New Device Helps Paralyzed Walk

Amanda Boxtel hasn’t walked since a skiing accident left her paralyzed nearly two decades ago.
In the video below, she stands and walks for the first time in 18 years using eLegs, a 45-pound wearable robotic exoskeleton aimed at getting paraplegics out of their wheelchairs and onto their feet. It’s an amazing sight.

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San Francisco Health Clinic to Care for Uninsured

After Barbara Quinn, a 72-year-old registered nurse, retired from the Castro-Mission Health Center last year, she considered various volunteer opportunities until she realized she couldn't imagine doing anything that didn't involve nursing. So she teamed up with Clinic by the Bay, a free clinic that opens today to serve uninsured residents in the Excelsior and Outer Mission neighborhoods and parts of Daly City

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Rooftop to Tabletop: Urban Farming Spreads Roots

Eighteen feet above Chicago’s honking city traffic, Mike Repkin stands in a plot of buckwheat, delicate white flowers waving about his waist as an elevated train clatters past at eye level. From this unusual spot, Repkin is farming.

He grows great leafy bunches of kale and chard, stalks of wheat and oats, chubby potatoes, sweet strawberries, and even deep-rooted rhubarb. He grows Jerusalem artichokes for diabetics at the nearby community center and basil to sell at the farmer’s market across the street.

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Insurance Companies Required to Spend More on Patient Care

In 2011 health insurers will have to follow a new set of rules that details how much money they must spend on patients' medical care, according to guidelines the Obama administration released Monday.

The rules are part of the health care reform law, which mandates that insurers spend a minimum of 85 percent of the premiums that they take in on patient care rather than administrative costs or profit (insurers who sell to small groups and individuals will spend a minimum of 80%).

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Toilet Plunger Becomes Portable Wound-Healing Device

In February a wound-care team from Brigham and Women's hospital in Boston traveled to Haiti, to help care for patients suffering from the large open wounds that accompany amputations, crushed limbs, and other injuries.

Among the team was MIT graduate student Danielle Zurovcik, who arrived ready to test a device which uses negative pressure to pull bacteria and fluid out of wounds, and was the crowning achievement for her master’s degree thesis project.

“I was walking through Kmart and saw a row of plungers,” she told AOL News. “I just thought, ‘Wow, that’s exactly what I can use.”

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Tired of watching women pick themselves apart in front of the mirror, 24-year-old blogger Caitlin Boyle scribbled a note on a Post-it — “YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!” — and slapped it on the mirror of a public bathroom. With this one small act, a movement was born. Women of different ages, races, lifestyles and geographic locations began posting encouraging notes of their own. The messages are chronicled in Boyle’s new book, “Operation Beautiful: Transforming the Way You See Yourself One Post-it Note at a Time.”

This excerpt from “Operation Beautiful” highlights the damaging effects of “Fat Talk” and explains how to break free from it.

Watch another video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqOEP40Pmdg&feature=player_embedded#!

Read Entire Article:
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/38560934/ns/today-books/

Visit Operation Beautiful website:
http://operationbeautiful.com/

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A Different Flavor of Food Truck

When I say food truck you may visualize tacos, coffee, or a burger. What about vegies and fruit?

Some clever entrepreneurs are  bringing farm fresh produce to those in both urban and rural areas. They are calling themselves Mobile Farm Trucks or Mobile Farmers’ Markets, and they don’t just cater to high-end shoppers, but provide low-income residents with affordable, fresh produce, grown using sustainable and/or organic methods.

For example, in New York City, the Holton Farms Mobile Farm Truck has taken to the streets with a progressive mobile farm stand, that will operate throughout New York City, to serve as the public and restaurant wholesale clients. "The Farm Truck allows us access to neighborhoods throughout the Five Boroughs without having to open a store.”

The Farm Truck is run by sustainable farmers who partner with other farms and artisan producers to bring other products to its members including ice cream, cheeses, breads, coffee, grains, and soaps. They are accepting Food Stamps and discounting their prices by 20 percent for low-income New Yorkers.

Last year, Maine’s Jordan Farm started a Mobile Farm Stand that travels to senior housing sites in South Portland and to Portland and Scarborough businesses. Using a renovated school bus, they offer the same fresh produce that is available at their farm stand in Cape Elizabeth.

My 2 cents:
Wouldn't it be great if at lunch and after work we could shop from the Mobile Farm Truck parked in the corporate parking lot. Saves time running to the market after work and supports local farmers.

To read the entire article
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/food-health/mobile-farm-trucks-bring-the-produce-to-the-people.html

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Tennessee helps elderly stay in homes

Tennessee has made changes to its health care system which are allowing the elderly and disabled to get the assistance they need in their homes - at a much lower cost than at a nursing home. A lot of this change is the direct result of efforts by Governor Phil Bredesen.

“It’s a good thing to do and it probably can save some costs, but more importantly it really is an easy way to keep an awful lot of people in their homes, which is what I would want. I know it’s what my mother wants,” Bredesen said in an interview with Stateline.

There are many success stories. A 56-year-old Nashville resident named Larry is a good example. He suffered a stroke two years ago and had an amputation. Because his wife could not care for him at home, he reluctantly entered a nursing facility. When the new program began providing training and support services for his wife, Larry was able to go home and spend time with his children and grandchildren.

The AARP, which advocates for the elderly, says that three people can receive long-term care services in the community for the cost of serving just one person in a nursing facility. Still, the big fear in offering more home-based services is that people who never would consider entering a nursing home “will come out of the woodwork” and apply for Medicaid. Surveys have shown that for each patient in a nursing facility, two more with the same level of disability are making do at home.

Alaska, California, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington State now spend more than half of their long-term care dollars on alternatives to nursing facilities.

The new federal health care law — the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — has a chance of changing that. It includes financial incentives for states to spend at least 50 percent of their long-term care dollars on non-institutional services and offers a grant for every person who leaves a nursing home to receive services in the community. Still, experts say the federal dollars may not be enough to persuade some states to make the changes.

Read Article
http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=520026

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Lifestraw - Cleans Yucky Water

This device is so simple and effective you can tell by looking at it that you have found a winner.

The Problem: I was surprised to learn that a shocking 6,000 people die daily from consuming unsafe water.

The Solution: The Danish company Vestergaard Frandsen has created a clever portable water filtration system called the LifeStraw. Designed to be worn around the neck, this life-saving accessory transforms mud puddles into a refreshing sip of water. Best of all, it requires no training to use and lasts for roughly a year (if used by a single person) without any maintenance what so ever.

I'm wondering if this could be used in this country for back packers who need clean water in remote locations.

Read the article:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/10/lifestraw_clean_water.php


Visit the Lifestraw Website:
http://www.vestergaard-frandsen.com/lifestraw

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Recycled Pacemakers Save Lives

Two doctors from the University of Michigan  Cardiovascular Center took a look at the legality and practicality of collecting pacemakers, after a patient has died,  sterilizing them and reusing them. The  devices are used wth patients who live in a country where the price of a pacemaker is prohibitive.

Kim A. Eagle, MD, a cardiologist and a director of the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center, explained that “establishing a validated pacemaker reutilization program could transform a currently wasted resource into an opportunity for a new life for many citizens in the world.”

Eagle notes that small humanitarian efforts have demonstrated that the risk of infection when using recycled pacemakers is the same—less than 2 percent—as implanting a new device. Patients also live as long and have as good a quality of life with a recycled pacemaker as patients who receive a new one.

Even though the cost of new pacemakers is as low as $800 in some foreign markets, this amount is “often more than the annual income of the average worker in underdeveloped nations,” noted Eagle. Cardiovascular disease continues to be an epidemic in these countries and others around the world.

Bill Daem has been doing this without the approval of the medical establishment since the mid 90s. During that time he has sent between 1,400 and 1,600 pacemakers overseas. Many of them were given to children. This new study may help Bill's organization Heart Too Heart expand it's efforts.


Read about the Michigan Study
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101019171900.htm

Bill Daem's recommendations for recycling pacemakers, hearing aides, eyeglasses, etc...
http://www.mywhatever.com/cifwriter/content/19/abcd1675.html

University of Michigan's Project site:
http://www.myheartyourheart.org

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Shamans and Horses Work Magic on Autistic Boy

Rupert Isaacson decided to take his five-year-old  autistic son on a three-week trek across Mongolia on horseback, his wife thought he’d gone crazy.  Rowan was autistic: incontinent, uncommunicative and given to fearsome bouts of nerve-shredding screeching, even at home.

Rupert had noticed that Rowan responded positively to a neighbor's horse, he also had learned about Shaman from Mongolia who were  reported to have strong healing power. He combined the 2 experiences and went to Mongolia in 2007.

“Three months ago he had no maths, now he’s exactly where he should be,” Isaacson says. “He’s started drawing. He’s doing chores to save up for a baby chick. We went away to Mongolia with a kid who was subject to neurological fits, who was incontinent and completely cut off from his peers. He is still autistic, but he’s no longer suffering from these major dysfunctions which were impairing his quality of life – and ours.”

Rowan is seven now. He is educated at New Trails, a special centre set up by his parents near Austin, Texas, with the money from their publishing advance. At the New Trails centre, autistic children are given time to spend with horses, rabbits and goats. One of the problems with the endless round of behavioural and occupational therapy Rowan had in his early years was his rigidity, Isaccson says; at New Trails the children can interact with the animals at their own pace.

Rowan's adventure was filmed and made into a documentary:
Over the Hills and Far Away, a documentary filmed during the journey.
View Trailer here - http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2898395673/

Read an in-depth story here:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article5779851.ece

Rupert wrote a book about the experience - The Horse Boy - available at amazon

The Horse Boy Foundation - http://www.horseboyfoundation.org/

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