FEELING GOOD
WE REALLY CARE AT
Excellence in private duty
nursing care in .. .
by R.N.s
Homes
LPNs
Hospitals
AIDES
Extended care
COMPANIONS
facilities
THERAPISTS
R.N. coordinators available to discuss your
present or future nursing care needs.
553-8910 -
24 hours
28237 Orchard Lake Road, Farmington Hills, Mich.
President & Administrator Rita Rubin, R.N.
Kids Q Exercise
Continued from preceding page
After testing 360 children in
Jackson County, he found that
regular exercise produced a 16
percent lower body fat meas-
urement, a four percent lower
cholesterol and six percent
lower blood pressure. The chil-
dren learned how to take their
pulse and analyzed the foods
they eat. One remarkable find-
ing was the improvement in
self-esteem among partici-
pants.
Susan Rosenthal, a Southfield
resident and teacher of the
Feelin' Good program, tried to
start a class at the Jewish
Community Center (JCC) after
school for grades K-6. How-
ever, the class never began due
to poor enrollment.
According to Candice Bous-
quet, assistant athletic direc-
tor at the JCC, the JCC pro-
vides athletic programs for in-
fants through senior citizens.
"We also accommodate lots of
kids during free gym hours,"
says Bousquet.
However, Bousquet notices
that the kids in the community
don't walk as much as they
should and are eager to come
indoors at the slightest
weather inconvenience.
The West Bloomfield School
System has taken a positive
step in trying to motivate chil-
dren to develop a healthy phys-
ical and nutritional lifestyle.
They are part of a $260,000
project called Fitness for Youth
sponsored by Blue Cross/Blue
Shield of Michigan and the
University of Michigan.
"There is a conscious effort
toward physical fitness, rather
than skills," says Mike
McDonough, physical educa-
tion teacher at Scotch Elemen-
tary in West Bloomfield. He
explains that the children re-
ceive a complete physical fit-
ness profile, which can be up-
dated on a computerized report
as they progress. Blood choles-
terol testing is available, and
the kids learn about blood
p u
relss esure and taking their own
"We had over 70 percent im-
provement on our mile run in
spring," says McDonough.
After a one-year pilot, the pro-
gram is now district-wide in
West Bloomfield.
These are tiny steps in the
direction of youth fitness, but
the fact remains that Ameri-
ca's children are out of shape.
Fitness is a learned skill and
only the schools and the par-
ents can provide instruction.
Somehow that Latin adage,
"Mens sana in corpore sano —
a sound mind in a sound body,"
is not being taught to our chil-
dren. ❑
Estrogens
A heart attack he never had.
Because his doctor recog-
nized signs of his heart trouble
and sent him to Sinai Hospital,
one of the world's leading -heart
centers.
It was the right first step.
The Sinai cardiac team spe-
cializes in helping patients stay
on their feet. And getting back
on their feet after a heart attack.
In fact, last year alone we
performed over 500 open heart
surgeries. We even pioneered
new techniques for angioplasty,
a procedure which helps many
patients avoid surgery.
In this case, we stepped in
with testing, therapy and indi-
vidualized treatment. So he can
walk away from his heart ail-
ment as fast as his feet will
carry -him.
For doctor referral, call Sinai
at 1-800-248-DOCS.
©Sinai Hospital of Detroit
USING ALL WE KNOW TO MAKE YOU WELL:
50
Friday, January 2, 1987
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
There are a lot of good
reasons — besides those grim
ads in which an attractive
woman becomes bent and old-
looking — why women fear
osteoporosis, or bone thinning.
The condition is not only a
common cause of collapsed
vertebrae (the "dowager's
hump" in those advertise-
ments), it is the leading
underlying cause of fractures
in older persons, particularly
women.
Bone mass reaches a peak
in women at about 35 and
then declines. Women, who
had less bone mass than men
to begin with, lose it par-
ticularly fast in the three to
seven years after menopause.
Experts estimate that
there may be 20 million per-
sons in the United States af-
fected by osteoporosis — and
that each year it contributes
to 1.3 million fractures in peo-
ple 45 or older. (About seven
out of ten fractures in the
elderly have osteoporosis as
the underlying cause.)
Spinal vertebrae fractures,
which occur much more fre-
quently in women, collapse
the vertebrae and are most
often seen in reduced height
and in that curvature of the
back called dowager's hump.
But they can sometimes pro-
duce acute pain.
Osteoporosis also contrib-
utes to broken hips. One-third
of all women 90 and over have
had one. And many, despite
improved treatment methods,
remain
particularly
debilitating injuries.
Most hip patients do not
return to full mobility and ac-
tivity — and 20 percent die
within a year, 20 percent
become totally dependent,
and 25 percent partially
dependent.
These estimates are from
materials brought together
for a national conference on
women's health sponsored by
the Food and Drug Adminis-
tration and the U.S. Public
Health Service Coordinating
Committee on Women's Health
I8sues. The statistics are
sobering.
But there are steps that
women can take throughout
their lives to try to beat those
statistics. Experts speculate
that more calcium in the diet
throughout a woman's life-
time may help.
A routine of weight-bearing
exercise — walking or run-
ning, as opposed to swim-
ming — also appears to • in-
crease bone mass.
Finally, there is strong
evidence that after meno-
pause, replacement of the
female hormone estrogen can
retard bone loss. FDA has ac-
cepted such studies and the
views of its own and National
Institutes of Health advisory
groups and permits low-
dosage estrogen to be labeled
to retard further bone loss in
postmenopausal women with
evidence of loss or deficiency
of bone mass.