News

Handhelds, or personal digital assistants (PDAs), have evolved a great deal since their beginnings as a monochromatic screen with miniscule memory. Here is a look at how you, your practice, and your patients can benefit when you use a PDA.

In light of the FDA's black box warning about potential bone loss in teenagers, how do you counsel teenagers about this highly effective birth control method? Recommendations from the World Health Organization provide a practical, evidence-based approach to weighing the risks.

Emerging and spreading zoonoses are major concerns among the public and public health professionals. Recognition, surveillance, and reporting are our first line of defense.

Is deafness a disability or a difference? Crucial medical and educational choices hinge on the approach to this question. Second of two parts.

Hearing parents of a deaf infant face emotional hurdles and complex choices about how to communicate with and educate their child. The counseling you provide can set the stage for success or failure. First of two parts.

When parents ask about supplements and other so-called natural remedies for depression, what do you tell them? This review of what is known about herbal and dietary treatments for depression in pediatric patients will help you provide an informed response.

Here are practical solutions to 10 common problems encountered by children and parents using an enuresis alarm.

Childhood melanoma is a challenging diagnosis even for a clinician who sees pigmented skin lesions every day. The authors share their international experience with you and describe what you need to know in your practice about the rare, but real, childhood melanoma.

Can you determine what's causing this baby's nasal congestion, runny nose, cough, and noisy breathing?

What's the motivation behind the increasing pressure on deans and department chairs to increase diversity among students, trainees, and faculty members?

A 9-year-old girl presented with a 3-hour history of unremitting severe cramping in her hands and legs. A similar episode occurred a month earlier, but it resolved with massage.

A 16-year-old boy complains of right lower leg pain that began 2 weeks earlier, after his first week at a summer basketball conditioning camp. Before he left for the camp, he was jogging off and on, averaging a few miles a week. At camp he began running 7 miles a day and doing sprints 3 times a week.

On waking up from a nap, a 5-month-old infant was noted to have a watery right eye. The mother thought an eyelash was the problem and flushed the eye with water. Soon afterward, the eye watered again and began to close. There was no history of injury, foreign body, upper respiratory tract symptoms, or fever.

Musculoskeletal infections in children include osteomyelitis, septic arthritis, and pyomyositis. Most of these infections are bacterial. Staphylococcus aureus is the most common organism in children in all age cat-egories. Others include group A Streptococcus, Neisseria meningitidis in purpura fulminans, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and Borrelia burgdorferi.

This 9-month-old infant was brought for evaluation of anteroposterior elongation of the cranium. The infant was born at term via uncomplicated vaginal delivery. His mother had noticed that his head was more elongated and narrower than his sibling's. He had achieved appropriate motor and social milestones for his age. Neither parent had a family history of abnormal head shape. The rest of the examination findings were unremarkable.

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During hot summer months, children and adolescents flock to pools to keep cool. But a multitude of problems-including coughing and shortness of breath-can arise if pool chemicals are not stored safely. Remind parents to seal all original containers of pool chemicals to keep their children safe when cooling off this summer. And there's more good advice to offer to owners of home pools where children congregate.

According to research released at the 2006 Annual Meeting of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine, high school football players sustain almost the same level of head impact as college players. This news is important to bear in mind as another Fall football season comes on at high schools nationwide.

Speaking at the American Academy of Dermatology Summer Meeting in July in San Diego, James Q. Del Rosso, DO, advised physicians not to overlook the possibility of truncal involvement in patients who come in for treatment of facial acne vulgaris.

A decline in the adolescent birth rate in 2004 to its lowest recorded level is one among many findings in the federal government's annual monitoring report on the well-being of the nation's children and youth. The report covers the most recent years for which data are available and, in the case of adolescent births, reveals a prevalence of 22.1 births for every 1,000 females between the ages of 15 and 17 years in 2004, down from 22.4 for every 1,000 in 2003. Other noteworthy findings from "America's Children in Brief: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2006," reflect changes in the infant mortality rate, prevalence of overweight, and rising math and reading scores among elementary school students.

Guide for Parents: Bees, wasps, and other ?stingers?: Keep your child safe! Bees, wasps, and other ?stingers?: Keep your child safe!