Emerging data show that some of the coronavirus’s most potent damage is inflicted on the heart It seems like a lifetime ago, but at one time we were naive enough to think that COVID was an infection specific to the lungs. We’ve learned a lot in the last six months. We...
In April, 91-year old Minna Buck revised her Advance Healthcare Directive. She doesn’t want to be intubated if she becomes infected with COVID. Ms. Buck has done her research and knows she doesn’t want any part of intubation. She knows that even if she survived, the recovery would leave her...
Called candida auris, this fungus is highly contagious, drug-resistant, and it’s plaguing nursing facilities. Half of the patients who contract this disease die within 90 days. It’s so difficult to eradicate that many facilities have stopped accepting patients infected with it. Public health officials struggle to contain the pathogen, while...
Juli Engel was delighted when a neurologist recommended a PET scan to determine whether amyloid — the protein clumps associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease — was accumulating in her mother’s brain. Her mother, Sue Engel, is 83 and lives in a retirement community in Florida. She’s been experiencing...
Former first lady Barbara Bush had been in declining health for several years. Just days before her death at age 92, we read that she was seeking “comfort care” for her terminal conditions of congestive heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Comfort care translates to preventing or relieving suffering, providing...
