Category: health care

One Legged Clowning Again

I noticed the other day that I was having trouble doing the one leg stand. It has been getting harder to sustain it past 10 seconds even. It’s not like I’ve been laying off exercising, including the one leg stand. Hey, I can even do a one leg sit to stand (barely). I posted about the one leg stand, including a video, about 2 years ago.

I found another news item and study about old farts like me and it included a new recommendation about the one leg stand. According to this study, if you can’t do a one leg stand for more than 5 seconds, you’ve got one leg in the grave. If you can do 30 seconds, then you’re all good.

So, I practiced a little more and I even tried the one leg juggling trick, which I also tried two years ago—and clearly faked on a video. Well, one leg clowning is back—and this time it’s for real. I think the Latin quote Ars Longa, Vita Brevis fits for this activity. This one leg stand thing is a skill and you have to work at it, even as you age and your life grows shorter.

I still don’t know if this would be called aging gracefully?

References:

Rezaei A, Bhat SG, Cheng CH, Pignolo RJ, Lu L, Kaufman KR. Age-related changes in gait, balance, and strength parameters: A cross-sectional study. PLoS One. 2024 Oct 23;19(10):e0310764. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0310764. PMID: 39441815; PMCID: PMC11498712.

Araujo CG, de Souza E Silva CG, Laukkanen JA, Fiatarone Singh M, Kunutsor SK, Myers J, Franca JF, Castro CL. Successful 10-second one-legged stance performance predicts survival in middle-aged and older individuals. Br J Sports Med. 2022 Sep;56(17):975-980. doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2021-105360. Epub 2022 Jun 21. PMID: 35728834.

CDC ACIP Meeting Today on Vaccines

There’s a CDC ACIP Meeting scheduled to start at 8:00 AM EST today (caught me off guard). The slides are here.

Noteworthy: Dr. Denise Jamieson, MD, MPH is chair of the CMV Working Group. She is Vice President for Medical Affairs and the Tyrone D. Artz Dean, Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine at University of Iowa. In the Q&A session following the Covid-19 vaccine presentation, Dr. Jamieson expressed a preference for a universal recommendation (citing implementation and uptake challenges, which other attendees mentioned as well) for the Covid-19 vaccine as opposed to a risk-based or permissive recommendation. See slide labeled “Discussion” below:

There was no vote scheduled for today’s meeting on the Covid-19 vaccine.

The presentation by Moderna on the new Covid-19 vaccine, mRNA-1283, was helpful. I gather there will be an FDA meeting about it in June.

Members of the Human Club

I just read Dr. Moffic’s column, “Join This Club for Mental Health” in which he described the Clubhouse movement which got started in the 1940s to help those with mental health challenges to cope with their illness and, more importantly, to recover, grow, and achieve success in life.

It made wonder if there are any chapters of the Clubhouse model in Iowa. It turns out there is and it’s Carol House in Davenport, Iowa. It’s connected with the Vera French Mental Health Center. Its namesake is Carol Lujack, who was a member when the center was called “The Frontier Community Outreach Program” in the 1980s in downtown Davenport.

I was looking at the Carol Center website where you can find many interesting features of the people and activities that go on there. The April newsletter is fascinating and funny. You can find out in the April Newsletter about a few of the current members, April holidays (there’s a slew of them), and famous quotes. One of the quotes is familiar and it’s by F. Scott Fitzgerald,

“Vitality shows not only in the ability to persist, but in the ability to start over,” The quote is worded in various ways, but I remember it because I used it as an inspirational quote when The University of Iowa honored me and several of my colleagues with a Feather in Your Cap award back in 2011.

This was shortly after I returned to Iowa after an unsuccessful stab at trying private practice psychiatry in Wisconsin. And it was the second time I did that—the first time was in Illinois.

Did you know that April is National Humor Month? And have you heard the joke “What kind of candy is never on time?” Choco-Late.

One April holiday is not mentioned and that’s Arbor Day, which varies according to what part of the world you’re in as planting times differ. Sena planted a couple of new trees in the back yard.

Starting new chapters of Clubhouse is a little like planting new trees. They need watering.

SAINT Therapy for Treatment Resistant Depression at The University of Iowa

First of all, if you looked up Saint therapy for depression, you might have accidentally found information on Saint Dymphna, the Catholic patron saint of those living with mental illness.

Actually, SAINT stands for Stanford accelerated intelligent neuromodulation therapy. It’s a personalized protocol for using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to treat severe depression. The University of Iowa is the first academic center to offer it in the Midwest.

This is a big step forward from the days many years ago when we were starting use right unilateral electrode placement for applying electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) to treat depression because it was thought to lead to fewer cognitive problems post-treatment.

SAINT is a game changer according to Dr. Nicholas Trapp, MD, assistant professor of psychiatry, who describes it as a method to pinpoint the best location in each patient’s brain to target with TMS to treat major depressive disorder. The procedure is quick and recovery from depression can be sustained for months.

Kudos to The University of Iowa. And maybe thanks to Saint Dymphna.

But Will Black Garlic Ward Off Vampires?

Sena got some black garlic, which many people are enthusiastic about and call a superfood. There is a very long Wikipedia article with over 180 references about its beneficial health effects. The authors are very enthusiastic about it. Like many superfoods, it has a lot of support from many people.

There’s a slew of claims about what black garlic can do for you, from supporting immunity to preventing cancers and dementia.

There are some caveats. It can thin your blood, so those already taking anticoagulants should use caution about eating a lot of it.

Ahmed T, Wang CK. Black Garlic and Its Bioactive Compounds on Human Health Diseases: A Review. Molecules. 2021 Aug 19;26(16):5028. doi: 10.3390/molecules26165028. PMID: 34443625; PMCID: PMC8401630.

It’s been used for hundreds of years in Asia although it sounds like a brand-new food. It’s fermented over several weeks, which gives it the dark color.

It’s black and the taste is on the sweet side. If you just found it on the sidewalk, you’d step around it because it looks like animal poop. It has a gummy bear texture.

I didn’t see any testimonials mentioning how black garlic does in preventing vampire attacks.

It’s good in chili.

black garlic
chili with black garlic
lunch

How to Support University of Iowa with the One Day for Iowa Fund Drive Today!

Okay, so here’s my pitch on how potential donors can support programs at The University of Iowa. Today the One Day for Iowa fund drive kicks off, and it ends at 11:59 PM today on March 26, 2025.

I got a soft spot in my heart for The University of Iowa College of Medicine and University of Iowa Health Care (UIHC), even though my undergraduate Bachelor’s degree was from Iowa State University.

You can find in the UIHC Medical Museum a description of the historical development of the medical school. Following the Flexner Report in 1909 which found fault with all U.S. medical schools including Iowa’s, there was a drive to avoid “inbreeding,” meaning hiring of one’s own graduates. Nowadays, there are legislative efforts to keep as many as we can of Iowa’s best and brightest.  

Go Hawkeyes!

Attack of the Toothworms

I had my regular visit to the dentist at The University of Iowa Health Care (UIHC) today, and it was a good thing I did. For the past couple of weeks or so I’ve had cold and hot sensitivity in a couple of teeth. No surprise, the dentist found 3 teeth that needed a little work.

The dental hygienist also suggested I try using a tongue cleaner and gave me a free one. I’d never heard of a tongue cleaner before. The package advertisement (in English, French, and Spanish) says it’s for combatting bad breath, although the dental hygienist assured me in 6 different languages that she didn’t detect that problem in me.

I was there for my annual teeth cleaning but now I had 3 teeth needing work. Luckily, the dentist had an appointment in the early afternoon. It was a 3 hour wait, but I thought it was better to get it done sooner rather than later. Anticipating a visit with a dentist is sometimes almost as bad as getting in the chair and exercising my ability to refrain from flinching as the high-speed instruments whine in my ear while the dentist and the assistant do their level best to see that I gag several times in at least 9 different languages, including Klingon.

It’s hard to explain why I was having tooth sensitivity because, according to the dentist, the damage was not that severe. It wasn’t until I wandered around the hospital while waiting for the 2nd appointment that I realized I had never visited the Medical Museum on the 8th floor. And that’s where I found a possible explanation that made more sense than the modern one. It’s probably toothworms.

No kidding, back in the 18th century, a lot of people thought worms caused tooth decay by eating them from the inside out. There was also a College of Dentistry display in the Medical Museum featuring a typical dentist chair and samples of rusty tools, which made wonder if I should put off the filling work until, say, after my next ten reincarnations.

There’s a human skeleton in the museum which is affectionately called Gertie. The historical note on Gertie is very interesting in that it was thought to be a male when Ottumwa Regional Health Center donated it to UIHC in 2013. It turns out he is actually a she and the “…two symmetrical holes in the upper jaw are the result of large dental abscesses.” Just what I wanted to learn on a day when I’m anticipating dental work.

Anyway, my teeth got repaired. I would say that the UIHC dental clinic has come a long way from 1904. You don’t turn and spit in a bowl anymore. They just siphon the toothworms out with a suction wand nowadays.

What is Foreign Language Syndrome?

I found a very interesting news outlet report about a condition called Foreign Language Syndrome (FLS) which you have to distinguish from Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS). I wrote a post about that a few years ago. The latter is common by comparison with FLS. FAS is a tendency to speak with a foreign inflection, not speak or be unable to speak a different language, which is what FLS would be.

There are a handful of cases, all within the last 20 years, most of them associated with receiving anesthetic agents prior to surgeries. All could speak more than one language; in other words, they didn’t wake up from anesthesia with the ability to speak another language they never learned before.

I could find only one web link to a case report (see below) about FLS, published about 3 years ago, which is what the news story was about. In fact, the authors of this report describe the case of a 17-year-old male who suffered FLS (forgot his native Dutch language, but who also spoke English) after knee surgery, noting that the other known cases were subjects of news stories.

Humbaba qabDaj luchenmoH Humanpu”e’ ‘ej ghaytan tera’ tach ‘elpu’ jupwI’ ‘e’ vIHon. chaq wa’ Qib rurbogh taS QIpmey, Huj jaghmey luchoHlu’ta’ ‘ach, qaStaHvIS mInDu’ vISuq.

Oops, sorry, accidentally started babbling in Klingon. I meant to say:

Based on the case report, FLS might be an emergence delirium, caused by the choice of a particular anesthetic agent. Emergence delirium is delirium caused by waking up from anesthesia after surgery, which I’ve experienced a couple of times, although I have difficulty remembering the episodes.

Kiu(j) ne eksklud alia kaŭz por FLS, kvankam verŝajne, plimulto retrov plimalpli tute post du tagojn antaŭ la operacio.

Rats, happened again, with Esperanto. What I meant:

That doesn’t rule out other causes for FLS, although it looks like most people recover more or less completely after a couple of days out from the surgeries.

More studies are needed.

Reference: Salamah, H.K.Z., Mortier, E., Wassenberg, R. et al. Lost in another language: a case report. J Med Case Reports 16, 25 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13256-021-03236-z

Stead Family Children’s Hospital NICU Gets a Wave from the AAP with New Designation

The University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit was recently recognized by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) as one of only two such units in the U.S. having the highest levels of neonatal care.

It reminds me of the Iowa Hawkeye football games where, at the end of the first quarter, all the players and football fans wave from the field to the pediatric patients and their families watching the game from UI Stead Family Children’s Hospital. It’s called the Wave, one of the best traditions in college sports.

Well, the AAP waves to Stead Family Children’s Hospital NICU.

The 2024 Distinguished Education Lecture by Russell Ledet, MD, PhD

Last year, I wanted to present this Distinguished Education Lecture by Dr. Russell Ledet, MD, PhD, given during Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration of Human Rights week. It took a while for my message to the University of Iowa to get through channels, but I want to thank Audra M. King, the Administrative Services Coordinator for the Office of Student Affairs and Curriculum in the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine for her help in getting it into a YouTube format that allows the general public to see and hear Dr. Ledet’s presentation.

I wrote a post in February last year about how impressed I am with Dr. Ledet as a leader. Now you can hear him tell his own inspirational story.