researching coverage, and a set of links on the right that essential reword some of the links from the left. Also note that you can change the "situation" you're researching at any time. The "Information For You" tab is set up just like the "Understand The Law" tab. Once you've made your original choice, you can always look just below the tab and see links to the other possible situations. Clicking on any of them will take you to the new page.

Lastly, at the very bottom of the main page are stripped down links: to much of the information covered on the page above, to other sources like www.usa.gov, to information on accessibility for the disabled to the site's information, and to information on the viewers used on the site. Wow, I hope you managed to stay with me through this whole blog! And keep checking back for part, hopefully up within the next week.

Red Cross Heat Wave Safety Checklist

Shh_ImReading@evpl — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 23:22:00 GMT

With the hot, hot weather we've been having recently, I've been wondering about first aid for heat-related health problems. I've had first aid training in the past, but I wanted to make sure I'd know what to do now if someone near me seemed to be having trouble with the heat. I went to http://www.redcross.org/ and typed HEAT into the search box. I found a Heat Waves checklist with information about the symptoms and care for heat cramps, heat exhaustion and heat stroke. There is even a one-page PDF Heat Wave Safety Checklist that is perfect for printing. I hung one on the refrigerator in the room where staff members here take breaks.

Link for Heat Wave Safety Checklist easy to print PDF

You'll find more information like this on the Preparedness Fast Facts page.

Evansville's small claim to fame in the 1918 Great Pandemic & a tip for 2009 flu clinics in Evansville

SuDocQueen@evpl — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:07:00 GMT

Thanks to a very interesting question today, I discovered a surprising fact. Evansville was involved in Indiana's first official report on the Spanish influenza. According to http://1918.pandemicflu.gov/your_state/indiana.htm, in the "first official report from the state...officials reported that an epidemic had developed in Evansville beginning in the last week of September." By October, "state officials were forced to admit that 'the disease has been reported from a number of places' in the state," but Evansville carries the distinction of being the first city in Indiana to be officially stricken with the epidemic. I don't know whether you consider that good or bad, but I certainly found it surprising to learn that our city had a specific place in the history of the Great Pandemic.

I also found the website fascinating. Coming from The Office of the Public Health Service Historian, the site offers a good overview of the Pandemic in the United States -- be sure to always click on "more"; each general topic only shows the tip of information being offered. One can get a snapshot picture of average life in the US in 1918 as well as detailed information on the Pandemic's effects in each state; for example Indiana officially reported 154,600 cases while historians and epidemiologists now believe the count was closer to 350,000 cases. Along with bibliographies for books and websites, biographies on people central to the Pandemic, and examples of media resources from the time it's a very comprehensive picture of the 1918 Pandemic.

If you're more interested in the current flu situation, the site's main page also includes a link to www.pandemicflu.gov. That site helpfully pops up in a new window so you can continue browsing the historical information as well. One last discovery I have to mention, while browsing the current flu site, I discovered that the Vanderburgh County Health Department offers email notification for H1N1 Vaccination clinics! The notification comes through a catch-all category called "special events," so who knows what kind of notices a person may receive later on, but it could be worth not having to constantly check the department website or listen to the news all the time.

November is National Diabetes Month

SuDocQueen@evpl — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:07:00 GMT

Considering the prevalance of diabetes in America today, I suspect the disease has touched many, many families in the Evansville and tri-state area. It is certainly a topic near and dear to my heart since I have had family members and friends afflicted with both Type 1 and Type II. For those who have never encountered diabetes, or those newly diagnosed, it can be a frightening disease. So what better time to learn more about the disease than during the month dedicated to it?

To be honest, it had slipped my mind that November was National Diabetes Month until I got an email update from www.usa.gov talking about it -- check out www.usa.gov's website to find out about all the great email updates and RSS feeds people can sign-up for. The email included a great link to their FAQ section on diabetes. That section in turn offers several ways to get information on diabetes. They include phone, address, and email for the National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse as well as several links for different websites like National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse, National Diabetes Education Program, and the American Diabetes Association.

You can find even more online information from www.usa.gov by browsing or keyword searching from the website's main page. To browse, scroll down the main page until you see "Health and Nutrition." Clicking will take you to a further breakdown of the subject. Scroll down to "Health Topics A-Z" and click. Then click on "D" and scroll down until you get to "Diabetes." You'll see about twelve different topics on diabetes from diabetes and pregnancy to diabetic diet, kidney problems or even nerve problems. Each topic leads to great information from Medline Plus that includes additional links on things like prevention, related issues, and research as well as links to videos, tutorials, and pictures where available.

You can also do a keyword search on diabetes by typing the term into the search box at the top of www.usa.gov's main screen. You'll get a results page reminiscent of Google but without all the extraneous hits from questionable websites. The neatest part of the results page is the topic breakdown on the left-hand side of the page. The topic list is a breakdown of the search results into individual topics. The numbers in parenthesis indicate how many hits your search had under that topic, and the plus button to the right indicates that the topic can be broken down even farther. Clicking on the plus button will show that further breakdown while clicking on the topic itself will change the results list to the hits for just that topic. Also, take a look at the Agencies breakdown. If you didn't know, www.usa.gov searches state as well as federal websites. Looking at "Agencies" will give you a concise picture of the places your results are coming from. For example my "diabetes" search showed that the majority of my results came from the National Institutes of Health, but if you click to see "All" results for Agencies, you can scroll down and discover that Indiana has a page on diabetes coming from the IHS Division of Diabetes Treatment and Prevention.

If you're not on information overload yet, or if you prefer your information in a more tangible format, EVPL has an amazing collection of print material on diabetes ranging from books on the disease, complications, and diet to cookbooks for the diabetic. My simple keyword search using the term diabetes then limiting to books turned up over 400 books. Or, if you'd like to see magazine articles you can go back to the computer, go to our databases, and select a general database like Masterfile Premier, (see it under our list of "Popular Databases" or find it through our "Alphabetical Sequence") and do a keyword search for articles on diabetes. You can also choose "Category Sequence" and click on Health and Medicine to see a list of databases that will narrow your search to just medical journals.

World Vegetarian Day & Vegetarian Awareness Month

Shh_ImReading@evpl — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:06:00 GMT

A friend just let me know that TODAY is World Vegetarian Day! It turns out the whole month of October is Vegetarian Awareness Month! Have you ever considered going vegetarian or vegan? Maybe you could try it out this month. Why not try something new? Look for vegetarian options at the Fall Festival next week, for example. Yes, there really are vegetarian options at the Fall Festival! EVPL has lots of books on making the change to vegetarianism and many, many vegetarian cookbooks. There is a whole world of meat-free options out there; it's not all tofu! Then again, don't be scared of tofu. Remember, you have to try it to know you don't like it.

Ready, set, GO VEGETARIAN!

Are you a vegetarian or vegan? Tell us in the comments what resource(s) helped you make the transition, even it's just the title of your favorite cookbook!

Up-To-Date H1N1 and Flu Information Available Now!

Bufkinite@evpl — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:09:00 GMT

As public concern about pandemic H1N1 and the upcoming flu season continues to grow, the medical and nursing editors from both EBSCO Publishing and the Gale Group have responded by offering the latest scientifically verified flu-related information available for free.

These free flu information resources are available in the following ways:

To access EBSCO's information, click here.
To access Gale Group's information on the science and history of H1N1, click here.
To access Gale Groups up-to-the-minute global news on H1N1, click here.

This free flu information will be continually updated, so please check both of these sites often, and feel free to share, post, and email a link to this blog post to your colleagues, family and friends.

Do you stand in front of your closet every morning wondering what will fit, not what do I want to wear?

SuDocQueen@evpl — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:55:00 GMT

Here's my dirty little secret; I've been doing that all summer. To look at me no one would say I have a weight problem, but thanks to sports injuries and other medical issues this summer, I've been sidelined from my normal active lifestyle. Sprawling on the chaise lounge and reading instead of chasing a fuzzy green ball across the tennis court and doing yard work has been a surprisingly enjoyable change. Unfortunately, I didn't change my eating habits along with my reduction in activity and the inches have been creeping on. Every morning when I reach for the elastic waist pants I tell myself 'this is it, gotta cut back', but each night I eat my healthy, delicious, home-grown cherry tomatoes, and still reach for the French Fried Onion rings (ever get one of those big bags from one of the warehouse stores?). Since even my "fat cloths" are getting tight, it's time to get serious.

Counting calories and making a point of skipping the junk food is the best way to do that, but that can be boring (yeah, like that's an excuse -- but what can I say). Doing the right thing can be easier when it's also fun, and I know just the place to go www.mypyramid.gov. Be prepared for a near information overload. Designed and run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the site's main page has so many links to useful information that you hardly know where to start. There are waaay too many of them for me to go through here, but I do want to tell you about my favorite, www.mypyramidtracker.gov.

You start out by telling the Tracker your age, weight, and height (why fudge? No one but the computer will know and if you don't tell the truth, later you won't get an accurate breakdown of what nutrition you need). Next you're asked to list all the foods you ate for the day, then the number of servings. After that the Tracker will analyze your intake for the day and shoot you to a page where you can choice to see if you met the 2005 Dietary Guidelines -- they use cute little emoticons as well as showing you the amount you actually ate and the amount that is recommended; you can see your nutrient breakdown for the day -- you get your total calories consumed along with a breakdown of your fats, proteins, and vitamins; you get "Pyramid stats" which show you graphically whether you got your recommended daily amount of milk, meat, veggies, grains, etc; and lastly you can view your "healthy eating history by day, month, up to a year -- this is assuming you've registered and have faithfully input your eating habits for a while.

Registration is free or you can use "check it out" daily without registering. I think the benefit of registering is that you can save your information for at least a year in order to track how well you're doing. Plus, you won't be able to access your "check it out" information from the whole day if you don't use the same computer all day -- no adding breakfast and lunch at your work computer then going home and adding dinner. You'd have to start from scratch adding your entire food intake for the whole day. Frankly, I think the benefits of seeing how your eating habits change over time is well worth the registration.

Plusses and minuses of the Tracker...well, today I couldn't find Velveeta sliced cheese, so I had to compensate with the next best thing (American/cheddar cheese, processed), but I could choose one slice as my serving size. Plus, I could add plain M&M's and select as few as 10 pieces as my serving size! The Tracker strives to offer a huge range of foods to choose from, from simple foods like bananas to restaurant food like McD's Big Mac. And they have very flexible serving sizes, from a whole apple (and you can even choose large or medium) to a slice as a serving size. My only real quibble is that they don't show you the calories for your individual foods. I like to know how many calories those 10 M&Ms are verses one (or two) Hershey's Kisses so I know which food choice will be cheaper calorie-wise when I'm limiting my sweets intake.

I won't bore you with the anal way I figure that out on my own, but I will tell you about a book that I absolutely love "The Calorie King Calorie Fat and Carbohydrate Counter" (613.23 CALOR 2009). I looked up M&Ms in the book, and it actually told me how many calories there were in one M&M! Okay, okay it only told me the calories for the plain M&M. It didn't go on and do the same for the peanut, almond, or peanut butter, but I was still impressed. Plus, it not only tells you the calories, it also gives the fat and carbohydrate counts. The book covers the normal basic foods -- like meat, breads, fruits veggies, etc -- and an amazing array of sweets (like M&Ms) as well as a huge section on restaurant foods. I found the Outback, O-Charley's, Sizzler, Red Lobster along with the usual suspects like McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell. Starbucks was even in there. Do you really want to know how many calories your favorite frappuccino are costing you?

If all our copies of Calorie King are checked out, there's always the Reference copy you can use here, or you can try any of these other calorie counting books.

I'd like to talk more about www.mypyramid.gov but if I do that, this'll become a novel rather than a blog -- it's already leaning in that direction -- so just check it out on your own. If you have any questions on using it, pipe up here or give us a call at Reference!