The IAA One Minute Blog

Bruce Willis’s family announced the actor will be stepping away from acting after being diagnosed with aphasia.

Aphasia Diagnosis

Aphasia is a condition that affects your ability to communicate. It can affect your speech, as well as the way you write and understand both spoken and written language.

With his diagnosis, 67 year old Willis joins a community of around 200,000 people in the United States who develop aphasia every year, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Aphasia is a disorder that affects people of all ages, although Willis represents the most common population, people who are middle-aged or older.

Symptoms of Aphasia

Aphasia is an acquired communication disorder, which means that it is something that happens during the course of life instead of being present from birth.

A person with aphasia may:

• Not understand other people’s conversations
• Speak in sentences that don’t make sense
• Speak in short or incomplete sentences
• Speak unrecognizable words
• Substitute one word for another or one sound for another
• Write sentences that don’t make sense

Aphasia typically occurs after a stroke or a head injury. It can also come on gradually from a slow-growing brain tumor or a disease that causes progressive, permanent damage.

People with aphasia may have different patterns of strengths and weaknesses:

• Comprehensive aphasia: People with this pattern of aphasia may speak easily and fluently in long, complex sentences that don’t make sense or include unrecognizable, incorrect or unnecessary words. They usually don’t understand spoken language well and often don’t realize that others can’t understand them.
• Expressive aphasia: People with this pattern of aphasia may understand what other people say better than they can speak. People with this pattern of aphasia struggle to get words out, speak in very short sentences and omit words. A listener can usually understand the meaning, but people with this aphasia pattern are often unaware of their difficulty communicating and may get frustrated.
• Global aphasia: This aphasia pattern is characterized by poor comprehension and difficulty forming words and sentences.

While people with aphasia have difficulty communicating, the disorder itself does not affect their intelligence, according to the National Aphasia Association.

What IAA has to Say

When a celebrity speaks out on their personal diagnosis and/or disorder, it allows for a better understanding of certain health conditions. Insurance Administrator of America wants you to have this information on certain diseases and conditions through these blog posts. Remember, with IAA one call does it all.

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A new study shows improvements to hard-to-treat asthma after patients undergo a bronchial thermoplasty.

New Study

A new clinical trial reports that patients’ symptoms significantly improved five years after their bronchial thermoplasty. They had fewer severe asthma attacks, emergency department visits and hospitalizations, and used less corticosteroid medication.

The study included 284 American and Canadian patients between 18 and 65 years of age who had a bronchial thermoplasty. About 80 percent were followed for five years. They had been taking corticosteroids and long-acting beta-agonists to control their asthma. Their asthma attacks, emergency visits, hospitalizations and medication use were tracked for 12 months prior to surgery and five years after.

After five years, 9.7 percent were using oral corticosteroids, compared to 19.4 percent before the surgery. In all, 77.8 percent had severe attacks before the surgery, compared to 42.7 percent five years later. Hospitalizations dropped from 16.1 percent of patients to 4.8 percent and emergency department visits from 29.4 percent to 7.9 percent by year five.     

In a bronchial thermoplasty, a surgeon passes a catheter that has a four-pronged basket on it, into the lungs. The prongs are expanded until they touch the airway walls. Then heat is used to shrink the smooth muscle layer beneath so it can’t tighten up and cause an asthma attack.  The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the treatment for adults with severe asthma in 2010.

About five to 10 percent of people with asthma have severe asthma that can’t be controlled with medications, inhalers or other therapies.

The findings were published in the March issue of the journal “CHEST.”

Asthma Signs and Symptoms

Asthma is a condition in which your airways narrow and swell and may produce extra mucus. This can make breathing difficult and trigger coughing, wheezing when you breathe out and shortness of breath.

Asthma symptoms vary from person to person. Asthma signs and symptoms include:

• Chest tightness or pain
• Coughing or wheezing attacks that are worsened by a respiratory virus
• Shortness of breath
• Trouble sleeping caused by shortness of breath, coughing or wheezing
• Wheezing when exhaling

Exposure to various irritants and substances that trigger allergies can trigger asthma symptoms.

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Daylight savings time has been and gone, but some people are still feeling the effects of that time change. According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) time changes for daylight savings time should end because they pose health and safety risks.

Health Impact of Daylight Savings Time

Research shows that time changes affect the body’s circadian rhythm or body clock. This makes it difficult to achieve quality sleep and also negatively impacts health and safety.

Moving clocks ahead and losing an hour of sleep presents hazards that include:

• A higher risk of stroke and hospital admissions
• Disruption of the body’s internal clock that harms sleep quality and leads to sleep loss
• Greater chance of mood disturbances
• Rise in missed medical appointments

The United States Senate passed legislation that would make daylight savings time permanent in 2023, ending the twice annual changing of the clocks.

The House of Representatives must still pass the bill before it can go to President Biden to sign.

Adjusting to the Time Change

The AASM offers these tips to help manage daylight savings time:

• Adjust scheduling of other daily routines that are time cues for your body
• Adults should get at least seven hours of sleep and teens should strive for eight hours each night before and after the time change
• Avoiding naps is key for adjusting to the time change. Long daytime naps could make it harder for you to get a full night’s sleep.
• Go to bed 15 to 20 minutes earlier each night about a week before you “spring forward”
• In the hour before bedtime, dim your lights and minimize screen use

Adjusting to the time change is different for everyone. Some people adjust in a few days, for others it takes more time.

What IAA has to Say

Insurance Administrator of America knows losing that hour was not pleasant. If daylight savings time does continue after this year, there are ways to help prepare your body for the change. Remember, with IAA one call does it all.

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A new DNA test can accurately identify a range of hard to diagnose neurological and neuromuscular genetic diseases quicker and more accurately than currently available diagnostic tools, according to researchers.

Testing for Genetic Diseases

The diseases that can be spotted with the test belong to a class of more than 50 diseases caused by unusually long, repetitive DNA sequences in a person’s genes and are known as short-tandem repeat expansion disorders, the researchers said. Examples include rare diseases such as Huntington’s disease, fragile X syndrome, hereditary cerebellar ataxias, myotonic dystrophies, myoclonic epilepsies, and motor neuron diseases.

Short-tandem repeat expansion disorders are passed on through families and can be life-threatening, according to the National Organization for Rare Disorders. They generally involve more nerve damage, as well as other complications throughout the body, and they can be challenging to diagnose, according to the organization.

The new test analyzes DNA in collected blood samples to spot disease—causing repeat expansion sequences, according to the researchers.

It works by scanning a patient’s genome using a technology called nanopore sequencing.  The test is programmed to analyze 37 genes known to be involved in short-tandem repeat expansion disorders and to read through the long repeated DNA sequences that cause the disease.

In this study the device was used to evaluate DNA samples collected from 27 patients with known short-tandem repeat expansion disorders. In all patients, the test spotted the DNA sequences behind these disorders and correctly identified the specific disease each patient had, the researchers said.

The article was published in the journal “Science Advances.”

Although short-tandem repeat expansion disorders cannot be cured, earlier diagnosis can help doctors identify and treat disease complications sooner.

What are Genetic Disorders?

A genetic disorder is a disease caused in whole or in part by a change in the DNA sequence away from the normal sequence.

Genetic disorders can be caused by a mutation in one gene (monogenic disorder), by mutations in multiple genes (multifactorial inheritance disorder), by a combination of gene mutations and environmental factors, or by damage to chromosomes (changes in the number or structure of entire chromosomes).

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You used to love ordering crab cakes for dinner, but now eating crab makes you break out in hives. Researchers don’t know for sure why some people become allergic to certain foods after adulthood, but there are several theories about triggers.

Triggers for Adult Onset Allergies

More than 50 million Americans have food allergies, which happen when a person’s immune system overreacts to something in a food, according to the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI).

Of the more than 50 million Americans who have food allergies, 10 percent includes adults. Some allergies carried over from childhood, but nearly half of those began in adulthood. About 38 percent in a 2019 survey of 40,000 people reported having a severe reaction to food that sent them to the emergency room.

Researchers have identified multiple triggers for adult onset allergies:

1. Environment: Among the many reasons researchers have identified for new allergies in adulthood is a change in environment. Maybe you’ve moved and are being exposed to different allergens, which trigger your immune system.
2. Illness: A viral or bacterial infection could flip that switch.
3. Hormones: It is not uncommon to develop food allergies during puberty, pregnancy or menopause.
4. Medications/Alcohol: Certain medications or alcohol can change gut acidity, so the body stops breaking down certain foods the way it once did.

While you can be allergic to anything, nine substances cause 90 percent of food allergies: peanuts, tree nuts, milk, egg, shellfish, fin fish, soy, wheat, and sesame. Among adults, shellfish allergy is the most common, affecting almost three percent.

Allergy Signs and Symptoms

Allergies occur when your immune system reacts to a foreign substance. 

Your immune system produces substances known as antibodies. When you have allergies, your immune system makes antibodies that identify a particular allergen as harmful, even though it isn’t. When you come into contact with that allergen, your immune system’s reaction can inflame your skin, sinuses, airways or digestive system.

A food allergy can cause:

• Anaphylaxis
• Hives
• Swelling of the lips, tongue, face or throat
• Tingling in the mouth

If you are unsure of what food is causing the reaction, keep a food diary. This can help you and your doctor identify triggers.

What IAA has to Say

Insurance Administrator of America knows that food allergies can be serious, so be sure to talk with your doctor if you notice any new reactions to your typical diet. Remember, with IAA one call does it all.

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