This year, Desert Regional’s Comprehensive Cancer Center celebrates 30 years of serving our community. In 2011, we interviewed the center’s management team for a story on integrative cancer care – the use of both medical and natural therapies – and wanted to see how things have evolved. We followed up with the manager of Oncology… Read more »
A new study published recently in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, suggests that using sex-specific scores on memory tests may change who gets diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) by 20 percent, with possibly more women and fewer men being diagnosed. “Women may be more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease,… Read more »
Capturing vital signs is a critical skill learned and practiced at the Palm Desert High School Health Academy to prepare students for their future careers. Health professionals must understand what vital signs are, what the monitoring procedures include and how to perform each in a proper manner. Vital signs allow physicians and nurses to check… Read more »
The popular TED conferences feature inspiring talks about technology, entertainment or design. This “TED Talk,” however, is focused on thyroid eye disease (TED) and expands upon my January/February article about how the small thyroid gland affects the entire body, including our precious eyes. If someone with thyroid dysfunction is experiencing symptoms of eyelid swelling, eye… Read more »
What’s something both fishermen and sports medicine have in common? Believe it or not, they both utilize ultrasound to get the job done. While submarines and boats have been employing the use of ultrasound throughout the 20th century to locate fish and animals in the water, its use in medicine only became popularized in the… Read more »
Low back pain is the most common type of pain experienced by people in the United States. It contributes significantly toward growing health care costs and over utilization of the medical system through invasive surgeries and prescription pain medication. Patients with low back pain that is acute and chronic are routinely referred for extensive diagnostic… Read more »
Many people have fully embraced robotically-assisted surgery, but some fear the use of artificial intelligence in medicine. Maybe that’s due to sci-fi movies depicting computers capable of overtaking humans, or perhaps they simply don’t understand how it can help. Off the big screen, artificial intelligence (AI) is simply programming machines to perform specific tasks as… Read more »
The easiest way to think about a hernia is as a hole in your abdominal wall. Whether at your groin, belly button or an old incision, a hernia is a hole. This allows intra-abdominal contents to protrude through the hole creating a bulge which may be accompanied by pain or discomfort. Hernias tend to be… Read more »
We men seldom talk about our health and are even more reluctant to seek medical assistance. In fact, studies show that 61 percent of men do not engage in regular health checkups, representing a missed opportunity for preventive health care discussions.1 Growing up on a dairy farm in Southeast Minnesota, for me, medical doctors were… Read more »
Cold sores and canker sores, although they may look similar and cause comparable discomfort, are actually completely different conditions. Each has different origins and therefore particular ways they can be treated or prevented. One of the best ways to determine if a lesion is a canker or a cold sore is to see where it… Read more »
Music has the power to move us. It conjures up memories of days and moments gone by and can emit emotions that we may not even know we’re feeling until one particular song moves us to our core. Music can also mend minds. Based out of Los Angeles, Music Mends Minds: Restoring the Rhythm of… Read more »
Every 40 seconds, someone in the U.S. has a stroke and every 3.5 minutes, someone dies from it. Stroke now accounts for one of every 19 deaths in our country. And when someone has a stroke, seconds matter. That is why, over the past five years, JFK Memorial Hospital in Indio has been dedicated to… Read more »
This editorial is offered in response to a November 2019 Desert Sun article regarding Phillip Bretz, MD, of La Quinta. In the article, we learned that the California Medical Board placed Dr. Bretz on probation due to factors related to offering cryoablation or “tumor freezing” to women seeking an alternative to surgery for early stage… Read more »
If you have white spots on your teeth and ever wondered why they are there or what can be done about them, you are not alone. These white spots, called demineralization, can cause some to be self-conscious about their smile. Luckily, advancements in technology have made this condition much easier to treat noninvasively and without… Read more »
Direct primary care (DPC) is a new way of receiving personalized health care from a primary care physician for a small monthly membership fee. In exchange for this fee, patients get unlimited access to their doctor. Depending on your day-to-day needs this can be accomplished by same day or next day in-office visits or, if… Read more »
The gallbladder is a small pouch that sits just under the liver. Its function is to store bile produced by the liver. After eating a fat-rich meal, the gallbladder contracts, emptying its contents into the small intestine to help digest the fat. Gallstones are hardened deposits of digestive fluid that can form in the gallbladder.… Read more »
The rates of chronic diseases occurring worldwide have risen annually for decades and while our conventional medical system is populated by amazing practitioners with the best of intentions, most lack the education and training on lifestyle and diet to provide the best care possible for those suffering from chronic diseases. Indio High School Health and… Read more »
Because our eyes serve many purposes beyond providing visual input, they can be important indicators of other health-related issues. A variety of systemic conditions have ocular manifestations. One overlooked organ that may cause significant changes to the eyes is the thyroid gland which functions as our inner “thermostat,” setting the rate at which our body… Read more »
You may have heard of birth doulas who work with pregnant mothers and have been in our health care system a very long time. Recently, we have begun to look at the other end of the life cycle, one that is hard to think about and even harder to talk about: death. End of life… Read more »
A new report in the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology now ranks Alzheimer’s as the third leading cause of death in our country behind cancer and heart disease.1 It is estimated that 5.5 million Americans are living with the disease and that number is expected to triple by 2050 if no successful… Read more »