Health News
Features
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How a life-saving transplant transformed my life
| Annemarie Ward shares her journey of keeping hope alive amidst heart disease | NEARLY 15 YEARS AGO, Annemarie Ward was walking the family’s three dogs with her mother Polly and sister Emily when she collapsed. At age seven, Annemarie had suffered a heart attack. She was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or enlargement of the…
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Pop Quiz: Maintaining optimal optical health
| Understanding the causes of low vision and taking precautions as you age | EYESIGHT is a precious thing, and unfortunately there are many threats to optimal optical health. One common eye problem is low vision, and it affects seniors the most. Low vision, in its simplest terms, is any vision loss that interferes with…
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Celebrating Black History Month with a look at local African-Americans in medicine
ALEX ALEXANDER Registered Nurse Bartow Regional Medical Center As a black registered nurse from North Carolina, 56-year-old Alex Alexander has had his run-ins with prejudice. But he’s learned to remember who he is, treat others like his brothers and sisters, forgive, and … not believe everything he hears. “You earn things by your merit and…
Columns
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Virtual Care for Cardiac Patients
The new coronavirus sweeping the world has changed life as we know it. While there is a lot that we don’t know about the virus, we do know that people with heart and other conditions are more likely to get seriously ill from it. At the same time, all of us are concerned about patients getting…
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Health Impacts of Opioid Addiction on Patients
As a spine surgeon, I routinely see various life-threatening consequences of opioid addiction. These could include severe spinal instability and paralysis that develops from infection, that occurs due to intravenous injections of opioids — by patients who are addicted to opioids. These patients typically started by taking that single initial opioid tablet, and quickly developed…
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COVID-19 and the Heart
COVID-19 (coronavirus SARS 2) is obviously an infection that primarily affects the lungs. As we know, this is a pandemic that has affected all our lives. Does it have any cardiac issues directly or indirectly? Direct Problems COVID-19 has been known to cause weakening of the heart in some cases. Thankfully this is rare, but…
