People in Baltimore have been dying of overdoses at a rate never before seen in a major American city.
The city was once hailed for its response to #addiction. But as #fentanyl flooded streets & ofcls shifted priorities, deaths hit unprecedented heights.
A decade ago, 700 fewer people here were being killed by drugs each year. And when fatalities began to rise from the synthetic #opioid#fentanyl, so potent that even minuscule doses are deadly, #Baltimore’s initial response was hailed as a national model. The city set ambitious goals, distributed #Narcan widely, experimented w/ways to steer people into treatment & ratcheted up campaigns to alert the public.
This is the first part in a series exploring #Baltimore’s overdose crisis.
In the past 6 yrs, nearly 6k lives have been lost. The death rate from 2018 to 2022 was nearly DOUBLE that of any other large city, & higher than nearly all of Appalachia during the prescription pill crisis, the Midwest during the height of rural meth labs or New York during the crack epidemic.
Great article about polypharmacy, the taking of multiple medications, typically four or more, at the same time from @TheConversationUS
As people age, medications might not be needed or patients might not be taking them, or less than prescribed.
Personally, every so often, we do a "medication holiday" where we test the efficacy of the drug regimen I am on, to get the maximum result with the least drug
🔗 Boomers have a drug problem, but not the kind you might think ·
@paul@TheConversationUS My 80+ year old uncle was told he had #dementia and lived with that for about a year. Then the number of meds he was taking were reduced and the 'dementia' disappeared. Too many meds, or the wrong meds, turns out to be a common cause of 'dementia' in people. If that's a diagnosis that comes up fairly suddenly, have a chat with your #pharmacist before panicking.
I am honored to be presenting my work on #FindingtheRightWords in UCLA's Americanist Research Colloquium. I wrote this #memoir w/#neurologist Dr. Bruce Miller about my father's early-onset #Alzheimer's. He became ill when I was a #graduate student in the #Berkeley#English dept. so speaking about this to grad students (& faculty) in the English dept.@ #UCLA is especially meaningful. I'll share what I know now about #dementia & #grief & what I wish I knew then.
@rc_ha_tc. No, it won't be. My book website has links to some podcasts and other events I've done. I can recommend one or two if you want to tell me what sorts of things you want to hear about: #caregiving, #grief, #neurology, #narrative medicine?
Hi. First post on this account. Very recent late Dx #ActuallyAutistic here. Special interests in my bio. Probably should include Autism as a special interest because I'm still in that phase. Nice to meet you. 👋
Study finds people living in pre-industrialized setting age better -- their brains age more slowly, and almost no #cardiovascular disease or #diabetes.
NPR speaks with a neuroscientist and prosthetic designer about how the brain and body might adapt to an additional appendage (includes 13-minute audio report).
TITLE: Confusion in Text Messaging, Encryption, and HIPAA
A therapist colleague of mine contacted Ring Central (a video and
telephone platform that provides HIPAA BAA subcontractor paperwork upon
request) with questions about their messaging capabilities and
encryption. They were looking for a compliant way to text message with
clients. The support staff directed them to this article:
At first glance, the article would seem to make messaging with clients
golden as a good level of encryption is described and the therapist has
a HIPAA BAA with Ring Central. Right?
Wrong.
A few different topics are getting confused here -- smart phone SMS text
messaging, messaging within Ring Central apps and websites, and HIPAA
BAA subcontractor agreements.
With SMS text messaging by phone it will never be HIPAA compliant (even
if the therapist sends it from within Ring Central) because the client
will get the SMS text message unencrypted on their smartphone.
Messaging within the Ring Central apps and website IS at an excellent
level of encryption -- but won't be covered by the therapist's HIPAA BAA
agreement unless the people messaged are also part of the therapist's
company account or are other therapists with their own Ring Central
accounts with HIPAA BAA subcontractor agreements. This will rarely if
ever cover therapy clients.
This gets confusing. So -- for example -- when I go into my Ring
Central account online and click on "Message" I'm invited to email a
messaging link to anyone I choose. So far so good. But when that
person (like a client for example) goes to that messaging link, Ring
Central REQUIRES them to sign up for their own FREE Ring Central
account. That FREE account WILL NOT be covered by a HIPAA BAA
agreement. So the messages sent to them (inside a Ring Central app or
website) will be encrypted but not HIPAA compliant.
Similar problem with Ring Central video conferencing. As long as the
client DOES NOT sign in with their own free account -- and instead goes
to my anonymous video link -- it will be covered under my BAA agreement
with Ring Central. However, Ring Central invites clients to sign up for
their own FREE account in order to video conference with me. If the
client makes that mistake, then its no longer a HIPAA compliant video
conference session because only one of our two Ring Central accounts is
covered by BAA.
I sometimes wonder why this all is left in such a confusing state?
Of course, I'm not a lawyer, so do your own research too.
*
Michael Reeder, LCPC
* Hygeia Counseling Services : Baltimore / Mt. Washington Village location
Long COVID’s Lingering Impact: Brain Function Changes Can Persist for Months
People with long COVID have abnormal brain activity during memory tests, months after their initial COVID-19 infection, with less activity in the regions normally used for memory tasks, but more activity in other areas of the brain.
Please allow me to introduce myself. #Moby-Dick is the novelistic soundtrack of my life. The rest is #Dylan. #Dogs, #coffee, #books (especially #19th-century US lit) make me very happy. I write, think, and talk a lot about dementia, most recently a book with Dr. Bruce Miller of UCSF, Finding the Right Words: A Story of Literature, Grief, and the Brain (Johns Hopkins, 2021).
@treleanor. And thanks for making a note of the book! By the way, there is a lot of excellent #neurology in there, courtesy of my co-author and brilliant #doctor, Bruce Miller.
Since word-finding (and losing words) is front of mind for many people, I would like to draw your attention to the #memoir I wrote with #UCSF#neurologist, Dr. Bruce Miller. It's called Finding The Right Words: A Story of Literature, Grief, and the Brain, and it is about my father's #early-onset #Alzheimer's. #Dr.Miller explains the #neurology behind the manifestations of the #disease that I describe. Loss of words was one of my father's first symptoms.
#Neurology#Neurotechnology#NeuroScience#NeuroRights#NeuroPrivacy: "Huth’s reaction mirrored a longstanding concern in neuroscience and beyond: that machines might someday read people’s minds. And as BCI technology advances at a dizzying clip, that possibility and others like it — that computers of the future could alter human identities, for example, or hinder free will — have begun to seem less remote. “The loss of mental privacy, this is a fight we have to fight today,” said Rafael Yuste, a Columbia University neuroscientist. “That could be irreversible. If we lose our mental privacy, what else is there to lose? That’s it, we lose the essence of who we are.”
Spurred by these concerns, Yuste and several colleagues have launched an international movement advocating for “neurorights” — a set of five principles Yuste argues should be enshrined in law as a bulwark against potential misuse and abuse of neurotechnology. But he may be running out of time."
This study shows that Individual neurons coordinate to produce rhythmic waves that propel fluid through dense brain tissue, aiding the removal of debris from the brain. Understanding the process can help in neurodegenerative diseases.
What's some really unpopular opinion you have?
Most of the time when people say they have an unpopular opinion, it turns out it’s actually pretty popular....