Katrina Survivors Still Struggle to Get Help
Aug. 8, 2006 <p> -- AFTER KATRINA The Kaiser Family Foundation issued a report today examining the challenges faced by the people and city of New Orleans for the last year. Nearly all the survivors of Hurricane Katrina suffered at least some emotional and mental trauma, researchers find, with the elderly particularly affected by the loss of connections with family and friends. The lack of up-and-running health-care facilities has made it difficult for people to get the help they need. Many patients, especially those without health insurance, have continued to struggle to get care in the year since Katrina.
PARENTS OF TEENS LESS LIKELY TO LOCK UP GUNS Even though most youth firearm injuries involve teens, parents of younger children are more likely to lock up guns than parents of adolescents, Harvard School of Public Health researchers find in a survey of nearly 400 parents. The results, published this week in the Archives of General Psychiatry, show that only 8 percent of parents kept their gun unlocked and loaded, but that 32 percent kept an unloaded gun in the house. Nearly 42 percent of parents of kids ages 13 to 17 had an unlocked gun in the home compared to 29 percent of parents of younger children.
VITAMIN B-12 WON'T HELP YOUR BRAIN Vitamin B-12 supplements do not appear to help improve cognitive function in elderly people, Dutch researchers find. They tested whether vitamin B-12 supplements could improve memory in elderly people, most of whom had deficiencies in vitamin B-12 at the start of the study. However, over six months, those taking vitamin B-12 had no more improvement on cognitive tests than those taking a placebo. These results were published this week in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
STAT is a brief look at the latest medical research and is compiled by Joanna Schaffhausen, who holds a doctorate in behavioral neuroscience. She works in the ABC News Medical Unit, evaluating medical studies, abstracts and news releases.
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