November 2007

Alzheimer’s Awareness
Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive cognitive deterioration that primarily affects older people, and typically shows up with memory difficulties.

Iowa Comprehensive Epilepsy Program
Epilepsy is a generic term used to define a family of seizure disorders affecting more than three million people in the U.S.

Pediatric Gastroesophageal Reflux
Most babies who spit up have no other symptoms and those infants have what we call physiologic reflux or normal infant reflux.

Diabetic Patient Care
Diabetes is a self-managed illness. It is important for people to understand how to take care of their diabetes, to understand the illness, and understand their role.

National Hospice Palliative Care Month
Palliative care offers a multidisciplinary team approach, including nurses, social workers, physicians, music therapists, and chaplains to help patients with chronic or life-threatening illnesses.

Pulmonary Hypertension Awareness Month
Pulmonary hypertension is high blood pressure inside the lungs.

Great American Smokeout
In Iowa, 22.5 percent of high school students and 3.6 percent of middle school students smoke. This is significant because almost 90 percent of adults who are current smokers started before age of 18.

Prematurity Awareness Day
Premature birth is the number one obstetric problem in the nation.

Lung Cancer Awareness Month
Lung cancer is responsible for the most cancer deaths in both men and women throughout the world

Kidney Transplantation
People with kidney failure have options. One option is to go on dialysis.  The other is organ transplantation.

Diabetic Eye Disease 
Diabetic eye disease can affect all parts of the eye, but the retina is the part that is affected most and what most people think of when we refer to diabetic eye disease.

American Diabetes Month
While an estimated 14.6 million Americans have been diagnosed with diabetes, 6.2 million people (or nearly one-third) are unaware they have the disease.