TOP DOCTORS 10 QUEENS TOP DOCTORS • january 28, 2016 for breaking news visit www.qns.com PREPARING YOUR TEEN TO MANAGE THEIR HEALTH The transition from childhood to adulthood can be overwhelming for parents and teens alike. Parents know how important it is to manage their child’s health when they are young, ensuring they receive necessary medical care. However, as children become teens and young adults, and begin to take responsibility for their own health, there is often a decline in preventive care. Preventive care is an important part of staying healthy, but many teens only visit the doctor when they’re sick, or for sports and school physicals. After age 14, preventive care visits tend to decline. Those ages 11 to 14 have three times more preventive visits than adolescents 14 years and older. Parents play an important role in helping their teens and young adults navigate independent health choices and decisions. It’s important for parents to create an open dialogue on a wide range of important health topics, including smoking, alcohol, mental health, sexual health and immunizations. Parents should also encourage their older teen or young adult to schedule regular checkups to ensure their medical information and other necessary medical care is up to date. These checkups can begin the transition from parental supervised health care to health care that young adults are personally responsible for. “As children grow older, we often see a decline in regular, proactive health care visits and a gap in health-oriented discussions between teens and young adults and their parents,” says Dr. Michael Resnick, president of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine (SAHM). “Parents need tools and resources that can help them directly engage with their children on important health-related issues, like immunizations, and encourage teens and young adults to begin to take responsibility for their own health.” SAHM developed and launched the THRIVE app, in collaboration with Pfizer and UNITY Consortium, to empower parents with an interactive resource that provides health information, checklists and conversation starters to help them guide their teen’s transition into adulthood. The THRIVE app is a comprehensive teen health-oriented mobile app created for parents to help teens and young adults aged 16 to 25 understand their role in and prepare to take ownership over their own health. Download THRIVE today on your Apple® or Android™ devices or learn more at tinyurl. com/SAHM-THRIVE. Courtesy BPT Health issues women shouldn’t put up with Women often endure health issues in silence, especially if the problem is embarrassing, affects only them and doesn’t pose a serious health risk. Yet issues that appear minor and personal can have a major impact on a woman’s quality of life – and ultimately on the lives of those around her. “It’s natural for women to want to avoid talking about certain deeply personal health problems, such as heavy periods, digestive problems or incontinence,” says Dr. Jessica Shepherd, assistant professor of Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology and Director of Minimally Invasive Gynecology, University of Illinois College of Medicine. “But talking about a problem can lead to effective treatment. Many health issues that seem to be merely inconvenient can actually have a pervasive impact on a woman’s personal and professional life.” Here are three common health issues that women tend to discount as “minor,” and avoid talking about. Yet each of these issues can deeply affect not only a woman’s physical health, but her mental, personal and professional well-being as well. • Incontinence - Defined as the involuntary release of urine from the bladder, incontinence affects 25 million Americans, according to research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Seventy-five to 80 percent of them are women, the National Association for Continence estimates. Women may remain silent about their problem thinking incontinence is a normal part of aging (it’s not) or that it only affects sufferers on a personal level. Yet a study in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society found that incontinence affects a person’s quality of life, disrupting social, sexual, interpersonal and even professional functioning. From bladder training to medications, treatments can help. The first step is to talk to your doctor about the problem. • Heavy periods - About 10 million women experience heavy periods that require hourly changes of pads or tampons even at night, bleeding that lasts a week or longer, and that restrict their daily activities. Women with heavier periods miss work 28 percent more than other women, a study of the National Health Interview Survey reveals. And 83.5 percent of women in a United Kingdom study said if their heavy periods persisted over the next five years, they would be unhappy – making the issue a mental health concern, too. Consulting with their doctors can help women decide on a treatment for their heavy periods. Oral contraceptives and hysterectomies have been traditional options for severe cases. An alternative, NovaSure, is a non-surgical, non-hormonal treatment that can be done in a doctor’s office with a single five-minute procedure. • Digestive health - From chronic constipation to irritable bowel syndrome, acid reflux to severe gas, digestive disorders affect millions of American women, according to the National Institutes of Health. While occasional irritation is normal and happens to virtually everyone, problems that continue for long periods can indicate more serious health issues. And even when there’s no serious underlying problem, the symptoms of digestive issues can hinder a woman’s lifestyle. A digestive issue that causes a woman to spend extended periods in the rest room, for example, may interfere with her work performance. Severe chronic gas may make a woman avoid social situations, especially ones in which she’ll be meeting new people. “No matter how embarrassing a health issue is, or how personal you think it is, if it’s impacting your quality of life it’s definitely worth discussing with your doctor,” Shepherd says. “Women should also seek information and support from organizations, groups and websites that address their specific issue. Suffering in silence is no way to treat a health problem.” Courtesy BPT
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