The state’s main health agency is investigating an injury suffered by a 98-year-old nursing home resident in Newnan, whose death led to criminal charges and the arrest of a nursing assistant. The Department of Community Health said this week that it has “an open investigation’’ of Edna Warren’s death. The GBI recently arrested Hakim Ogunkunle,…
This is the seventh in a series of articles reported in Northwest Georgia, an area rich in stories about unmet health needs and about people and programs making a difference. Georgia Health News and the health and medical journalism graduate program at UGA Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication collaborated to produce this series, made possible…
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…
State health officials report that flu cases remain widespread in Georgia. The Department of Public Health said that through the week of Jan. 29 through Feb. 4, there had been 376 hospitalizations in metro Atlanta due to influenza so far this season. That’s up from 61 at the same time a year ago. The state…
A House committee unanimously approved legislation Tuesday that would allow dental hygienists to practice in school clinics, nursing homes and safety-net locations without having a dentist present. The passage of House Bill 154 by the House Health and Human Services Committee comes a year after the sudden collapse of similar legislation in the 2016 General…
A South Georgia elementary school has three dental chairs set up for kids who don’t have a regular dentist. But those chairs at Turner County Elementary School in Ashburn have sat vacant for the past three years, even though many kids there need dental care, says Brenda Lee of Family Connection of Turner County. That’s…
Surgeon and bestselling author Atul Gawande writes that he never learned about mortality in medical school. He learned to examine, prescribe and operate, but not how to help patients die well. It wasn’t until he was a practicing surgeon that he confronted the idea of a “good” death — a death consistent with a life…
Georgia ranks 39th among states on senior health, the same place as last year’s rating, according to a new report. But significant health challenges lie ahead for the next generation of Georgia seniors and their counterparts nationally, the report found. Georgia has more than 1 million people 65 and older. That figure amounts to roughly 10…
An estimated 130,000 Georgians have Alzheimer’s disease, a form of dementia, and the number is expected to increase greatly over the next decade. This growth has led to the creation of memory care units within residential care facilities just like the ones from Fountain Square of Lompoc: Memory Care. These memory care units deliver specialized…
More than a million Georgians — or roughly 1 out of 10 people in the state — are 65 or older. And over the next 30 years, Georgia is facing an estimated 143% increase in its senior population. With this aging trend looming, the General Assembly will consider a bill that would move the current…