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Published November 25, 2011, 12:00 AM

Health Notes: Talk with family members about family health history

Sometime between the touch football game, the big meal and the big naps, the U.S. surgeon general wanted you to spend time on Thanksgiving talking about your family’s health history.

By: Compiled by John Lundy, Duluth News Tribune

Sometime between the touch football game, the big meal and the big naps, the U.S. surgeon general wanted you to spend time on Thanksgiving talking about your family’s health history.

It seems like a downer in the midst of a day of thanksgiving, but it can pay off in preventing future illness and disability, Dr. Regina Benjamin said in a news release.

“Discussing health information with other members of your family can often uncover conditions and explanations for health problems which you never knew about, simply because no one ever asked,” Benjamin said in proclaiming Thanksgiving 2011 as the nation’s eighth annual “Family Health History Day.”

There’s help on the Internet, and this might be a perfect assignment for the family member you want to keep out of the kitchen. You can build your own family’s health portrait by going to familyhistory.hhs.gov.

Grants aplenty

A tool for measuring nutrition therapy and equipment that helps stroke victims regain upper arm strength are among the results of a total of $307,381 in grants from the Miller-Dwan Foundation this year.

Among numerous grants listed in a news release:

  • $50,000 to the University of Minnesota Duluth Psychology Department “to examine parent participation and beliefs in child and adolescent partial hospitalization programming.”

  • $30,000 to Essentia Health Nutrition Services to purchase a Calorimeter that will allow burn and rehabilitation patients to receive the most accurate up-to-date medical nutrition therapy available. The intent is to decrease the number of days a patient spends on a ventilator and the number of days spent in intensive care.

    From the Van Gorden Fund, for organizations that help people with injuries or physical disabilities:

  • $3,000 to the Minnesota Ballet for the weekly class “Creative Dance for Children with Physical and Developmental Challenges.”

  • $8,000 to Courage Duluth for the 2012 Great Lakes Mono-Ski Madness that provides people with spinal cord injuries and other low extremity disabilities a three-day mono-ski camp for children and adults.

  • $65,175 to Essentia Health Miller-Dwan Rehabilitation for the Hocoma Armeo Spring, equipment that works to re-educate the neuromuscular aspect of the upper arm for patients who have suffered a stroke, brain injury, spinal cord injury or other form of muscular atrophy.

    Health reform on the web

    The Minnesota Health Care Reform Task Force has set up a website to help

    people keep tabs on the state’s health-reform efforts.

    According to a news release, the website provides information on both federal and state health reforms and how they affect individuals and businesses.

    The website can be found at healthreform.mn.gov.

    Buying health insurance

    Small businesses are getting help in being comparison shoppers for health insurance plans.

    In a news release, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced an online tool to help small-business owners compare benefits and costs of the health plans available to them.

    It is available at HealthCare.gov.

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