The proportion of people taking widely prescribed oral osteoporosis drugs who develop a nasty jaw condition may be much higher than previously thought, a new study suggests. Previous reports had indicated that the risk of developing osteonecrosis of the jaw from bisphosphonates in pill form were "negligible." But an assistant professor of clinical dentistry at the University of Southern California School of Dentistry in Los Angeles, says his clinic is seeing one to four new cases a week, according to a study in the January 1 issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association.
Stark, shared maternity rooms will go the way of outdated wards at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset and Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, where 161 new suites will each include a bassinet for the newborn and a private bathroom. The opening in September of 36 private rooms with hotel-like amenities at Stony Brook University Medical Center, the construction now under way of 88 single suites at Long Island Jewish and plans to build 73 such rooms at North Shore next year are part of a move toward single-occupancy maternity accommodations.
More affluent areas of Massachusetts—not surprisingly—tend to have higher quality nursing homes, according to an Associated Press review of federal data. The AP review of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data found the quality of nursing homes varies widely by region, but better care is often found in areas with higher income levels. The agency studied factors such as staffing levels and annual health inspections before ranking nearly 16,000 nursing homes in the country with one to five stars.
An outpatient surgery center in Las Vegas has notified Nevada authorities that it failed to properly disinfect instruments it uses during procedures. Authorities said there was minimal risk to the clinic's patients. The staff at Specialty Surgicare of Las Vegas, also known as Specialty Surgery Center, realized during a routine maintenance inspection on December 18 that the disinfection cycle on the machine that cleaned the scopes used in colonoscopies and upper-endoscopy procedures was set at one minute instead of five, as the manufacturer recommends.
The decline in mental sharpness is among the most distressing aspects of aging. But a new study suggests that good blood sugar control, even in people without any evidence of diseases such as diabetes, may be an important strategy to maintain healthy brain function in later life.
Fifteen months after promising a federal judge he would surrender his medical license, heart surgeon Alex Zakharia still has a clear license in the state of Florida. The 70-year-old surgeon has admitted in court documents to memory problems that were getting worse. Other court documents have linked his work to ''numerous patient deaths'' at the former Cedars Medical Center, which is now the University of Miami Hospital. In April, Zakharia changed his mind about surrendering his license, and the state filed an administrative complaint to investigate his behavior. That complaint is still working its way through the system.