Imagine being lost at 3 o’clock in the morning, approaching a house you think is your own, and then being fatally shot. That’s what happened to 72-year-old Ronald Westbrook, a man with Alzheimer’s disease who was mistaken for an intruder in Walker County in 2013. The shooter was a homeowner who opened fire after Westbrook failed to…
About five years ago, the staff at a hospital intensive care unit in Augusta placed a tube into the windpipe of 91-year-old Bucilla Stephenson after she went into respiratory distress. Stephenson died several days later, and no one faulted the hospital for that, but the intubation itself led to a legal fight that stretched for…
With sore legs and a swollen ankle, William Glass reached the end of his journey early Monday morning. A journey of more than 600 miles. On foot. Glass made the trek from Atlanta to Washington, D.C., to raise awareness of Alzheimer’s. His mother has the disease, and is a resident of an Atlanta long-term care facility with around-the-clock…
Jody Grass Leonard, a registered nurse, has a passion about the stage, about acting. “I discovered being onstage is much harder than it seems from the audience’s viewpoint, but it’s also a very freeing feeling,” says Leonard, a longtime resident of Valdosta. That giant step out of Leonard’s comfort zone may be a long-term gift…
Troy Tribble, 41, turned to “dry needling’’ to ease his back pain and spasms. He’s had several sessions. Each time his physical therapist works on a different area. For Tribble, of Suwanee, it has made a world of difference. The change he has experienced is “in my pain level and how frequently the spasms come,” Tribble says….
Gambling seems to be almost part of our daily lives. Many Georgians buy a lottery ticket, especially when the jackpot climbs. Some play poker for small stakes, and NFL games draw plenty of bets. And some folks from the Peach State take trips to casinos, which can be as far away as Las Vegas or…
Born in Macon, one of four girls raised by a single mother, Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice has met every challenge with dedication, service and success. Montgomery Rice is now president and dean of Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta — the first woman to hold that prestigious position. In addition to her professional accomplishments, Montgomery…
Dr. Vivek Murthy was officially confirmed as U.S. surgeon general in December 2014. Exactly two years earlier, Murthy, an outspoken critic of gun violence, had been embroiled in the controversy about the “Newtown massacre,” a shooting spree in a Connecticut town that claimed the lives of 20 schoolchildren and several adults. Murthy’s high profile on…
Many people have trouble understanding the medical conditions they have, the medications they take and the medical consent forms they have to sign. That’s an issue of “health literacy.” The term is not just a metaphor, because a big factor in health literacy is basic reading ability. According to Georgia’s Task Force on Adult Literacy,…
Dennis Ogbe grew up in Nigeria, where he contracted polio at age 3. The crippling and potentially deadly infectious disease took its toll on his left leg. As a child, Ogbe recalls, he had to sit and watch the other kids play. It was difficult “being the only kid on the playground in a wheelchair.” Eventually, he…