USA TODAY articles from October 2003

USA TODAY archives from October 2003

Costs overwhelming small businesses.(Health Insurance)
October 1, 2003... One leading cause of the decline in job seekers choosing to work for small businesses may be related to the absence of adequate health care benefits, reasons John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.,...

Device helps stroke victims communicate.(Technology)
October 1, 2003... Students in an upper-level computer software engineering class at the University of Buffalo (N.Y.) are helping to solve a real-world problem--and restore a sense of independence to persons with speech and motor disabilities--by designing...

New procedure speeds tendon recovery.(Reconstructive Surgery)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2003... An innovative surgical system that could alter the way orthopedic and plastic reconstructive surgeons repair torn and damaged tendons recently received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration. The Teno Fix system represents the first...

Liver enzyme linked to asthma.(Allergy & Immunology)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2003... The enzyme arginase, normally found in the liver, is expressed more--and is more active--in allergen-challenged lungs, according to researchers in the Division of Allergy and Immunology, Cincinnati (Ohio) Children's Research Foundation....

Altitude sickness.(Health Beat)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2003... Altitude sickness can occur at heights greater than 9,000 feet and may produce symptoms such as headache, marked fatigue, loss of appetite, nausea, and difficulty sleeping, reports the Mayo Clinic Women's Health-Source

Computer Vision Syndrome.(Health Beat)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2003... Computer Vision Syndrome sufferers experience blurred distance vision, halos, neck and back pain, headaches, and irritated, dry, and fatigued eyes. According to the American Optometric Association, St. Louis, Mo., CVS affects 70-75% of the...

Treat heroin addiction with buprenorphine.(Health Beat)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2003... Treat heroin addiction with buprenorphine, suggests the Medical Letter on Drugs and Therapeutics. Although the common treatment is methadone, its abuse is causing alarming amounts of overdoses and deaths. Buprenorphine, with a lower risk of...

Ten percent of school aged children.(Health Beat)(hearing loss)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2003... Ten percent of school aged children will be diagnosed with significant hearing loss, relates Siemens Hearing Instruments, Cranford, N.J., Hearing difficulties may be the cause of distraction and frustration exhibited by students with...

Concussions.(Health Beat)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2003... Concussions caused by "heading" in soccer may be reduced by using a lighter ball during practice drills and removing any player who complains of nausea, blurred vision, or ringing in the ears. The athlete should not return to play until...

Sleep deprived athletes.(Health Beat)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2003... Sleep deprived athletes perceived higher levels of exertion than rested subjects in a study done by The National Youth Sports Safety Foundation, Boston, Mass. Weary teens feel increased stress levels, frustration, and lower thresholds for...

Design advances in Cochlear implants.(Health Beat)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2003... Design advances in Cochlear implants made by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, have enabled up to one-third of users to talk freely on the telephone and lessen lip reading in face-to-face conversations. Earlier...

Topical oxygen heals wounds faster.(Health Beat)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2003... Topical oxygen heals wounds faster, report scientists at Ohio State University, Columbus. In two-thirds of the studies cases, injuries ranging from trauma wounds that did not heal with topical creams or stitches to ulcers caused by chronic...

Nasal spray vaccine 40 years in the making.(Influenza)
October 1, 2003... The Food and Drug Administration's approval of a new nasal spray flu vaccine brings to fruition four decades of research by a University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, professor. FluMist, based on technology developed by Hunein "John" Maassab,...

New drugs cause prevention complacency.(Aids)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2003... A false impression about new drugs to control AIDS may be putting more Americans at risk to contract this disease, relates Bill Yarber, senior director of the Rural Center for AIDS/STD Prevention at Indiana University, Bloomington. "We have to...

Caffeine habit is tough to kick.(Chemical Dependency)
October 1, 2003... "People joke about caffeine," says American University, Washington, D.C., psychology professor Laura Juliano, who runs a caffeine treatment study at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. "We know how hard it is to get off other drugs, but...

Delivering bad news troubles med students.(Diagnosis)
October 1, 2003... Incoming medical residents who are about to treat children and teens for the first time believe they are ill-equipped and poorly trained to deliver bad news to young people and their families. A Brown University, Providence, R.I., study...

Website helps reduce cholesterol.(Internet)
October 1, 2003... As a part of its public education efforts, the American Heart Association encourages people to use two free online tools to help control their cholesterol. By clicking on americanheart.org/cholesterol, the 42,000,000 individuals with high...

Survivors say disease is not life altering.(Prostate Cancer)
October 1, 2003... Although researchers have made great strides in treating prostate cancer--the most common nonskin cancer among American men--little attention has been given to how a patient is affected by a diagnosis of the disease and what his subsequent life...

Pig to rat transplant hailed as breakthrough.(Nervous System)
October 1, 2003... Cells have been transplanted successfully from one species to another without triggering a rejection response or requiring drugs to suppress the immune system by researchers at Kansas State University, Manhattan. Scientists transplanted...

Transplants can save cancer patients.(Bone Marrow)
October 1, 2003... Physicians and scientists are using many techniques to fight cancer. One of those is bone marrow transplantation, a method used to treat nonsolid tumor cancers such as leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma. Bone marrow transplantation is a...

NK and T cells team to tackle cancer.(Immune System)
October 1, 2003... Better treatments for certain cancers may result from the research efforts at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, where clinicians have partially uncovered the stages in the elimination of viral infections and cancer...

Umbilical cord yields noncontroversial source.(Stem Cells)
October 1, 2003... The cushioning material or matrix within the umbilical cord known as Wharton's jelly is a rich and readily available source of primitive stem cells, according to findings by a research team at Kansas State University, Manhattan. Animal and...

DASH plan reduces high blood pressure.(Diet)(Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation and Treatment of High Blood Pressure)
October 1, 2003... The Seventh Report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation and Treatment of High Blood Pressure lowers the threshold of normal readings by establishing a new category--prehypertensive--for individuals with a...

Exercise alone is not the answer.(Weight Loss)
October 1, 2003... A sedentary lifestyle may contribute to a person's weight problem, but for losing unwanted pounds, exercise is no substitute for consuming fewer calories, contends Weight Watchers International, Inc., Woodbury, N.Y. Consider the following: ...

Do energy bars lower insulin levels?(Nutrition)
October 1, 2003... Energy bars with low or moderate levels of carbohydrates may not live up to weight loss expectations, reports an Ohio State University, Columbus, study. Proponents of several diet plans--such as Atkins and The Zone--say low or moderate...

Antidepressant slows patient decline.(Alzheimer's Disease)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2003... The drug Zoloft, commonly used for depression, also improves quality of life and alleviates disruption in daily activities for the one-quarter of Alzheimer's patients who also suffer from major depression, maintain researchers at Johns Hopkins...

Cell death remains key to Alzheimer's.(Dementia)
October 1, 2003... Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia, currently affects 4,000,000 Americans--a number expected to increase to 14,000,000 by 2050. Not surprisingly, researchers are racing to understand the disease so that effective therapies...

Common sense can prevent mishaps.(Sports Injuries)
October 1, 2003... Baby boomers may be at risk for sports injuries, but those mishaps can be prevented with some common sense precautions, suggests the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, Rosemont, Ill. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission reports...

Enzyme causes clotting fatalities.(Viagra)
October 1, 2003... Incidents of heart attack and stroke, some fatal, in a small number of men taking Viagra have remained a puzzle. After all, the drug, commonly prescribed for erectile dysfunction, originally was developed to prevent these conditions--not only...

Achy knees bane of baby boomers.(Joints)
October 1, 2003... Many people are staying active as they age. This is healthy. However, playing team sports, jogging, or performing other high impact activities that repeatedly pound, twist, and turn the knees can stress aging joints. Highly active, middle-aged...

Preemies and blacks most susceptible.(Sleep Disorders)
October 1, 2003... A serious sleep-related breathing disorder could make it difficult for children to think or perform well in school and may lead to severe growth or heart problems, according to researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine,...

Do physicians overprescribe meds?(Pediatric Insomnia)
October 1, 2003... Despite a dearth of information about the use of sedatives for treating sleep disorders in youngsters, about 75% of community-based pediatricians recommend nonprescription medication, and more than 50% prescribe a sleep aid to patients with...

Proceed with caution on kids' dosages.(Medication)
October 1, 2003... When it comes to giving medication to children, parents and caregivers should always play it safe by thoroughly reading medicine labels and knowing what ingredients they contain. "Don't ever guess on the amount of medicine you give to a child,"...

Children absorb poisons in various ways.(Toxic Exposure)
October 1, 2003... Give an infant a stuffed teddy bear and before long he or she will be nibbling on its ears, nose, and feet. After all, biting, tasting, and touching are all part of the maturation process. Yet, as children begin to explore their surroundings,...

Dyslexic brains can be retrained.(Learning Disabilities)
October 1, 2003... Dyslexic children's brains operate more like those of normal readers following training designed to help them hear sounds in words, finds a study from Stanford (Calif.) and Rutgers, Newark, N.J., universities. For the first time, researchers...

Minimizing respiratory injury in preterm births.(Pulmonary Health)
October 1, 2003... Physicians have a better understanding of how antenatal cortico-steroids should be used in the treatment of prematurity, thanks to research by Alan Jobe, Division of Pulmonary Biology, Cincinnati (Ohio) Children's Research Foundation. ...

ADHD kids are able to keep up.(Exercise)(attention deficit hyperactivity disorder)
October 1, 2003... Medications used to treat children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder allow youngsters to exercise just as strenuously as their non-ADHD counterparts, indicates a study from Ball State University, Muncie, Ind. The research also found...

E. coli thrives with help of bacteria.(Intestinal Disorders)
October 1, 2003... A strain of E. coli that causes severe, sometimes deadly, intestinal problems relies on signals from beneficial human bacteria and a stress hormone to infect human cells, a researcher at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at...

Debilitating condition traced to mutation.(Muscular System)(myasthenia)
October 1, 2003... A novel genetic mutation that leads to a debilitating muscle condition known as myasthenia has been discovered by researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and the Mayo Clinic, Minneapolis, Minn. Myasthenia,...

Sleepy "residents" are dangerous motorists.(Fatigue)
October 1, 2003... Medical residents who drive home after a month-long rotation of on call duty may be a threat behind the wheel. In driving simulations, fatigued residents performed equally or worse than when they were moderately intoxicated, according to a...

Trauma teams to the rescue.(Emergency Medicine)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2003... A dedicated trauma service staffed by full-time specialists at hospitals can significantly reduce patient treatment times in the emergency department (ED), help reduce overcrowding, and lower death rates, a Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore,...

"Crescent" support helps Muslims.(Nursing)
October 1, 2003... A new version of parish nursing called "crescent" has been created by Radford (Va.) University graduate student Jennifer Simpson. In parish nursing, a nurse provide services in a Christian or Jewish place of worship. In crescent nursing, a...

Ethnicity plays role in vision problems.(Eyesight)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2003... Ethnicity appears to be associated with children's vision problems--such as near- and farsightedness--suggest researchers from Ohio State University, Columbus. They found that Asian-American youngsters tend to be myopic, or nearsighted, more...

Blacks slower to seek treatment.(Heart Attacks)
October 1, 2003... African-Americans are far less likely to seek immediate treatment for a heart attack than non-Hispanic whites, points out Julie Zerwic, associate professor of medical-surgical nursing, University of Illinois at Chicago. In a study of 239...

Is U.S. still vulnerable to anthrax attack?(Public Health)
October 1, 2003... A reasonable defense against an airborne anthrax attack requires more aggressive action by the Federal government than the current protocol outlines. Washington is relying too heavily on biosensors to pinpoint a potential outbreak and not doing...