When you live in a coastal area, preparing early for potential hurricanes is a must. Storms can develop quickly, leaving little time to figure out where you’ll be safe or which items to pack if you have to evacuate. And health care necessities, such as medications or medical equipment, are often overlooked in the scramble.
Months after actor and comedian Robin Williams took his own life in August 2014, autopsy results revealed he had a devastating disease: Lewy body dementia (LBD). Unlike Alzheimer’s disease and even frontotemporal dementia, this brain disorder has tended to hide in the shadows. But work is underway to change that, says Dr. Stephen Gomperts, an
Are you finding yourself with itchy, irritated skin that you can’t stop scratching? Or have you wondered why your child’s eczema is suddenly worse and so hard to control? Mounting evidence suggests that wildfires, which are increasing in intensity and frequency, contribute to skin problems, including eczema flares. What is eczema? Eczema is a common
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) teaches people to challenge negative thought patterns and turn less often to unhelpful behaviors. These strategies can improve your mood and the way you respond to challenging situations: a flat tire, looming deadlines, family life ups and downs. Yet there’s much more depth and nuance to this well-researched form of psychotherapy.
On the Gulf Coast of Florida where I live, the telltale sign of summer is not an influx of beachcombers, afternoon storms that arrive exactly at 2 p.m., or the first hurricane warning, but the appearance of hundreds of paddleboarders dotting the inlet waters. From afar, paddleboarding looks almost spiritual — people standing on nearly
Picture this: you’re with friends in an unfamiliar forest using only a map and a compass to guide you to an upcoming checkpoint. There are no cell phones or GPS gadgets to help, just good old brainpower fueled by a sense of adventure as you wind through leafy trees and dappled sunlight. This is not
When cancer patients are treated with radiation, it’s possible that the therapy itself may cause new tumors to form in the body later. Radiation kills cancer cells by damaging their DNA, but if the treatments cause genetic damage to normal cells near the radiation target, there’s a small risk that these secondary malignancies may arise
Before going any further, here’s the main thing parents should know about swimming lessons: all children should have them. Every year, over 4,500 people die from drowning in the United States — and, in fact, drowning is the leading cause of death for children ages 1 to 4. Swimming lessons can’t prevent all of those
Americans love their ultra-processed foods, whether they come as cereal (like Cap’n Crunch, a favorite of mine as a kid), snack foods (like Cheetos), entr’es (like hot dogs), or desserts (like Twinkies). Sure, loading your plate with vegetables, fruits, fish, healthful oils, and grains in a Mediterranean-style diet boosts heart and brain health. But if
You’ve probably heard the news: Cicadas are coming. Or — wait — they’re already here. And are they ever! Due to an unusual overlap of the lifecycles of two types (or broods) of cicadas, trillions of cicadas are expected to emerge in the US by the end of June, especially in the Midwest. If you’d