Breaking News

Uncategorized

Dementia worsens after delirium

Dear Dr. Roach: My 83-year-old sister underwent the simple procedure of replacing her pacemaker battery. She’s also been diagnosed with early signs of dementia. They gave her propofol, and when she woke up, she had extreme vertigo. Since it was an outpatient facility, they dumped her in the emergency room. She spent four days in the ER because there weren’t any beds in the hospital. On the second day, she developed a bad case of delirium. After four days, she had to be transferred to a nursing home, where she spent 17 days trying to recover. She still isn’t 100% as this delirium ...

Minimum wage fail on full view

Not long ago, new kinds of jobs appeared: app-based gig work. They include jobs like dog walking on Rover, Taskrabbit work, DoorDash food delivery, Uber and Lyft driving. Lots of people like gig work. It’s flexible. You work when you want to work. But “workers’ rights” activists and governing socialists don’t like that. Gig workers rarely join unions. They don’t get a minimum wage. “Uber and Lyft exploit their workers” is a headline at MS NOW. “We can’t ignore it.” The Democratic Socialists said they had a solution. Seattle’s city council imposed a $26 ...

Trump’s three retreats are telling

President Trump has been musing about whether he’s the most powerful man in world history, and judging by the results lately, the answer is definitely “no.” It’s certainly true that Trump has technical tools at his disposal that would have astounded famous pre-20th century contenders for the title of most powerful man, whether Caesar, Alexander the Great, Charlemagne or Napoleon. Trump’s power, though, isn’t defined by, say, the precision and explosive punch of the Tomahawk missile. As the leader of a constitutional republic that disperses power and depends ultimately on ...

Northern California jolted by quake

A rural area of Northern California experienced its strongest earthquake since 1940 on Wednesday morning, causing some injuries but no immediate reports of major damage, officials said. The epicenter of the quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 5.6, was about 7 miles northwest of the agricultural town of Willits, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was widely felt, including in the coastal city of Fort Bragg. The initial quake was centered inland about 50 miles east of Fort Bragg at 8:10 a.m. PT, and the USGS said it was about 5 miles deep. The area in Mendocino County dotted ...

Feeling worn down by sister’s constant steamrolling invites

Dear Annie: I moved to northern Florida over a year ago to help care for my parents. My sister has lived in southern Florida for many years, and for as long as I can remember, nearly every conversation with her includes the same question: “When are you coming down?” Before I moved here, she asked it constantly. Once, she and her husband picked me up from the airport, and before we had even left the curb, she asked, laughing, “When are you coming down again?” She knows it irritates me, but she does it anyway. Now that I live in the same state, nothing has changed. It is still, ...

How sleep medication affects stages

Dear Dr. Roach: I have occasional difficulty when going to sleep and/or getting back to sleep. I have tried Ambien, trazodone, clonazepam and Lunesta. All have their pros and cons. My question regards sleep quality. I know there are several stages of sleep that we should go through and that the brain cleans out junk during sleep. Do these sleep aids still allow a person to go through the needed sleep stages and also allow the brain to clean itself? Are any of these meds better or worse than the others for occasional use? — S.H. Answer: How much time we spend in the different stages ...