Guides to Patient-Doctor Communications

• Ten Things Every Senior Should Know About Doctor-Patient Communication
• Three Questions Every Senior Should Always Ask Their Doctor
• The Index Card Solution: Patient-Doctor Communications
• NEW Keep Your Own Doctor Records

SeniorNet Guides to General Health Issues

• Healthy Habits There's no need to become a health-obsessed nut. But the fact is, you're never to old to adopt some healthier habits. 
• Food First Supplements should be supplemental! 
• Chronic Conditions Bad news: You have high blood pressure, or diabetes, or asthma, or heart disease, or any one of dozens of chronic diseases. How do you cope? 
• How To Search the Web for Trustworthy Health Information Health sites abound on the World Wide Web, but some of the medical information on these sites is questionable, or even hazardous. 

SeniorNet Guides to Specific Conditions

• Cancer: How to Get the Best Cancer Care A cancer diagnosis is like being pushed out of a helicopter into a jungle war with no training, no maps, and no idea how to survive. 
• Cataracts Cataracts are a major cause of vision loss, and 4 million people have them in the United States. 
• Cholesterol Cholesterol has a nasty reputation as a major risk factor for heart disease, but it's not all bad 
• Constipation The commercials call it irregularity, or feeling sluggish, or out of sorts. Euphemisms aside, if you feel constipated, you have plenty of company. 
• Depression When sadness never returns to gladness, it becomes the nation's leading mental health problem, 'clinical' or 'major' depression. 
• Diabetes At least 16 million Americans have diabetes, the nation's fourth leading cause of death. The good news is that most people with diabetes have the power to keep themselves healthy and free of the disease's potentially fatal complications. 
• Flu Like the common cold, the flu is an upper respiratory viral infection. But that's where the similarities end. The flu, short for "influenza," is often much more severe.  
• Glaucoma There’s a good reason why this condition is called “the silent thief of sight.” Glaucoma is one of the nation’s leading causes of blindness.  
• Heart: Congestive Heart Failure To many people, the term "heart failure" implies that your heart is on the verge of calling it quits, but in medical jargon, "failure" means chronic fatigue. 
• Heart Disease The stereotype is that heart disease--mostly heart attack--is a man’s disease. Actually, it’s the leading cause of death for both men and women. 
• Hemorrhoids If you have hemorrhoids, join the uncomfortable club. At some point in life, an estimated one-third of U.S. adults--some 80 million people--suffer the rectal pain and bleeding that they cause, and spend $200 million a year on products to treat them. 
• Hypertension: High Blood Pressure High blood pressure is a major risk factor for stroke, heart disease, kidney damage, and glaucoma, and it's a national epidemic among seniors. 
• Insomnia Maybe you can't fall asleep. Or perhaps you fall asleep easily, but wake up at 3 a.m. and can't fall back asleep. Or maybe you wake up and fall asleep several times each night, but rarely get one long, uninterrupted stretch of restful, refreshing sleep. All these problems are insomnia. 
• Macular Degeneration Macular degeneration is a loss of central vision (what's right in front of you). Macular degeneration is the nation's leading cause of serious vision impairment 
• Osteoarthritis  Arthritis means “joint inflammation.” It’s not a disease. It’s a symptom of more than a dozen conditions, for example, Lyme disease, bursitis, and fibromyalgia. 
• Osteoporosis Osteoporosis is an age-related condition that causes a loss of bone mass, and increased brittleness of remaining bone tissue.  
• Prostate Enlargement Prostate growth might signal prostate cancer, a leading cause of men’s cancer deaths. That’s why men over 45 should have annual prostate exams. But most midlife prostate growth is noncancerous, medically known as benign prostatic hypertrophy or BPH (“benign” means noncancerous, “hypertrophy” means enlarged).  
• Stress/Anxiety Frequently, everything is going along just fine, and then suddenly, you find yourself a victim of forces beyond your control. Feelings of victimization and loss of control are a one-way ticket to the kind of stomach-churning stress that wreaks havoc with both mind and body. 
• Stroke More than 300 years ago, physicians noticed that some people, almost always the elderly, suddenly keeled over dead or paralyzed, often after complaining of headaches, dizziness, or weakness. These attacks seemed to come out of the blue, like a“stroke of bad luck,” so they named the condition what they called any sudden, unexpected event, a“stroke.” 
• Varicose Veins “Varicose” comes from the Latin word, varix, meaning twisted. The name fits: Spidery blue varicose veins certainly look twisted as they spread across the legs. In addition to twisting, varicose veins also become enlarged (dilated), and the valves inside them stop working properly. 
• Weight Loss No doubt you’ve heard the grim statistics: Of those who enroll in commercial weight-loss programs, 70 percent don’t complete them. Ditto for half of those in medically supervised weight-loss programs. And here’s the real killer: Nine out of 10 dieters who lose weight regain most or all of it within five years. It’s enough to send you to the freezer case for a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.  

Web Resources for Health

• Health Web Resources A guide to selected Health sites on the web 
• Flu Pandemic Information Plan for National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza  
• Health Matters Information & Resources

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