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THURSDAY, Aug. 24, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- With 2023 predicted to be the hottest year on record, a new study is pointing to another potential consequence of heat waves: faster declines in older adults' memory and thinking skills.The study, of nearly 9,500 older U.S. adults, found that those with greater exposure to heat waves over 12 years also showed a steeper decline in cognitive function -- critical mental skills like memory, reasoning and judgment.The connection was specifically seen among older Black Americans and those living in poorer neighborhoods -- groups who typically have fewer resources to protect themselves from scorching summer heat.Experts stressed that the findings show only an association between heat and cognitive decline, and cannot pin the blame on temperature...

THURSDAY, Aug. 24, 2023 (American Heart Association News) -- Holly Page was having a great day. She got her hair done, then enjoyed a long dinner catching up with friend Lisa Stillings. They were walking out of the restaurant when something strange happened.Page tried to speak but couldn't."When I got under a streetlight, I slowed down and looked at her, and she was leaning into me," said Stillings, who recognized the speech difficulty as a classic stroke symptom.Indeed, doctors at a hospital in the Columbus, Ohio, area determined Page was having an ischemic stroke, the kind caused by a blood clot. The clot was found on the left side of her brain, compromising the right side of her body.Page needed a thrombectomy, a procedure in which doctors can remove the clot. This hospital wasn't...

THURSDAY, Aug. 24, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Bystander aid using CPR and a defibrillator can be critically important for saving lives when someone has a cardiac arrest -- even when an ambulance arrives quickly, say researchers.A new study finds that when a bystander uses a defibrillator, on top of CPR, on someone who has had a cardiac arrest, that patient’s 30-day survival improves, even when an ambulance takes just two minutes to arrive to the scene. Study findings were presented Thursday at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2023, in Amsterdam.“When a person collapses from sudden cardiac arrest, the most effective way a bystander can help is to perform CPR and use an automated external defibrillator [AED],” said study author Dr. Mathias Hindborg of Nordsjaellands...

THURSDAY, Aug. 24, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Living through days of smoky air from Canadian wildfires in June was unpleasant for New York City residents, but new data shows it wasn't as immediately concerning for their lungs as feared.The research finds breathing-related hospital visits weren't much worse in the city on these days than when pollen is especially high, though longer-term impacts aren’t so clear.“Thankfully, the respiratory effects of the wildfire smoke in June were not much worse than what had been seen on really bad pollen days back in the spring, and despite what many New Yorkers may have feared on seeing hazy, orange air,” study co-author Wuyue Yu said in an NYU news release. Yu is a doctoral student at NYU Langone Health in New York City.The researchers, from...