Jamaica Medical Mission 2015: Lunch

Our hosts were in the kitchen long before our early morning arrival preparing their specialty...chicken soup...where nothing is wasted ...including chicken feet and cerebellum ( apparent only to a knowledgable eye ). 

Jamaica Medical Mission 2015: My friend Miles Preparing to Plant Irish Potatoes

Families bury loved ones on their own property, which can be seen behind "Milly" who, by days end, had hoed nearly the entire slope behind the church by day's end.

Jamaica Medical Mission 2015: Christian Prusinski OMSII sets up exam space

  Christian Prusinski OMSII and Team 2 find creative ways to create space to examine patients. Despite the teams best efforts...no patients felt comfortable enough for thorough exams in our makeshift back corner extra private space created for just that purpose. Many were seen, all were served.
  At the end of the day I was asked to make a house call on the pastor's brother Mervin who was bed bound and at the end of his battle with multiple myeloma with metastases to bone. We drove up the equivalent of a goat's path to the pastor's home. Mervin's primary complaint despite his emaciated state was "burning urination". A urine sample tested in his room revealed the cause...a urinary tract infection which we treated.
  Stories were exchanged, smiles were elicited from the Mervin, the pastor and our student team. The lesson : sometimes as physicians we are called upon to improve an individual's quality of life ...even at its end.

Jamaica Medical Mission 2015: Downtown

Epilepsy Drug to Preserve Vision in MS Patients

From researchers out of the National Hospital For Neurology and Neurosurgery : 86 MS patient's with acute optic neuritis were given Dilantin or a placebo. On average, the patients that received Dilantin demonstrated 30% less damage to the nerve fiber layer compared to placebo recipients and the volume of the macula was 34% higher in the Dilantin group.
Stay tuned ...larger studies to follow.

NEW Skin Test to Diagnose Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Diseases ?!

From researchers in Mexico, a skin biopsy reveal 7x higher levels of phosphorylated tau in Alzheimers and Parkinson's patients compared to controls. Patients with Parkinson's disease had 8x higher levels os alpha-synuclein than healthy controls in their skin biopsies.

Drink LOTS of Coffee and Reduce Your Risk of MS (AD and PD too) !

In two large population-based studies, one in Sweden the other in the US out of Johns Hopkins University SOMed indicates that caffeine intake is associated with a decreased risk of PD and AD and now a suggested neuro-protective effect against MS. 
BUT the amount of coffee drunk to provide protection may make lavatories even more  popular in Starbucks....which ALWAYS seem to be occupied. In the Swedish study 5-10 cups per day. In the US study more than 4 cups per day.