What’s Hot in Healthcare: Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital expands its dog therapy program
Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood has seen how therapeutic dogs can be. Now, the hospital will expand its animal-assisted therapy for children after receiving a $500,000 endowment from auto magnate Craig Zinn.
The endowment from Craig Zinn Auto Group funds the existing program in perpetuity and initially provides money to purchase and train an additional therapy dog for the hospital, as well as add another handler on staff. The children’s hospital has a dog called Freedom who is 5 years old andas will soon bring on a puppy.
The animal-assisted therapy program allows hospitalized children to interact with dogs who are managed by handlers. The dogs work in shifts much in the same way doctors, nurses and other caregivers do.
“Our therapy dogs are an integral part of our care team, offering love, encouragement, and a sense of calm that only they can offer,” Caitlin Stella, CEO of Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital, said in an announcement about the funding. “They help create a fun and child-friendly healing environment that motivates and encourages patients to reach their goals.”
Memorial Healthcare System expands drop-in mental health clinic
The demand for mental health help has led Memorial Healthcare System to expand its resources in Broward County.
The publicly funded healthcare system relocated its outpatient behavioral health center in January from Hollywood to a larger free-standing behavioral health center at 5595 S. University Drive in Davie. With its move to a more central Broward location, the outpatient center is adding more services. Two of the new services are innovative treatments for anti-depressant resistant depression and OCD: Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and Esketamine.
With the relocation, the Memorial Outpatient Behavioral Health Center also has expanded its Rebel’s Drop-In Center, which offers mental heath services such as support groups, art therapy, peer mentoring and wellness activities. The drop-in center is open seven days a week, 365 days a year. Claudia Vicencio, director of Memorial Outpatient Behavioral Health, said drop-in participation has tripled in the new space with regulars and new participants.
Vicencio says this summer, the center will launch a teen and young adult program for ages 15 to 25.
“This is a program we are passionate about, knowing the young adult years are when you start to see the beginning of mental illness or challenges with behavioral health conditions,” she said. Mental health counselors, she said, often focus on pediatrics or adults. “This is the bridge, by treating those 15 to 25.”
Memorial invested $5 million into building its mental health services infrastructure, Vicencio said. “There are only a few hospitals in the country willing to do that. It says something about our mission in the community.”
What’s Hot in Healthcare: FIU researchers can diagnose stroke with 83% accuracy
UF researchers find tool to detect difficult-to-diagnose pancreatic cancer
Some cancers are hard to detect in early stages, which makes them particularly dangerous.
A team of University of Florida researchers has developed a promising new method that could help doctors diagnose cancer at earlier stages — including pancreatic cancer. The method uses a tool that detects small RNA molecules in tiny particles circulating in a person’s blood. Until now there wasn’t a tool sensitive enough to detect the microRNAs biomarkers of diseases.
Research on this method, led by Yong Zeng, Ph.D., an associate professor in the department of chemistry and UF Health Cancer Center member, was published on April 27 in Nature Biomedical Engineering.
The method, called “EXTRA-CRISPR,” represents a game-changing method in the microRNA testing field, said He Yan, a postdoctoral researcher in Zeng’s lab.
The team focused on adapting the technology for pancreatic cancer given the high mortality of the disease. “In the future, this method can be coupled with a very simple, low-cost portable device to make pancreatic cancer detection simpler but still reliable,” Yan said.
New video documents body image struggles of local teens
A South Broward teen has made a documentary that highlights the body-image issues young girls are experiencing. Davie teen Ella Glassman filmed and edited “Pretty Painful,” a seven-minute video that offers a glimpse into how teens view their bodies. Glassman, 17, interviews teens on what they like about their physical appearance. Her question is met with hesitation and pause. But when she asks them about what they dislike, they rattle off answers easily. The young girls also address the pressure social media puts on them.
“I made the documentary to let other girls know they are not alone in their struggles to see their individual beauty inside and outside,” Glassman said. “There is a definite correlation between beauty insecurities and depression and anxiety.”
Glassman’s powerful documentary reinforces the findings of a new study that found eight in 10 young adults dislike their bodies and are embarrassed by the way they look. The survey of 1,024 children and young people aged 12 to 21 years old by stem4, the youth mental health charity, comes at a time of rising public concern about the impact of social media on young people’s mental health
Since the pandemic, demand for adolescent eating disorder services has risen.
“I think the film shows that there is support out there if you’re willing to look for it,” Glassman said.
The documentary is available on YouTube.
Holy Cross Hospital uses new tools for shoulder, back and knee pain
Holy Cross Orthopedic Institute in Fort Lauderdale is now using biomechanical technology to measure a person’s body movement. By doing so, doctors can better diagnose musculoskeletal injuries such as shoulder, back or knee conditions that don’t show up on tests such as MRIs and CT scans.
Dr. Fernando Manalac said the institute has just added a clinical scientist who specializes in body movements to incorporate the Dari Motion Capture system technology into patients’ evaluations. The system uses eight high-speed cameras with computerized, sensorless technology to detail how the body moves. “Patients quickly go through 19 movements,” Manalac said. “It gives us great feedback on joint angulations. We are looking for deficiencies and asymmetries.”
“When someone squats or jumps, if they are putting too much load on one side versus the other, it will show you there’s a problem,” Manalac said. “That information can be used to prevent injury and drive better orthopedic management.”
Manalac said the technology mostly has been used for sports teams. His practice offers it for teams and to diagnose injuries and conditions like arthritic joints and tendon tears in individuals in the general population. Medicare and some private insurances will cover the test, he said.
What’s Hot in Healthcare is a monthly feature of the South Florida Sun Sentinel. To submit content, contact health reporter Cindy Goodman at cgoodman@sunsentinel.com.
