GLENDALE, AZ - Its a common misconception that strokes only occur in the elderly. Twenty-four-year old Sean Corcoran suffered a stroke in June 2011, after he was diagnosed with pancreatitis. I was coughing and vomiting non-stop. I went to St. Josephs and by chance was taken to the neurological floor. Thats when they noticed my motor skills were off because I kept raising my right hand but not my left, Corcoran said. Corcoran was in a coma for three days and when he woke up, he was unable to walk. I was in rehab every single day trying to re-learn with bars on both sides to hold me up. Really it was my obsession with writing and literature that pushed me through it all, Corcoran said. More than a year later, Corcoran walks with a cane for support. Although he cannot work full time, he volunteers at his local public library twice a week to pursue what he loves the most. Luckily the stroke didnt impair my speech or my thought process. The only really noticeable thing is my left hand is clutched tight and I cant really open it. But I still really can do everything that involves reading … Continue reading →

CEDAR FALLS (KWWL) - Stroke is a leading cause of death in the U.S. What you need to know about detection and treatment in Health Plus. At Sartori Memorial Hospital in Cedar Falls, doctors are ready when a brain attack happens. In other words, a stroke. "There's an area of the brain that doesn't get enough blood flow so that area of the brain no longer works," said Dr. Gary Jennett. "So once a stroke alert is raised then an overhead page is raised in the entire hospital and theCT tech is notified, is alerted about this stroke alert," said Dr. Meghna Krishnan, a Sartori radiologist. Stroke is a leading cause of death in the U.S. For stroke survivors, significant disability, paralysis, speech and emotional problems can persist. "Some people do well after a stroke but many times you have some permanent disability either some paralysis on one side of the body or difficulty speaking and it can be so bad that you can lose your independence and end up in a nursing home," said Dr. Jennett. Read the original post: Health Plus: Stroke alert ready when patient calls … Continue reading →

IS NANOMEDICINE the next big thing? A growing number of top drug companies seem to think so. The ability to encapsulate potent drugs in tiny particles measuring billionths of a metre in diameter is opening up new options for super-accurate drug delivery, increasing precision hits at the site of disease with, hopefully, fewer side effects. Three deals struck this year by privately held Bind Therapeutics, together worth nearly $1bn if experiments are successful, highlight a new interest in using such tiny carriers to deliver drug payloads to specific locations in the body. US-based Bind is one of several biotechnology firms that are luring large pharmaceutical makers with a range of smart drug nanotechnologies, notably against cancer. And nanomedicine is also being put to work in diagnosis, with tiny particles used to improve imaging in scanners, as well as rapidly detecting some serious infections. In future, researchers hope to combine both treatment and diagnostics in a new approach dubbed "theranostics" that would allow doctors to monitor patients via their medicines. After much hype but limited clinical success, scientists in the nanotechnology field finally see a turning point. "We have been hearing about the promise of nanomedicine for a long time, but … Continue reading →