Posts
Courteney Cox and Matthew Perry are set to reunite on a forthcoming episode of Perry’s comedy series, Go On.Continue reading...
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Courteney Cox and Matthew Perry to reunite for TV show
Courteney Cox and Matthew Perry are set to reunite on a forthcoming episode of Perry’s comedy series, Go On.Continue reading...
Josh Duhamel at the LA premiere of Safe Haven
Browse through Glamour's extensive daily celebrity photo gallery online today. Check out what your favourite celebrity has been up to!Continue reading...
WATCH: David Beckham's hot, new advert for H&M
Shift to Hospice Care Often Comes Too Late, Study Finds
By Serena Gordon
HealthDay ReporterTUESDAY, Feb. 5 (HealthDay News) -- Although most people would prefer to die peacefully in a comfortable setting, a new study shows that almost one in three spend some time in the intensive-care unit of a hospital in their last month of life while a similar number only get hospice care a few days before dying.
And 40 percent of those late hospice care referrals come right after an ICU stay, the researchers noted.
"People end up with these very short stays in hospice [care]," said study author Dr. Joan Teno, a professor of health services, policy and practice at Brown University's Warren Alpert Medical School, in Providence, R.I. "Those short stays are difficult on the patients and the families. They don't benefit from hospice's psychosocial support for patients and their families."
Another expert put it this way: "I think what has happened is that we're using hospice [care] as a last resort. It's something we do when people have gotten so bad that they can't respond to any possible intervention," said Dr. Mary Tinetti, chief of geriatrics and professor of internal medicine and public health at the Yale University School of Medicine and Yale New Haven Hospital.
"Hospice [care] should be used as a treatment for those who are focused on quality of life," said Tinetti, who is also the co-author of an editorial accompanying the study. "Some people are going to want to access to palliative care earlier in the process."
The findings were published in the Feb. 6 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The study reviewed a random sample of 20 percent of fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries who died in 2000, 2005 and 2009. Each year, fewer people died in the hospital, according to the study. In 2000, 32.6 percent died in the hospital. In 2005, 26.9 percent died under hospital care, and 24.6 percent did so in 2009.
At the same time, however, the use of the intensive-care unit in the last month of life increased for each time period. In 2000, 24.3 percent of people were in the ICU in their last month. By 2005, that number was 26.3 percent, and in 2009 it had risen to 29.2 percent.
During that same period, the use of hospice care also increased significantly. In 2000, 21.6 percent of people received hospice care at the time of their death. That number was 32.3 percent in 2005 and 42.2 percent in 2009.
In 2009, however, 28.4 percent of hospice care was for three days or less, according to the study. And 40 percent of those short hospice stays came on the heels of an ICU stay.
Destiny’s Child banished members “forgive” Beyoncé
LeToya Luckett and LaTavia Roberson have forgiven Beyoncé for kicking them out of Destiny’s Child more than a decade on.Continue reading...
Flu Shot May Not Work as Well for Seniors
By Amy Norton
HealthDay ReporterWEDNESDAY, Feb. 6 (HealthDay News) -- Seniors seem to get a weaker boost to their immune system following a flu shot than young people do, a small study shows.
Experts say the findings essentially confirm what's been believed: The flu shot just doesn't work as well for older immune systems. But they also caution that the vaccine remains the best defense against flu misery.
Older people are among those at greatest risk for flu complications, like pneumonia. Americans older than 65 have been hard-hit during the current, rough flu season: Late last month, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that 98 of every 100,000 seniors were hospitalized with the flu for the week ending Jan. 19.
So older adults should keep getting vaccinated every year, according to Nicholas Kelley, a research associate with the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis.
"Getting the flu shot is safe, and it's better than doing nothing," said Kelley, who was not involved in the new study. "It's still the best weapon we've got."
For the study, which appeared Feb. 6 in the journal Science Translational Medicine, researchers analyzed blood samples from 17 volunteers who'd gotten the flu shot. Four of them were aged 70 or older, while the rest were 8 to 30 years old.
They used gene-sequencing technology to get a "head count" of immune system cells called B cells during the volunteers' peak immune response to the vaccine, explained lead researcher Ning Jenny Jiang, currently an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin. The study took place while she was based at Stanford University.
B cells are important because they produce the antibodies that the immune system launches against invaders, like the flu virus. When B cells are exposed to the dead or weakened virus in a vaccine, they "tweak" their antibody weapons to be more effective against the real virus.
But Jiang's team found that after the flu shot, elderly people had lower numbers of distinct B cell types, compared to young people. That essentially means they had a less diverse array of weapons against the flu.
"We also noticed that B cells from elderly people had a higher level of mutation, or tweaks, to their antibody-coding genes compared to other age groups," Jiang said. That suggests their B cells are already very "specialized" -- and possibly more resistant to further "tweaks" from the flu vaccine.
"This basically confirms what we've believed to be true," Kelley said. "But this is the first time [the research] has gotten to this technical of a level."
Another expert said the study provides helpful new information for researchers.
Naomi Campbell at The Face studios in NY
Naomi Campbell wears a white floor-length gown by Alexander McQueen at The Face studios in NY - vote on celebrity fashion, style and red carpet looks in GLAMOUR.COM’s Dos and Don’tsContinue reading...
Kate Moss’ natural golden waves
Kate Moss wears her hair in loose shoulder-length waves – Hair Do's & Don'ts brought to you by Glamour.com. Visit Glamour.com for the latest dos and don'ts for hairstyles, with celebrity photos.Continue reading...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)