NIH MedlinePlus Magazine is a new quarterly guide for patients and their families. It brings the latest and most authoritative medical and healthcare information from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as featured online on the MedlinePlus Web site.

COVER STORY: Traumatic Brain Injury
A Family Finds Its Way
ABC newsman Bob Woodruff, wife Lee, and family deal with Bob’s traumatic brain injury and daughter Nora’s hearing loss.

Although she’s a best-selling co-author, freelance writer and contributor to ABC’s Good Morning America, Lee Woodruff is just like millions of other Americans. She is a principal caregiver. On assignment in Iraq, her husband, ABC correspondent Bob Woodruff, was blown up by a roadside bomb and suffers from traumatic brain injury (TBI). As a baby, daughter Nora, now 8, was diagnosed with severe hearing loss. Lee spoke recently with NIH MedlinePlus’ Christopher Klose. ...

FASTFACTS

• Traumatic brain injury (TBI) occurs when a sudden trauma causes damage to the brain. Symptoms of TBI can be mild, moderate, or severe, depending of the extent of damage.
• About 1.4 million people suffer a TBI each year in the United States. Of those, 50,000 die, 235,000 are hospitalized, and 1.1 million are treated and released at an emergency room.
• The leading causes of TBI are falls (28 percent), motor vehicle crashes (20 percent), other events in which the head strikes or is struck by an object (19 percent) and personal assaults (11 percent).
• People 75 and older have the highest rates of TBIrelated hospitalizations and death.
• U.S. hospital emergency rooms treated about 319,000 sports-related head injuries in 2006 (latest figures). That was an increase of 10,000 injuries from 2005.
• Over the last few years, tens of thousands of soldiers have suffered traumatic injuries from blasts due to improvised explosive devices (IED ) in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Download NIH MedlinePlus Magazine, Fall 2008

PDF format, 1.3MB, 32Pages.

Highlights:
Traumatic Brain Injury
Focus on Communication
Preventing STDs
Skin Health and Skin Disease

Visit MedlinePlus Website

Understanding, Treating, and Preventing STDs

More than 19 million men and women in this country are affected by sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Once called venereal diseases, STDs are among the most common infections in the United States today. The annual medical costs of STDs in the United States are estimated to be up to $14 billion.

Understanding the basic facts about STDs—the ways in which they are spread, their common symptoms, and how they can be treated—is the first step toward preventing them. Researchers supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases are looking for better methods to diagnose, treat, and prevent STDs.

Symptoms
The symptoms vary among the different types of STDs. Some examples of common symptoms include:
Unusual discharge from the penis or vagina
Sores or warts on the genital area
Burning while urinating
Itching and redness in the genital area
Anal itching, soreness, or bleeding

Diagnosis
Talk with your doctor or nurse about getting tested for STDs. She or he can tell you how to test for each STD.

An exam will include a thorough look at your genital area, oral cavity and rectum. Swabs from open sores or discharges may be taken.

Women will have a pelvic exam. You will also have urine and blood tests.
Many symptoms of STDs come and go. Just because your symptoms disappear, it does not mean you are cured without medical treatment.

Treatment
The treatment depends on the type of STD. For some STDs, treatment may involve taking drugs or getting a shot. For other STDs that can’t be cured, like herpes, there is treatment to relieve the symptoms.

Prevention
The only way to ensure that you won’t get infected is to not have sex. This means avoiding all types of intimate sexual contact.

If you are sexually active, you can reduce your risk of getting STDs by practicing “safe sex.” This means:
Using a condom for vaginal, oral, and anal intercourse— every time
Knowing your partner and his/her STD status and health
Having regular medical check-ups, especially if you have more than one sexual partner

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