Health Watch is a Public Service of the Office of News and Publications and is intended to provide general information only and should not replace the advice of a medical professional. You should contact your physician if you have questions about any of these topics.
The senior years of life may be golden, but they do come with a higher risk for some health problems. Fortunately, modern medicine offers more and more ways to treat or prevent these problems. This week on Healthwatch we'll take a look at some issues associated with aging and health.
While new treatments and medications have improved stroke survival rates, people who have suffered strokes may have to deal with side effects. One possible side effect is dysphagia, or difficulty swallowing. It often causes patients to lose the ability to eat. Specialists at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas use a treatment called VitalStim to help patients with this condition learn to swallow again. The therapy uses small electrical currents to stimulate the muscles used for swallowing, re-training the muscles. The treatment has been successful even for some patients who had needed feeding tubes.
Next: preventing kidney stones in postmenopausal women.
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September 2005
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