Early allergy season a doozy Posted on September 8, 2014September 8, 2014 by Dakota PikeBless you! Allergy season is a doozyFriday, June 20, 2014By Leah Trouwborst CAPITAL REGION — After a long winter, the Capital Region emerged from flu season only to walk right into the waiting arms of a very aggressive allergy season.“I’m kind of overbooked,” says Dr. M. Asghar Pasha of the Division of Allergy and Immunology at Albany Medical Center. He blames the long winter for raising pollen levels. “Everything blossomed all together instead of blossoming gradually — one pollen on top of another — so the patient is hit with a large amount of pollen at one time.”Trees usually release pollen well before June, but cold temperatures delayed the budding process this year. Add to that the grass pollen which June always brings, and you’ve described the double whammy now hitting the Capital Region. (Ragweed, the third major type of pollen, won’t peak until August.)Along with nonseasonal allergens like mold and animal dander, tree and grass pollen have triggered unusually severe allergy attacks in the Capital Region. According to Pasha, Albany Medical Center has seen “a significant influx of patients calling and complaining about [allergy] symptoms, saying their medications aren’t working, et cetera.”Even though 2012 and 2013 saw quite a few complaints about bad allergies, Pasha considers 2014 to be even worse. “If you had to put a number on it, 20 percent to 30 percent more patients reported symptoms of allergies [than last year]. If I look at my schedule, I can tell you that,” he says.Dr. Suzanne Palmieri, a primary care physician at Ellis Medical Group, points to wet weather as another contributing factor behind this severe allergy season. Not only was it a rainy spring, but beforehand “we had a lot of snowfall late in the winter. That provides a lot of water for the trees, and that increases pollen count.”Adding a third factor behind pollen levels, Dr. David Shulan of Certified Allergy and Asthma Consultants brings up a simple science fact, one that people forget affects pollen levels: the law of gravity. “We’re in a valley, and that concentrates the pollen,” he explains. Reforestation has armed the mountains with even more pollen to send wafting down on lower ground.Both Shulan and Dr. Lawrence Horowitz, chief of pediatrics at Nathan Littauer Hospital in Gloversville, express less concern over the current allergy season than over a larger trend in the Capital Region. “Over the last 30 years, there’s definitely been an increase in pollen levels,” Horowitz says. Shulan agrees that he’s seen “a general increase of [allergy] patients over a 24-year period.”But why? Shulan suspects rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have increased pollination. But Horowitz believes that the cause of the trend is twofold, both the climate and the human body’s ability to tolerate the climate. “As we get healthier, we may be having more of an allergy problem,” says Horowitz. “It’s a trade-off.”One Capital Region resident is putting up a fight against pollen. Patrice Jordan, who lives in Schenectady and works as a substitute teacher in Niskayuna, enlisted some help. “Yesterday my kids came over and washed my car for me. It was all covered with that yellow gunk,” she says. According to Shulan, very few are actually allergic to the pine pollen that resembles yellow gunk, even though we associate it with sneezing.But Jordan’s allergies qualify as severe. She says childhood doctors, adhering to now-outdated wisdom, kept her from taking ballet classes in fear of an allergic reaction. Now, nearing her 60th birthday, she credits a cutting-edge prescription medication for allowing her to spend hours at a time in her garden. “It costs $600 per treatment” but “it’s made a tremendous difference,” she says.Straightening up from her flower bed, she says “my allergies still go nuts” when the flowers bloom in her yard. Extending her left arm, she shows me where a patchy rash has bloomed. Nevertheless, she’s decided over the years that being outside is worth the tradeoff. Anyone looking at her garden would be likely to agree; amid the other yards, Jordan’s gives the impression of an oasis in a desert.For those still working out a strategy to combat their allergies, a few simple changes can help outsmart pollen. Installing a window air conditioner “can cut the pollen and mold in the [home] by 90 percent,” according to Shulman. If you’re tempted to substitute a window fan for an air-conditioner, keep Palmieri’s warning in mind: “Those window fans tend to pull the pollen into the house.”Finally, if summertime to you means open windows, wait until after 11 a.m. to crack them open. Plants release most of their pollen in the early-morning hours.
Littauer applauds measure proposed by Sen. Schumer Posted on September 8, 2014September 8, 2014 by Dakota PikeMeasure targets physician shortage June 6, 2014 By ARTHUR CLEVELAND , The Leader HeraldU.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., says the number of primary care physicians is falling across the region, and he is proposing a measure to increase the numbers.In a news release this week, Schumer announced the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act, which he said would increase the number of Medicare-supported physician training residency slots by 15,000 over the next several years. Schumer said there has been a steady decline in the number of doctors in rural areas, with New York only meeting 40 percent of its primary care needs. He said 65 percent of rural communities reported they do not have enough doctors to serve their community.Currently, Medicare provides funding for hospitals to host a specific number of residents at a given time through Graduate Medical Education funding. Schumer’s legislation would allow Medicare to fund an additional 3,000 slots each year for five years, and priority would be given to hospitals serving areas that face a shortage of physicians. Under Schumer’s plan, hospitals in states that emphasize training in community health centers, community-based settings or hospital outpatient departments would receive preference when applying for additional support to host physician residents. “We have tremendous doctors providing top-notch care all across upstate New York, but we no longer have as many primary care physicians as we need,” said Schumer.“Unfortunately, in upstate New York, our hospitals and community health centers are losing these primary care physicians left and right, as many are beginning to age out of the profession, and they are unable to hire replacements at the same pace, as new doctors frequently choose to go into more lucrative specialty fields or gravitate to more urban areas,” Schumer said. According to Schumer, in a 2010 survey by the Center for Health Workforce Studies at the University at Albany, the average primary care physicians per 100,000 people in New York was 75. In 2013, it dropped to 63. Fulton County’s numbers dropped from 90 in 2010 to 82 in 2013, and Montgomery County’s fell from 80 to 69. Nathan Littauer Hospital in Gloversville and St. Mary’s Healthcare in Amsterdam both say they have no major shortage of physicians.“At Littauer, we are currently not experiencing the same level of difficulty recruiting physicians as many other upstate hospitals are during this shortage,” according to a statement from Littauer. “All our physician staffing needs are filled with the exception of one or two in the emergency room. However, we applaud Sen. Schumer for addressing this problem happening throughout upstate.”Jerri Cortese, spokeswoman for St. Mary’s Healthcare, said, “We have experienced some of the same issues for recruiting into the area.” However, Cortese said, St. Mary’s has a sufficient number of physicians and midlevel providers.Fact Box Dropping Below are the number of primary care physicians per 100,000 people in area counties in 2010 and 2013, according to U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer’s office. Fulton, from 90 in 2010 to 82 in 2013. Montgomery, from 80 to 69. Rensselaer, from 82 to 69. Saratoga, from 74 to 65. Schenectady, from 91 to 64.
Nathan Littauer’s spine surgery featured on WNYT Posted on May 21, 2014May 21, 2014 by Dakota PikeThe media frequently cover the innovations occurring at Nathan Littauer Hospital.Recently, Nathan Littauer hosted health reporter and Anchor, Benita Zahn of WNYT New Channel 13 for a spine surgery. She came to cover some of the innovative approaches we employ to alleviate back pain under Dr. Jain Shen. Benita interviewed the patient before his surgery and ultimately went into the OR suite to film a robotic- assisted surgery. The patient did very well and her story can be found here:http://wnyt.com/article/stories/S3443364.shtml?cat=300
NLH’s “Falls and Prevention” program earns media attention Posted on April 28, 2014 by Dakota PikeBalancing ActExercise, environment important in senior fall preventionApril 20, 2014By BRIAN McELHINEY , The Leader HeraldGLOVERSVILLE – City resident Doris Clo, 82, is lucky. When she fell while taking out the garbage this winter, she was not hurt.“I do things now because my husband cannot, because of his balance,” Clo said, after attending HealthLink Littauer’s Improve Balance & Prevent Falls program at the Fulton County YMCA on Wednesday. “So [I] was getting the garbage can out of the ice, and it came faster than I thought it would, so basically, I fell backward. I did not hurt anything.”The fall was one of the reasons Clo attended the program, along with nearly 30 other seniors and caregivers. Clo has an artificial hip and knee, she said, and her husband, Lou, suffers from neuropathy, which affects balance.Article PhotosHildegard Cooper, left, a short-term resident at Nathan Littauer Hospital & Nursing Home receiving rehabilitation therapy, walks with Kirsten Lennon, Littauer’s coordinator of occupational therapy, Thursday. Photo submitted“I wanted him to come,” she said. “When I did fall this winter, it helped to be able to know how to get back up again. So I wanted to learn more, too.”Many seniors who suffer falls don’t end up as lucky. According to information provided by Nathan Littauer Hospital at the program, nearly 2 million emergency room visits per year are due to falls.“I would say 50 percent of folks that made it into a nursing home, did so post-fall,” said physical therapist William Oates, Nathan Littauer Hospital’s rehabilitation director and one of the presenters at the program.HealthLink, in cooperation with the Y and the Fulton County Office For Aging, has offered the Improve Balance & Prevent Falls program for about four years now, according to Sue Cridland, Littauer’s director of community education.“[A fall] can be such a life-changing event, so anything we can do to help prevent that is really important,” Cridland said.Physical activity is the most important method seniors can use to prevent falls, Cridland said. For seniors who are frail or unsteady, she recommended an evaluation by a physical therapist before starting any exercise program.The Y will offer a number of exercise programs in its Spring II session, which begins Monday and runs through June 8. A specific course dedicated to fall prevention, Balance & Stability For Fall Prevention, will be offered Mondays from 10:30 to 11:15 a.m.“That kind of program that is run here at the Y is wonderful, and the other piece of that, when you have a class, is that you have the whole socialization thing going on, which is also really, really important,” Cridland said. “One of the fellows that I just walked out with now that was going to sign up, he says, ‘You know, I’m 92 and I just don’t get out that much in the winter anymore, so I think this would be good for me.'”Oates sees patients for rehabilitation after falls, as well as patients who come in looking to proactively avoid falling. He said he likes to focus on awareness of the aging process – slower reaction times, lowered visual coordination and other balance-affecting afflictions – when developing a balanced training regimen for seniors to do at home.“One of the things I do like to concentrate on with someone who is beginning to have impaired balance is the strength of the ankle,” Oates said. “That’s the first recovery point. If you’re standing up straight and you start to fall backward, the first thing the body does is lift its toes off the ground to try to get you back into a neutral posture.”Environmental factors should also be considered in fall prevention. Margaret Luck, coordinator for the Lifeline program at Littauer and Fulton County coroner, talked about things around the home that can be changed to prevent falls, including keeping walking areas in free of obstacles; installing hand rails in stairways and bathrooms; and rearranging kitchen storage so that items are more easily accessible.“We can’t go up on ladders and be as sturdy as we used to be reaching for things, so it’s important that [seniors] look at their home,” Luck said.The Lifeline program itself can be an important way to avoid serious injuries from falls. The program equips seniors’ homes with a box and portable sensor button, so that if the senior does suffer a fall, he or she can push the button to alert paramedics.Littauer has offered the program for 25 years now, and the technology continues to improve. An Auto Alert system was introduced to the program about a year ago. The Auto Alert sensor will detect if a senior does not recover from a fall, and automatically alerts paramedics after 40 seconds, Luck explained.“It’s getting more popular,” Luck said. “Time matters. When somebody falls, the longer they’re down, the longer it takes to recover, and Lifeline has proven this fact over 25 years, that if they can get help right away to get back up, the recovery time is a lot less.”Clo said she is hoping to put the information provided in the course Wednesday to good use.“I want to try the strengthening exercises, and I want my husband to try the balancing exercises,” she said.
Littauer featured in “State of Health” Posted on April 28, 2014 by Dakota PikeState Of HealthNew budget well-received by area officials, though some uncertainty remainsApril 13, 2014By BRIAN McELHINEY , The Leader HeraldMost years, when the New York state budget is announced, Nathan Littauer Hospital expects to lose funding. That didn’t happen this year.“This budget’s different in that there’s usually all this negative, and there isn’t,” Nathan Littauer Hospital CEO Laurence Kelly said.The state’s 2014-15 budget will reinvest $8 billion from a federal Medicaid waiver announced in February for projects to improve the health care system, according to a release from the state Senate. There also were no cuts in hospital reimbursement for Medicaid patients, Kelly said.Article PhotosSenior technologist Elishiba Frasier, left, performs a Dexa-Scan to test for bone density on patient Kaytie Compani at Nathan Littauer Hospital in Gloversville on Thursday. Photo by Bill Trojan/The Leader-Herald“That just means that we can do everything that we usually do and not have to scramble to try to be forced to reduce expenses when we didn’t want to,” Kelly said. “We’re looking to do that all the time anyway, to provide more services. … Most years we’re getting a 1 percent, 2 percent cut, 3 percent cut.”The budget also includes funding for a number of health care programs, including $4.1 million to the Elderly Pharmaceutical Insurance Coverage program and other senior services; a $1.2 billion capital investment over seven years for restructuring health care facilities; and $163 million for early intervention programs, according to the Senate release. According to the release, along with funding for other health initiatives, including cancer services programs and the Nutritional Information for Women, Infants and Children program, the budget also includes the Safe Patient Handling Act, which requires hospitals to establish a program to prevent injuries to staff and patients during patient transport.However, at the moment it’s still too early to tell how most of these investments will affect local services, according to local officials.Fact BoxBudget numbersSome highlights from the New York state budget pertaining to health care and senior services:$8 billion in funds from the federal Medicaid waiver for transformative projects to improve the health care system.$1.2 billion capital investment over seven years for the restructuring of health care facilities.$95 million to create a statewide electronic medical record system.$4.1 million in increased funding to the New York’s Elderly Pharmaceutical Insurance Coverage program. Additionally, eligibility has been expanded, from $35,000 to $75,000 for singles, and from $50,000 to $100,000 for married seniors.$5 million for the Community Services for the Elderly Program.$25.3 million for cancer services programs.$26.3 million for Nutritional Information for Women, Infants and Children.$2.3 million for the Prenatal Care program.$4.5 million for maternal and child health.$550,000 for women’s health services.$533,300 for the Adelphi Breast Cancer Support program.$1.8 million for the Prenatal and Postpartum Home Visitation program.$34,700 for the Safe Motherhood Initiative.$10.6 million for adolescent pregnancy prevention.$1.8 million in increased funding for Rape Crisis Centers.$5 million in additional funding for the Spinal Cord Injury Research Board.$2.5 million in additional funding for the Doctors Across New York program.$2.45 million for addiction services, prevention and treatment.$500,000 for Lyme and tick-borne disease initiatives.$163 million for early intervention programs.Kelly said the state will need to come up with criteria for distributing the $1.2 billion for health care facilities as grants.“We don’t really know what they’re looking for yet,” he said. “Restructuring, on a global term, that kind of means what’s been happening for a long time now. There’s less of a need for people to be admitted to a hospital, and in place of that we take care of them as an outpatient, or they just come for a treatment, they come for a test or they come for therapy, or you go to their home versus them coming to a hospital.”Littauer already has a head start on the Safe Patient Handling Act. The hospital formed a safe patient handling committee about three years ago, and has invested “thousands and thousands of dollars” on lift systems to move overweight and obese patients, Kelly said. Some rooms in the hospital are equipped with stationary lifts, while other lifts are portable.“We all know that there are more people that weigh more than they did in the past,” Kelly said. “It’s so much more of a risk for our staff when you’re trying to move somebody who’s 400, 500 pounds, so we have to have this stuff to do it safely.”Representatives from New York Oncology-Hematology, which has an office in Amsterdam, were not sure how much of the $25.3 million set aside for cancer services in the budget would be coming directly to them.“We are pleased that this year’s state budget includes funding for cancer services,” Edwin T. Graham, Northeast regional senior vice president of the U.S. Oncology Network, said in an emailed statement. “It signals New York’s continued commitment to expanding access to vital screenings for early detection as well as continued cancer research.”“Typically the state will use some of that money to expand access for people not eligible [for cancer care],” said Sarah Bilofsky, NYOH’s marketing director. “Obviously, any money set aside for research benefits everybody as well.”According to Bilofsky, in late January NYOH announced a $3 million investment of its own money for the Amsterdam office to upgrade its radiation line.The budget also includes $26.3 million for the WIC program. However, Fulton County WIC Director Stella Zanella did not have information about the funding and would not comment.“I really haven’t heard anything about that,” she said.Dave Jordan, executive director of the Montgomery County Office for Aging, said he was pleased with the funding allocated to EPIC and other senior services, in particular the $5 million alloted for the Community Services for the Elderly program.“That’s a catch-all state program,” Jordan said. “That’s used for things like outreach.”He estimated that his office would receive anywhere from $10,000 to $20,000.“I think often senior issues don’t get on the front page, so they don’t get enough coverage, especially the EPIC program, where people don’t realize how much of someone’s income goes [to medication],” Jordan said.The Office for Aging in Fulton County did not return phone calls seeking comment on the EPIC and senior services funding. St. Mary’s Healthcare also did not return phone calls seeking comment.
