Who Is Caring for Grandma? Chances are They've Served Time A recent Inspector General report reveals some disturbing news about America's nursing homes. It found that over 90% of all nursing homes employ at least one convicted criminal. In June of 2009, government investigators ran background checks on over 250 nursing homes that are typical examples of the 728 Medicare-certified facilities across the country. 92% of the nursing homes in the study employ at least one convict. Most convicts employed by nursing homes have committed non-violent, property crimes like ...

Minnesota's Failed Civil Commitment Program For Sex Offenders A report from the Office of the Legislative Auditor released in March of 2011 points to massive problems with the civil commitment program, which was designed to rehabilitate sex offenders. Some of the findings of the report: -The number of civilly committed sex offenders in the Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP) nearly quadrupled during the last decade and is expected to nearly double over the next ten years. -Minnesota is one of 20 states with civil commitment programs for sex offenders and, in ...

Alimony Waivers and Premarital Agreement Options The discussion below is neither a complete analysis nor complete review of alimony or Premarital Agreements, but rather a very general discussion, and it is not intended as legal advice for any particular person. Premarital Agreements are gaining popularity among a wide range of couples. Couples planning to marry have the right to waive alimony in premarital agreements, and if the waiver is clear and unambiguous, the waiver will be enforceable at the time of dissolution of marriage. The only exception being if the waiver ...

What is a 341 Meeting? Named for the section in which it's housed in the Bankruptcy code, a 341 meeting, also called the meeting of creditors, is an opportunity for the bankruptcy trustee to ask you about your bankruptcy filing as well as for any of your creditors to come forward and object to your request for relief. That may sound scary, but keep reading: it's not as bad as you think! The 341 meeting may be the only hearing that you will have related to your Arizona Chapter 7 bankruptcy. There is no need to worry or be anxious about this meeting; the bankruptcy trustee ...

In this week's PLoS Medicine, Kathryn Chu, from Médecins Sans Frontières in Cape Town, South Africa, and colleagues describe the experiences of MSF after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and discuss how to improve delivery of surgery in humanitarian disasters. To avoid the supply delays, lack of appropriately experienced surgeons, and duplication and fragmentation of services that characterized the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, they propose the formation of the Emergency Surgery Coalition (ESC), a group consisting of organizations with extensive experience in delivering ...

Researchers have been examining the diverse behaviours of caterpillars to find solutions for the new generation of search and rescue soft robots. Despite their extreme flexibility and adaptability, current soft-bodied robots are often limited by their slow speed, leading the researchers to turn to terrestrial soft-bodied animals for inspiration. Some caterpillars have the extraordinary ability to rapidly curl themselves into a wheel and propel themselves away from predators. This highly dynamic process, called ballistic rolling, is one of the fastest wheeling behaviours ...

In a large, traffic-congested city in China, severe heart attack patients received treatment faster and had better long-term results when interventional physicians were taken to them, according to a study in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. The REVERSE-STEMI study involved 334 patients who had suffered a ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), a severe form of heart attack. The patients were initially brought to one of five hospitals, all in Shanghai, China, that didn't have specialists who could perform primary ...

In contrast to previous preliminary data, use of vitamin E or the diabetes drug metformin was not superior to placebo on a measured outcome for treating nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in children and adolescents, according to a study in the April 27 issue of JAMA. "Coincident with the rise in prevalence of childhood and adolescent obesity over the past few decades, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has become the most common cause of chronic liver disease in children in the United States," according to background information in the article. NAFLD encompasses ...

This Mother's Day, Fort Worth restaurant, Chef Point Cafe, is giving moms a real treat with a special menu devoted to this holiday. This day, dedicated to matriarchs, is for enjoying family and what better way to do that then with a fabulous meal in a fine dining restaurant renowned for world-class cuisine? Find out what Mother's Day means, then see how dining together over a special feast celebrates each doting mother who went above and beyond her maternal duties. The tradition of honoring mothers on a particular day is traced back to ancient Grecian times. Modern etiquette ...

An examination of medication adherence among children with newly diagnosed epilepsy found that nearly 60 percent showed persistent nonadherence during the first 6 months of therapy, and that lower socioeconomic status was associated with higher non-adherence, according to a study in the April 27 issue of JAMA. Epilepsy, a disorder of recurrent unprovoked seizures, affects 325,000 children younger than 15 years in the United States. "Because of epilepsy's common occurrence, the narrow therapeutic and safety margins of antiepileptic medications, and the recognized complications ...

An examination of health literacy (such as understanding basic health information) among managed care patients with heart failure, a condition that requires self-management, found that nearly one in five have low health literacy, which was associated with a higher all-cause risk of death, according to a study in the April 27 issue of JAMA. Health literacy is the degree to which individuals can obtain, process and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions, as defined by the Institute of Medicine. According to background ...

In an analysis of data from a coronary care registry in Sweden, between 1996-2007 there was an increase in the prevalence of use of evidence-based invasive procedures and pharmacological therapies for treatment of a certain type of heart attack, and a decrease in the rate of death at 30 days and one year after a heart attack for these patients, according to a study in the April 27 issue of JAMA. Although recent population-based studies indicate a reduction in incidence, ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI; a certain pattern on an electrocardiogram following a heart ...

Among obese patients, activation of the protein biomarker CTNNB1 was associated with better colorectal cancer-specific survival and overall survival, whereas post-diagnosis physical activity was associated with better colorectal cancer-specific survival among patients negative for CTNNB1, according to a study in the April 27 issue of JAMA. Activation of the WNT signaling pathway (a network of proteins known for their roles in cancer) and cadherin-associated protein beta-1 (CTNNB1; [beta-catenin]) plays a critical role in colorectal carcinogenesis. Accumulating evidence ...

PHILADELPHIA -- Several genes have been linked to ALS, with one of the most recent called FUS. Two new studies in PLoS Biology, one from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and the other from colleagues at Brandeis University, both examined FUS biology in yeast and found that defects in RNA biology may be central to how FUS contributes to ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease. These findings point to new targets for developing drugs. Proteins aggregate to form insoluble clumps in the brain and spinal cord of ALS patients. In some instances of ALS, the clumping ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Teens are rarely described as stable, so when something about their rapidly changing brains remains placidly unaltered, neuroscientists take notice. Such is the case in a new study of electroencephalography (EEG) readings gathered from dozens of teens while they slept. Despite the major neural overhaul underway during adolescence, most individuals maintained a unique and consistent pattern of underlying brain oscillations. The work lends a new level of support to the idea, already observed in adults, that people produce a kind of brainwave ...

Hospitals and physician practices that form care-coordinating networks called "Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs)," under provisions of the new health-care law could reap cost-savings and other benefits. However, experts at Johns Hopkins and the University of Pennsylvania warn that such networks could potentially be designed to exclude minorities and widen disparities in health care. In a commentary appearing in the April 27 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, a Johns Hopkins physician says that as a result of new provisions in the Patient Protection ...

Coastal Kids Dental & Braces is proud to announce that Dr. Isabel Driggers, Owner and Founder of Coastal Kids Dental & Braces, was selected as the South Carolina representative by the AAPD to attend the 2011 Congressional Lobby Day. This is the 2nd year that Dr. Isabel has attending the AAPD Lobby Day as the SC representative. As part of the AAPD Congressional Lobby Day, Dr. Isabel visited Washington, DC and met with the offices of Senators Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint and Congressmen Tim Scott and Jim Clyburn to discuss current issues in Pediatric Dentistry ...

Astronomers may now know the cause of an historic supernova explosion that is an important type of object for investigating dark energy in the universe. The discovery, made using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, also provides strong evidence that a star can survive the explosive impact generated when a companion star goes supernova. The new study examined the remnant of a supernova observed by the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe in 1572. The object, dubbed Tycho for short, was formed by a Type Ia supernova, a category of stellar explosion useful in measuring astronomical ...

OTTAWA, ONTARIO, CANADA — Canada needs a national pharmacare program and federal leaders must commit adequate funding, states an editorial in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/doi/10.1503/cmaj.110643. Unlike many countries in Europe and Australia and New Zealand, Canada lacks a national pharmacare program that provides consistent coverage across all regions of the country. Currently, drugs that are covered in some provinces may not be in others. "The inevitable consequence is that some people are prevented from getting the drugs they ...

Men and women had starkly different immune system responses to chronic post-traumatic stress disorder, with men showing no response and women showing a strong response, in two studies by researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco. While a robust immune response protects the body from foreign invaders, such as bacteria and viruses, an over-activated response causes inflammation, which can lead to such conditions as cardiovascular disease and arthritis. In a study published in the March, 2011 issue of Brain, Behavior, ...

While wind turbines primarily are a source of renewable energy, they also produce wakes of invisible ripples that can affect the atmosphere and influence wind turbines downstream -- an issue being researched in a newly launched study led by the University of Colorado Boulder's Julie Lundquist, assistant professor in the atmospheric and oceanic sciences department. The study, called the Turbine Wake and Inflow Characterization Study, or TWICS, also includes researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable ...

Brandeis researchers have made a significant advance in the effort to understand amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) by successfully reversing the toxicity of the mutated protein in the familial type of the disease. Currently there is no cure or prevention for the disease, which affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Most frequently referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease, after its most famous victim, ALS typically causes death due to respiratory paralysis within three to five years of onset. The only approved drug, Riluzole, can extend the lifespan of some ...

Exotic bacteria that do not rely on oxygen may have played an important role in determining the composition of Earth's early atmosphere, according to a theory that UChicago researcher Albert Colman is testing in the scalding hot springs of a volcanic crater in Siberia. He has found that bacteria at the site produce as well as consume carbon monoxide, a surprising twist that scientists must take into account as they attempt to reconstruct the evolution of Earth's early atmosphere. Colman, an assistant professor in geophysical sciences, joined an American-Russian team ...

The Europe wide figures for new car sales across Europe fell by nearly 2 percent in the first quarter of the year. Whilst some countries experienced an increase a number of factors, including economic troubles in Portugal and Greece contributed to the overall reduction. Within the top five markets: Spain, Italy and Great Britain all experienced negative retail figures for new car sales. Whilst this is gloomy news for much of the Motor Trade (particularly within the UK), there have been some brands that have bucked the trend. Alfa Romeo sales have increased 60 percent ...

A low pressure area currently over northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin has created conditions that call for a forecast of severe weather in the eastern third of the U.S. today and one area is even labeled "high risk." The GOES-13 Satellite captured a visible image of the system today as daytime heating was boiling up strong and severe thunderstorms. What's unusual about the system is that there are a handful of days where a "high risk" for severe weather is noted by NOAA's National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL). Today, April 26, 2011 is one of them. The high risk ...