Seattle/LocalHealthGuide

2007 was a slightly safer year in Seattle and King County, according to the King County Medical Examiner’s office.
According to the Medical Examiners 2007 annual report, deaths due to homicide fell in King County from 91 in 2006 to 76 in 2007 and deaths due to suicide fell slightly, from 227 to 223.
Most homicides [...]

Honey often mislabeled and adulterated
The international honey trade is “fire with crime and intrigue” with honey traders “resorting to elaborate schemes to dodge tariffs and health safeguards”, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer senior correspondent Andrew Schneider reports in a two-part investigative series on the honey industry.
As a result, Schneider warns, don’t believe the label. “You may be [...]

Families looking for a nursing home can now compare different facilities for quality using a free online service provided by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
The Web site, Nursing Home Compare, gives quality ratings ranging from a low of one star to a high of five stars.
Five stars means the facility is “much [...]

Gingko biloba, a popular herbal preparation used to prevent or treat memory problems, failed to prevent the onset of dementia or Alzheimer’s diseases in a large study of older men and women.
The study appears in today’s issue of JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association
Gingko biloba is one of the most popular herbal products [...]

A Seattle home-care agency whose 114-home care workers help about 200 elderly and disabled area residents live independently is closing down, Seattle Times staff reporter Maureen O’Hagan reports in todays’ paper. 
The agency, which is run by the community service organization Solid Ground, will lay off the workers Dec. 31, the paper reports.
Solid Ground, which is [...]

More than 90 percent of US nursing homes were cited for violation of federal health and safety standards last year, according to a new report. Among the violations identified were medication errors, poor nutrition, inadequate staffing, and abuse and neglect.
For-profit nursing homes were more likely to be cited with 94 percent being found to be in [...]

US News & World Report has placed Issaquah on its list of the 10 “Best Healthy Places to Retire” in the USA.
The magazine’s profile calls Issaquah a “gem of a city” and gives much of the credit for the ranking to the amenities available in the Issaquah Highlands development.
Among those amenities, the magazine lists [...]

More than one in three US adults age 65 or older will fall this year. In fact, falls are the most common cause of nonfatal injuries and hospital admissions for trauma in this age group. F
The consequences can be serious: in 2005, for example, almost 2 million people 65 and older were treated in emergency [...]