PC THE TOWN

Have you seen those TV commercials lately with actor Danny Glover talking about a neurological disorder that causes people to break out into uncontrollable laughter or crying? This health care issue is known as pseudobulbar affect or PBA, and its debilitating characteristics effects tens of thousands of newly diagnosed cases per year. Pseudobulbar affect (PBA), emotional lability, labile affect, or emotional incontinence refers to a neurologic disorder characterized by involuntary crying or uncontrollable episodes of crying and/or laughing, or other emotional displays. PBA occurs secondary to a neurologic disease or brain injury.  Patients may find themselves crying uncontrollably at something that is only moderately sad, being unable to stop themselves for several minutes. Episodes may also be mood-incongruent: a patient might laugh uncontrollably when angry or frustrated, for example. PBA episodes can be described in two key ways, according to PBAinfo.com: �    ...

Hypertension, or high blood pressure as it is commonly called, is a dangerous health care issue, and can be a killer. Tens of millions of men and women, as well as some children, suffer from this malady on a daily basis; and for some, hypertension is a lifelong struggle. Hypertension (HTN or HT), also known as high blood pressure or arterial hypertension, is a chronic medical condition in which the blood pressure in the arteries is persistently elevated. Blood pressure is expressed by two measurements, the systolic and diastolic pressures, which are the maximum and minimum pressures, respectively, in the arterial system. The systolic pressure occurs when the left ventricle is most contracted; the diastolic pressure occurs when the left ventricle is most relaxed prior to the next contraction, according to JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association. The publication has a lot of info about this medical topic, and you can locate it at this site: http://jama.jamanetwork.com/jour...