The holidays can be difficult for families dealing with Alzheimer's, especially if the person with the disease is the one who used to be the heart and soul of Christmas.
Testing your hearing is just a phone call away. Doctors hope a cheap, simple at-home test will encourage more people to get their hearing checked, and get help if they need it.
Everything seemed to be going smoothly for Kris Penny, who pulled fiber-optic cables for a living. Then he got a cancer called mesothelioma that's almost always tied to asbestos exposure.
A new app called Be My Eyes pairs blind people with sighted volunteers who help them with daily tasks that require vision, at home and outside. It's part of a new "micro-volunteering" trend online.
Budget cuts and rising costs are imperiling California's programs for people with developmental disabilities. The state had led the nation in providing innovative community based services.
Sophie Sartain watched her grandmother take care of her intellectually disabled aunt, Dona, and thought that she could never be that devoted. Then her son was diagnosed with autism.
A Seattle businessman left most of his fortune to a blindness organization he never contacted in life. Why the gift? Maybe, the evidence hints, to help others take the psychological leap he couldn't.
Doctors were once unquestioned authorities on how aggressively to treat the sickest and most premature babies. Then parents started pushing back for more say. The responsibility can be excruciating.
As families consider how far to push an infant's medical care, a chasm can open between the parents' hopes and what doctors and nurses consider realistic. How do you measure a baby's quality of life?
Elder abuse is underestimated, researchers say, and includes physical, emotional and sexual abuse as well as financial exploitation. Doctors, lawyers or banks are often the first to spot problems.
"You can evaluate the person as a whole," says Dr. Roberta Miller, who has been a home care physician for more than 20 years. The traditional house call may be the future of medicine.
Sometimes neck pain just doesn't go away. Complementary treatments like acupuncture and Alexander Technique can help reduce the pain, a study finds, though they are not miracle cures.
The National Institutes of Health has promised to put more money into research on an illness that many people feel has been dissed by the medical establishment.
An online portal to manage chronic kidney disease sounds great, but poor, older or black people were less likely to use it. That means the shift to e-health could make health disparities worse.
Jail is too dangerous for many defendants found incompetent to stand trial because of illnesses like schizophrenia, judges say. But psychiatric hospitals are now overcrowded and violent, too.
People with Parkinson's and related forms of dementia improved dramatically when they took a leukemia drug called nilotinib. Researchers say the drug seems to help brain cells eliminate toxins.
Now that California has legalized aid in dying, doctors there need to know what to say to patients. They're getting help from doctors in Oregon, who have been answering these questions for decades.
Most people don't need scans or surgery, but they do want relief from lower-back pain. Physical therapy isn't a cure, a study finds, but it did help some people regain mobility more quickly.
Firstborns in Britain are more likely to be nearsighted, a finding that matches other studies. Maybe it's because parents are more likely to push studying than they do with subsequent kids.
People with uncertain prognoses or dementia can't end their lives under California's new medical aid in dying law. Proponents say those limits reflect the uncertainties of death, and of politics.
After months of impassioned debate over the ethics of physician-assisted suicide, California will become the fifth state to allow people who are terminally ill to hasten death with lethal drugs.
Critics say research on fetal tissue is no longer needed to answer crucial medical questions. But National Institutes of Health officials and other scientists say alternatives don't yet measure up.
Many low-income patients can't make multiple visits to the doctor, which is a problem if you're a diabetic trying to get insulin dosing just right. A text-based system made remote reports possible.
After a six-year delay, Medicare proposes to reimburse doctors who hold end-of-life discussions with Medicare patients. The federal program is now soliciting public comments on the idea.
