The notion behind assisted living facilities, also known as assisted living residences is commendable, as they are designed with the elderly in mind, providing assistance for them in daily living but encouraging them to live as independently as possible at the same time. Normally, those who stay in assisted living residences are those who are too frail to live alone, but does not require skilled health care such as those provided in nursing homes.

The advantages offered by an assisted living facility is that the elderly can be entrusted to expert care and live with a peace of mind, as there is 24-hour support safety and security. Read more…

To many people, smoking pot is no big deal. They cite reasons such as: it isnt dangerous or addictive and everybody is doing it.

Denise Walker, co-director of the University of Washingtons Innovative Programs Research Group, disagrees.

Its not a risk-free drug, she said. Lots of people who use it do so without problems. But there are others who use it regularly almost daily and want to stop but arent sure how.

Walker hopes to help these people, many of whom feel stigmatized by their drug use. She is lead author of a paper showing that a brief, voluntary conversation with an adult led to up to a 20 percent decrease in marijuana use for teenagers who frequently used the drug.

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Known as the Witch’s Broom, the Western Veil Nebula is part of a huge supernova remnant that stretches more than six moon widths across the night sky.

Astronomers have used all sorts of tricks over the years to try to convey the mind-boggling scale of the universe to us ordinary folks. If you could drive your car from here to the nearest star at 60 m.p.h., they’ve told us, it would take 11 million years. If the Sun were a beach ball sitting on a football field’s goal line, the Earth would be a pea on the 50-yard line. And so on.

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Avastin Arguments: At an FDA appeals hearing tomorrow and Wednesday, Roches Genentech unit will argue that the conditional approval for its drug Avastin to be used against breast cancer shouldnt be pulled, despite evidence showing it doesnt help patients live any longer and carries the risk of serious side effects, the WSJ reports. FDA head Margaret Hamburg will ultimately make the decision about the drug, which is already approved for use in other cancers.

Sprouts, Again: The deadly E.

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A new KLAS report ranks vendors in the increasingly important area of infection surveillance software. According to 200 hospital respondents, including 174 infection preventionists (IPs), the top three vendors are CareFusion, Hospira (TheraDoc), and Premier. Hospitals with under 400 beds were most satisfied with CareFusion, while larger hospitals liked Hospira best.

Partly because of new Medicare policies, including non-payment for hospital-acquired conditions, the use of infection surveillance software is growing rapidly. KLAS estimates that 20 to 25 percent of hospitals are using “a real-time infection surveillance system,” up from 10 to 15 percent in 2009.

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SATURDAY, June 25 (HealthDay News) — The last quarter century has seen a such an explosion in the incidence of diabetes that nearly 350 million people worldwide now struggle with the disease, a new British-American study reveals.

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I have heard (or rather read) people talking about the Dissociative Disorders Interview Schedule and I always wondered why it wasnt done with me in clinical psychology. I have filled in the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) before a few times and have written about it here. So yesterday I took a notion to google Dissociative Disorders Interview Schedule and I found a link to the test which I did my best to fill in myself and mark. I may or may not have done it properly but I had a go anyway and discovered a few interesting things.

The first is that I think perhaps this interview was done with me in my very first or maybe second appointment in clinical psychology because a lot of the questions were very familiar.

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