Tag Archives: National Library of Medicine

Making a New Year’s Weight Loss Resolution? Drive Less

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weight and driving

Click to watch the video at the National Library of Medicine.

If you, your senior parents, or anyone else in your family is thinking about weight loss as a New Year’s resolution, watch and listen to this short National Library of Medicine (NLM) video that explains how newly published research in the journal Preventive Medicine has found an inverse association between the number of miles a person drives and weight loss.

An inverse association means that amount of weight loss increases as the miles a person drives decreases.

The NLM page with the video also includes a transcript. It’s also possible to click on the “CC” symbol at the bottom right of the video and turn on captioning.

Check out the abstract of the article, Quantifying the Association Between Obesity, Automobile Travel, and Caloric Intake. The full article is not free, but may be available at a public library and definitely at a hospital library. You can read a bit more about the research in a U.S. News Health article.

National Library of Medicine Director’s Podcasts

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The view in iTunes.

I’ve become quite a fan of the weekly Director’s podcasts from the National Library of Medicine (NLM).

These mini radio programs are a terrific resource for people of all ages, but adult children and their parents will find they  provide a helpful introduction to the National Library of Medicine and Medline Plus. The podcasts used to be narrated by NLM director Donald A.B. Lindberg, M.D. but now they are read by NLM staff member Rob Logan, Ph.D., a member of Dr. Lindberg’s library staff. Users encounter the image above when they search for the “casts” in iTunes.

The NLM podcasts are short, informative, easy to understand, and simple to download to a listening device, via iTunes. It’s not uncommon for a program to cite current research and explain its importance and relevance, so a listener can easily locate the research after listening.

Continue reading →

Caregiving and Mobile Technology: We Need to Learn More

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Visit MedlinePlus Magazine

Mobile technology is moving into our lives — whether it’s the phone we carry, the newspaper we read, the heart monitor we must wear for a few days, the smart pass we use at tollbooths, or the gadget that helps to monitor a senior parent with balance issues but who lives alone. Increasingly, mobile gadgets assist us on a daily basis as we accomplish our daily tasks.

Last November the head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Francis S. Collins, M.S., Ph.D., gave a short talk on mobile technology in the health care world. Highlights of his talk, Mobile Technology and Health Care, are posted online at the Medline Plus Magazine. The library publishes the magazine several times a year, and it can often be found in physician waiting areas. However, each issue is available online as well. Continue reading →

New MedlinePlus Website – Terrific!

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Visit the new, more user-friendly MedlinePlus website. As an advocate for aging parents, not to mention other family members, I find this new site terrific, easy to use, and well laid out. It’s colorful with carefully selected typefaces, and a user can get anywhere on the site with just a few clicks. After you explore a bit, navigate through the “cool tools and video” section (third green button on the right), with interactive videos illustrating a wide range of medical conditions and diagnostic procedures. Moreover, in keeping with its non-commercial policy  there is never advertising on MedlinePlus.

Below are a few more highlights that came in my e-mailed MedlinePlus announcement. Continue reading →

Aging Parents: Comprehensive Medicare Prescription Information

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My favorite medical information source, Medline Plus, is maintained jointly by The National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Medline Plus adds new features or highlights old ones just about every week, and today I discovered the Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage page, a comprehensive, “one-stop-shopping” site with links to important Medicare information about prescriptions and managing medications.  Links go to government, not-for-profit, and private sector resources.

Be sure to scroll down the page because more information and links are available. A user can even sign up  for e-mail updates when changes are made to the information on the page.