Stroke Archive

Studies have shown that doing any one of certain activities, such as staying physically active and maintaining social ties, helps maintain brain health in older adults. A new study suggests that participating in multiple kinds of these activities, several times a week, may help even more.

Teeth-grinding during sleep is common. People with the habit may wake up with sore teeth, headache, or earache. Over time, it can lead to broken teeth or jaw pain and clicking. A dentist can create a fitted mouth guard or prescribe muscle relaxants.

Recent guidelines suggest a blood pressure reading of less than 120/80 mm Hg as normal. But the ideal number for individuals depends on their individual goals and whether they also have a chronic condition, such as heart disease or kidney disease.

Science has shown that when people multitask, they become more easily distracted and less productive, score lower on tests for recalling information, and make more errors. Older adults especially struggle with multitasking because aging brains have more trouble blocking distractions. The solution is to monotask by focusing on only one job until it's completed. Methods for monotasking include prioritizing tasks, blocking distractions, and working in intervals.

A randomized trial published May 14, 2022, in The Lancet found that people with heart disease who ate a Mediterranean diet for seven years had a 26% lower risk of having a heart attack or stroke, compared with people who ate a low-fat diet.

Heart failure symptoms, such as being tired or out of breath, gaining weight, or having swollen ankles, can be overlooked and attributed to other causes. As a result, heart failure is not usually diagnosed until months or years later, when a person is hospitalized for it. By that point, the risk for dying from heart failure has already risen significantly, sometimes higher than the risk of death from cancer. Someone who has potential heart failure symptoms should talk to a doctor, especially if symptoms are new and if the person has diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, or an unhealthy lifestyle.

Supervised exercise therapy (SET) for peripheral artery disease (PAD) requires pushing through pain while walking to improve blood flow through narrowed blood vessels in the legs. SET can work as effectively as surgical procedures to improve the calf pain and cramping of PAD. SET is a treadmill-based program overseen by clinicians at a health care facility. Home-based SET can work comparably at improving symptoms, but only if PAD patients walk at a faster pace and continue the regimen long-term.

Humans' relationship with music is complex and individual, and there are times when music can have a clear and immediate impact on our well-being. Music therapy uses music as a therapeutic tool to address certain health care goals.

More than two years after COVID-19 reached the US, an outbreak of monkeypox is spreading fast outside of Africa. This virus is not new, and it's likely to be less dangerous than COVID, but it's still important to be aware of its symptoms, spread, treatment, and prevention.

The monkeypox outbreak currently traveling around the globe is the largest ever recorded outside of western and central Africa. Controlling this virus demands preventive measures, and one method that has worked to contain previous disease outbreaks may be effective for monkeypox as well.