The stress of caring for someone with Alzheimer’s disease can take a toll on loved ones. It’s important for caregivers’ own health and well-being to reduce that stress, the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America says. “Finding ways to manage and reduce stress is of paramount importance for every Alzheimer’s caregiver — untreated stress over a prolonged period of time can lead to caregiver burnout and a host of other health issues,” said Jennifer Reeder, the foundation’s director of educational and social services. “Caregivers need to take care of themselves so they can provide the best possible care for their loved ones,” Reeder added in a foundation news release. April is National Stress Awareness Month, and it “is a great time for caregivers to be proactive about managing and reducing their stress and make an investment in self-care that will benefit them and their loved one for whom they are caring,” she advised. Here, the foundation suggests six steps that may help: Be adaptable and positive. This can influence stress levels for you and the person in your care. Going with the flow can help you both stay relaxed, while feeling agitated can have the opposite effect. Deal with what you can control. Some things will be out of your control, but you can control your reactions. Concentrate on finding solutions that can help make the problem…  read on >  read on >

Cafeteria workers. Receptionists. Pharmacists. Janitors. Administrators. Physical therapists. Much has been made of burnout among doctors and nurses, but a new survey has found high rates of work fatigue in nearly every type of job associated with health care. Physicians, nurses, clinical staff and non-clinical support workers in health care all are experiencing substantial levels of burnout, according to a report published recently in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. For example, the percentage reporting burnout was very similar between nurses (56%), clinical staff (54%), doctors (47%) and non-clinical staff (46%). “Every member of the health care team is really critical to patient outcomes and patient experiences of care,” said lead researcher Dr. Lisa Rotenstein, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. “It’s just really important for us to remember that as we are trying to optimize both patient outcomes and experiences for our workforce.” For this study, Rotenstein and her colleagues surveyed workers at 206 large health care organizations between April and December 2020, at the height of the pandemic. The participants included more than 15,000 physicians and 11,000 nurses. But researchers also surveyed more than 5,000 clinical staff such as pharmacists, nurse assistants, therapists and social workers, as well as more than 11,000 non-clinical staff including housekeeping, administrators, lab technicians and food service workers. In addition to high levels of burnout,…  read on >  read on >

Over the last decade, more and more Americans with early-stage prostate cancer have put off radiation and surgery, the standard treatment options, new research indicates. Instead, many U.S. men with low- or intermediate-risk prostate cancer have embraced “active surveillance,” in which their disease is carefully monitored for any sign of progression that might eventually require intervention. In the new study, the investigators found that since 2010 the number of low-risk prostate cancer patients who have chosen active surveillance over immediate treatment has shot up from 16% to roughly 60%. In the same timeframe, surveillance has also risen among intermediate-risk patients, jumping from about 8% to 22%. The trend appears to reflect the fact that “professional societies have advocated for active surveillance of low-risk cancers for over a decade now,” said study lead author Dr. Bashir Al Hussein Al Awamlh, a urologic oncology fellow at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn. “The theory behind active surveillance is that some cancers have a low potential to spread outside of the prostate and are non-lethal,” Al Hussein Al Awamlh noted. In such cases, immediate treatment is not necessary. Studies indicate that over 10 years, about half of all low- and intermediate-risk patients who choose surveillance over treatment will eventually need to undergo treatment, he said. But “active surveillance allows us to watch these cancers closely, using blood…  read on >  read on >

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) often develops following a traumatic event in someone’s life, leaving the sufferer to struggle with vivid flashbacks, nightmares and panic attacks. The U.S. National Center for PTSD estimates that about 6% of Americans will experience PTSD at some point in their lives. Women are twice as likely to experience the condition as men, and veterans and children may also be more susceptible. To help you better understand PTSD, let’s examine what the condition is, plus learn its main symptoms, causes, risk factors and treatments, including medications and therapies that are backed by science. What is PTSD? “Clinically when we think about PTSD, it is a reaction to a traumatic event,” Cleveland Clinic staff psychologist Dr. Chivonna Childs said in a podcast. “That reaction can be flashbacks, nightmares about the event, feeling as if we’re reliving the events, being triggered by people, places, things, situations that remind us of the event. That can send us into what we would normally feel like is a panic attack,” she explained. According to the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), people can develop PTSD from: Experiencing a traumatic event firsthand Witnessing a trauma happening to others Learning about traumatic events after the fact. The condition may also manifest as complex PTSD (C-PTSD). The CPTSD Foundation states that C-PTSD is the result of trauma that’s…  read on >  read on >

Imagine a perfect week at work. Everything runs smoothly, and you love your job. Sounds like a dream, doesn’t it? While those days are possible, work can also be a source of frequent and intense stress. Let’s face it, work stress is unavoidable. In 2022, 83% of U.S. workers suffered from work-related stress and about 1 million Americans missed work each day because of stress, according to the American Institute of Stress (AIS). But what exactly is work-related stress and what can you do about it? Causes of work stress There are a variety of reasons why work is stressful. “A leader who isn’t empathetic to what’s going on or not connected to the problems in the workplace can result in a stressful work environment,” says Dr. Jessica Gold, a psychiatrist and member of the Council on Communications for the American Psychiatric Association. Gold also identifies a lack of control over responsibilities and time as a common reason workers battle job-related stress. Other causes of work stress include tight deadlines, job insecurity and a toxic work environment (bullying, manipulation). Symptoms of work-related stress The American Psychological Association identifies physical and emotional symptoms of work stress including: Headaches Stomachaches High blood pressure A weakened immune system Insomnia Depression Anxiety Panic attacks Poor concentration Mood swings How to manage work stress There are specific ways to manage…  read on >  read on >

Monoclonal antibodies have been an effective tool in the battle against COVID-19, reducing the risk of hospitalization or death by 39% for people who started the treatment within two days of a positive test, a new study finds. These treatments were even more effective for immunocompromised people, regardless of age, according to the University of Pittsburgh researchers. “The virus was a moving target, and, for two years, monoclonal antibodies were approved, revoked, sometimes reauthorized and sometimes scarce,” said Kevin Kip, lead author of a new analysis and vice president of clinical analytics at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). “Using UPMC’s database of patients treated with monoclonal antibodies — one of the largest in the U.S. — we are finally able to conclude that pushing through all these challenges unequivocally saved lives and prevented hospitalizations,” Kip said in a university news release. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization to five monoclonal antibodies between 2020 and 2022. These human-made antibodies were designed to prevent the virus from entering human cells where they could replicate and cause serious illness. Those used for COVID-19 were administered intravenously or through an injection. They were restricted to people aged 12 and older with risk factors that made them more susceptible to bad outcomes from the virus. As the virus evolved, so did the antibodies, with new…  read on >  read on >

A good night’s sleep is important for everyone, and it may be especially sage advice for adults with a genetic susceptibility to asthma, a new study says. Someone with poor sleep quality and a genetic link to asthma may double their chances of being diagnosed with the respiratory condition, researchers said. But they found a healthy sleep pattern was linked to lower risk, according to a report based on U.K. participants in the journal BMJ Open Respiratory Research. “Previous studies have demonstrated that sleep disorders, such as unfavorable sleep duration and insomnia, are associated with chronic inflammation,” said the authors, including Fuzhong Xue, of the National Institute of Health Data Science of China at Shandong University in Jinan. “In theory, the immune response to inflammation could generate pro-inflammatory cytokines that result in cellular infiltration and airway inflammation, further increasing the risk of asthma,” they said in a journal news release. Spotting and treating sleep disorders early on might lessen the risks, regardless of genetic predisposition, the study noted. People with asthma often report broken or short sleep and insomnia. For the study, the researchers used U.K. Biobank data on more than 455,000 adults enrolled between 2006 and 2010. Participants were asked about their sleep patterns, based on whether they were a “morning lark” or “night owl,” sleep duration, insomnia, snoring and excessive daytime sleepiness. A…  read on >  read on >

Some furniture fabrics are coated with questionable PFAS compounds — often called ‘forever chemicals’ — to repel stains, but a new study suggests they may not even do the job they’re supposed to. The chemicals, widely believed to have a negative impact on human health, don’t seem to keep furniture any more or less stain-resistant than untreated fabric, according to a new study. “It was surprising that these harmful but supposedly indispensable chemicals had no practical benefit,” said lead author Jonas LaPier, a PhD candidate in civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University. “It makes you wonder what other uses of PFAS are also unnecessary and could be easily eliminated from products without noticeable change in performance,” he said in a news release from the Green Science Policy Institute. PFAS stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. These ubiquitous chemicals have been associated with cancer, obesity and more severe COVID-19 outcomes. Only a small fraction of the thousands of PFAS have been tested for toxicity, the study noted. All are either extremely persistent in the environment or break down into persistent PFAS. For the new study, investigators released droplets of coffee and oil-based salad dressing on indoor commercial furniture with six fabrics finished with PFAS and three that had no finish. They found that for the water-based coffee stains, none of the PFAS-finished fabrics performed better…  read on >  read on >