CHICAGO - A sperm donor passed on a potentially deadly genetic heart condition to nine of his 24 children, including one who died at age 2 from heart failure, according to a medical journal report. Two children, both now teenagers, have developed symptoms and are at risk for sudden cardiac death, the report says. It's the second documented instance of a ...

First it was a 4-month-old Grand Junction boy who was denied health insurance coverage because, at 17 pounds, he was considered overweight. Now comes word that a 2-year-old Erie girl has also been denied coverage because she doesn't weigh enough.

When a mammogram detected a lump in Barbara Laufer's breast, the fear was paralyzing. "You think you're going to die," says Laufer, 40, of Burbank, Calif. Laufer was diagnosed with a perplexing condition called ductal carcinoma in situ, or DCIS, a growth of malignant cells inside the milk ducts of the breast. Though some doctors describe the condition to patients as ...

WASHINGTON - More than 35 million people around the world are living with Alzheimer's disease or other types of dementia, says the most in-depth attempt yet to assess the brain-destroying illness - and it's an ominous forecast as the population grays. The new count is about 10 percent higher than what scientists had predicted just a few years ago, because earlier ...

Three years after she made medical history and was freed from painful insulin injections, 9-year-old Lilly Jaffe is just beginning to understand how much her story changed the course of diabetes research and treatment. Since her breakthrough, 70 other children and several adults in the U.S. also have been able to switch from insulin shots to oral medication. And last month, ...

A bizarre new medical technique may help some victims of impaired vision. While synthetic eyeballs -- either of electronic or organic nature -- advance towards one day replacing vision, scientists are also developing new near-term procedures to save or restore patients' vision. Among these is the osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis, or MOOKP, a bizarre technique that uses a tooth to implant a synthetic lens ...

EBENSBURG -- Nurses at the Ebensburg Center held up signs and handed out leaflets along Route 22 in protest of possible funding cuts for mental health and mental retardation facilities because of the state's budget crisis. The demonstration Tuesday was part of a statewide effort by nurses at state hospitals and mental retardation centers to retain funding they say is necessary ...

Hospital stays are generally considered uncomfortable at best, so nurses at Memorial Hospital in Belleville are working to help alleviate some of the pain. The hospital recently started a pain resource nurse program, which offers nurses extra training in pain management to help their patients become as comfortable as possible. Nurses attend a three-day training session at Northwestern University in Chicago ...

After reviewing 82 studies, Canadian researchers say non-profit nursing homes give better care. The findings of the meta-analysis for thousands of mostly U.S.and some Canadian and Taiwanese nursing homes are published in the British Medical Journal. The studies of mostly U.S. nursing homes, but also some Canadian and Taiwanese nursing homes gauged care using measures such as the need for physical ...

The calls for tort reform and capping of medical malpractice damages have come into play in the current health care reform fight. But mistakes are still occuring at an alarming rate. Read how nurses at one hospital made not one but two errors in a matter of hours involving the same medicine and the tragic results of those errors.

The angry response to provisions for end-of-life counseling in the U.S. House bill to reform health care has been most unfortunate. Professionals who deal closely with terminally ill patients understand all too well the relief such counseling offers patients and their families when they receive accurate information regarding options for care and are given the opportunity to decide what they ...

Edgecombe County Health Department Director Karen Lachapelle updated her Board of Directors Tuesday on the county's H1N1 (swine) flu plans for this fall at the board's meeting in Tarboro. The health director said that so far, nurse practitioners in the county have given their support to volunteer with vaccinations as they're needed. Out of 47 nurses approached by the health department ...

Hawaii never crossed their minds, the women say. Italy, Spain or any of the popular vacation spots in the world didn't either. It was Bolivia where the oncology nurses were going to take their two-week "summer vacation" this year. Bolivia was where they were needed most. Young women were dying of breast and cervical cancer at an alarming rate in the ...

Nearly half of the inmates at the Houston County Jail are on medications, with some of them taking up to 10 drugs a day. The load -- and the consistently full house at the jail -- has led Sheriff Andy Hughes to ask the county commission to increase the hours of the jail pharmacist from 20 hours a month to 20 ...

School nurses all over the country are preparing for the beginning of classes and a new wave of swine flu, with a focus on teaching prevention and preparation to both teachers and students. RN Kathleen Murphy, coordinator of health services for Milwaukee public schools, says nurses will be watching for symptoms and clusters and will use new flu-symptom tracking sheets to ...

In parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo, rape is truly an epidemic. The victims range from children to babies who are only months old to the elderly, and every age in between. if (self['plpm'] && plpm['Mid-Story Ad']) document.write(' Tuesday a group with a Charlottesville connection took its knowledge to the Congo hoping to help the women who suffer every ...

Medical patients in Midland now have a brand new resource when it comes to seeking medical advice. It's called 68-NURSE, and it's a hotline to help guide patients with non-emergency symptoms.

More than seven in ten nurses said that staffing on their unit and shiftis insufficient, and more than half said they are currently considering leaving their position, according to an American Nurses Association (ANA) online poll that drew more than 15,000 responses...