local

LOCAL
National society lauds Forum chest pain center
WARREN -- Forum Health Trumbull Memorial Hospital has received a three-year accreditation as a chest pain center from the national Society of Chest Pain Centers. The national accreditation signifies that TMH surpasses national standards of patient outcomes, which is important to doctors and patients, said Dr. Fadi Naddour, director of catheterization lab and cardiovascular intervention.
"TMH has a multidisciplinary team concept and procedures in place to recognize the subtle onset of chest pain that can result in heart attack, said Kevin M. Spiegel, TMH's executive vice president and chief operating officer.
The chest pain center operates in partnership with the Heart Hospital of TMH and is part of the hospital's Center for Emergency Medicine redesign and expansion now underway. Besides three specialty suites dedicated to chest pain, the new department will include a consolidated emergency and fast track area, 29 treatment rooms, two trauma rooms, and five ambulance bays, Spiegel said.
Local practices to testtreatment for heel pain
BOARDMAN -- The Boardman location of Ankle & amp; Foot Care Centers, which operates 17 offices in Mahoning, Trumbull, Columbiana and Stark Counties, is one of six facilities nationwide tapped by a Swiss firm to conduct clinical trials on a new medical device designed to treat heel pain in physicians' offices.
Volunteer patients from the Centers' offices will participate in the study that will test the effectiveness of extracorporeal shockwave therapy (ESWT) for plantar fasciitis. The condition, which afflicts connective tissue at the bottom of the foot, leads to chronic heel pain and heel spur syndrome. ESWT offers a non-surgical, non-invasive approach that uses shockwave treatment. The device involved in the clinical trials, manufactured by Storz Medical, is a smaller version of one already being used in hospitals and ambulatory centers.
Participants will receive three treatments over a three-week period, and their progress will be charted over the course of one year. Patients must sign a consent form committing to the one-year evaluation period and acknowledging that they may receive a placebo. Participants in the clinical trials will not be charged, so those who do not have insurance coverage have the opportunity to receive treatment at no cost, said Dr. Lawrence DiDimenico, managing partner of Ankle & amp; Foot Care Centers.
Persons interested in participating in the study may call (330) 758-6226.
Companion training class
WARREN -- Hospice of the Valley is offering a six-week companion volunteer training class on Wednesdays from noon to 3 p.m., beginning Aug. 16 and running through Sept. 20, at The Church of the Blessed Sacrament, 3020 Reeves Road N.E., Warren.
While the training will be in Warren, volunteers will visit patients in closer proximity to their homes after their training is complete.
For more information, call (330) 788-1992 or (800) 640-5180.
Hospice to honor donors
POLAND -- Hospice of the Valley is establishing a "Tribute Circle" of engraved paving stones at its new Hospice House, a 12-bed in-patient facility at 9803 Sharrot Road.
The paving stones, which will be placed before the grand opening of the facility in September, can be purchased for $150 by contacting Hospital of the Valley at (330) 788-1992.
Church health screenings
BOARDMAN -- LifeLine Screening is offering health screenings beginning at 9 a.m. on July 25 at St. Luke Church, 5235 South Ave.
Call (800) 697-9721 for an appointment, fee schedule and available screenings.
Local doctor's daughterwins nursing award
YOUNGSTOWN -- Mary French Hutt, daughter of the late Dr. H. Bryan Hutt, a Youngstown pediatrician, is the winner of The Charlotte Observer 2006 Nursing Excellence Award.
She was nominated for the award by her colleagues at Carolinas Medical Center, where she is a wound, ostomy and continence nurse.
Hutt, a nurse for 40 years, studied to become a licensed practical nurse at the Hannah Mullins School of Practical Nursing in Salem, and earned her degree as a registered nurse and master of science degree in nursing, both from the University of Akron.
NATION
Harvard study links sleep,ability to remember
New evidence shows that sleep can improve the brain's ability to remember information, according to Harvard researchers whose work appears in Current Biology.
The investigators looked at the effect of sleep on declarative memory (the type that deals with facts) in college-aged adults and found that participants who slept between learning and testing were able to recall more of what they had learned than their sleep-deprived counterparts.
This research expands upon previous work showing that sleep plays an active role in memory consolidation.
Smoking hurts, fatty acids help vision of elderly
Risk of aged-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of blindness among persons 60 and older, may be increased by smoking and decreased by consumption of omega-3 fatty acids.
Boston researchers, whose work appears in the Archives of Ophthalmology, studied 681 male twins and found that those who currently smoke had nearly twice the risk of developing AMD.
The investigators also found that those who consume higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids, found in some fish, reduced their risk of the blinding disease.
Group calls for widespread cardiovascular screenings
A proposal for preventing hidden cardiovascular disease, developed by a task force of the nonprofit Association for Eradication of Heart Attack, has been published in the American Journal of Cardiology. The proposal calls for noninvasive screening of all asymptomatic men between ages 45 and 75 and women between 55 and 75.
The task force claims such screening could prevent more than 90,000 deaths from cardiovascular disease and save about $21.5 billion annually.
Study: High-deductible plans result in fewer visits
People who have high-deductible health coverage plans are less likely to use the emergency room and have fewer hospital admissions than people with traditional coverage.
They also are more likely to regularly visit their primary care doctor for free preventive checkups.
Those are among the findings of a three-year study, released this week by UnitedHealth Group Inc., of so-called consumer-driven health care plans.
The plans feature accounts from which consumers pay for medical services until they have paid their full deductibles, and catastrophic insurance kicks in.
Vindicator staff/wire reports