What to tell your young teen about their shot at the COVID-19 vaccine
Michael Merschel, American Heart Association News
May 13, 2021
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Approval of a COVID-19 vaccine for people as young as 12 offers parents more than the opportunity to protect their kids. It offers them a chance to be a guide.
Adolescents might be wondering whether vaccines are safe or even necessary. They also might be struggling with conflicting information from their peers about those very issues.
That is why the most important thing a parent can do right now is listen, said Francesca Penner, a clinical psychology resident who will do postdoctoral work at Yale University s Child Study Center in New Haven, Connecticut.
5 things to know about blood pressure before it s a problem
Michael Merschel, American Heart Association News
May 12, 2021
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Blood pressure is more than just numbers your doctor writes on a chart.
To explain it, Dr. Shawna Nesbitt, medical director of the Hypertension Clinic at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, talks about plumbing.
Think of blood vessels as pipes in a house, she said. Those pipes feed blood to the whole body. If the pressure in them gets too high, it can damage the pipes or whatever they connect to – such as the heart, brain or kidneys. Controlling it doesn t just matter to one of those organs. It matters to all of those organs, said Nesbitt, also a professor of medicine and associate dean of student diversity and inclusion at UT Southwestern Medical Center.
47-year-old came home from a work trip and had two strokes
Deborah Lynn Blumberg, American Heart Association News
May 11, 2021
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After back-to-back work trips, Stephanie Gerding came home on a Saturday completely exhausted. She had a headache and neck pain, but she thought a good night s sleep was all she needed to bounce back.
In the middle of the night, she woke to use the bathroom. As soon as I got up, the world was tilted, said the Seattle-based small business owner and mother of one. I knew something terrible was happening. I looked at my husband, and I told him to call 911.
These concrete steps could help fight racism in health care
Michael Merschel, American Heart Association News
May 11, 2021
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Doctors, hospitals and medical schools should take specific actions to fight the structural racism that threatens the health of millions of Americans, according to a new report meant to help guide the medical establishment.
Among the recommendations, which are part of the 2020 American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology Consensus Conference on Professionalism and Ethics report:
– Medical schools should require first-year students to take a course on social justice, race and racism, and trainees should spend time immersed in the communities they serve.
College athletes with COVID-19 rarely have heart complications, small study finds
American Heart Association News
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College athletes with COVID-19 rarely had heart complications and could safely return to playing sports after recovery, according to new research.
Even those with abnormal cardiac test results showed no evidence of heart damage, according to the small study, published Monday in the American Heart Association journal Circulation. Most athletes had mild symptoms that did not require treatment.
This study confirms research published last month in Circulation, which found no cardiac problems related to COVID-19 infections in more than 3,000 college athletes during short-term clinical surveillance. Those findings also suggested athletes who had mild or no symptoms could safely resume playing sports without cardiac testing.