A “curtain” will appear in front of your eye when the retina begins to tear away from the choroid. This is considered a medical emergency, and, once you see your doctor, he will usually perform surgery within a few hours of the initial detachment. Most of the treatment for retinal detachment involves laser surgery, which [...]

Description and Possible Medical Problems If you temporarily lose the ability to talk and are unable to use one of your arms and/or legs, you may think you’ve had a stroke. The truth is that you’ve probably had a transient ischemic attack, also called a TIA or a ministroke. While these symptoms may be disturbing [...]

Remember Ray Milland in the movie The Lost Weekend? Toward the end of the movie, as he was withdrawing from alcohol, he began to hallucinate, seeing rats climb out of a hole in the wall and bats swoop down on him. Frequently, we think of hallucinations in tandem with stories about bad drug experiences or [...]

As with any kind of personality change, the way in which confusion takes hold of an elderly parent or relative lies in the eyes of the beholder—and the beholden. Many times, even though your elderly mother may realize that she has become more forgetful and confused lately, she may resist mentioning it to you and [...]

In addition to the change in medical responsibilities, many insurance plans will require physicians to be paid on a capitation basis, under which a physician is paid a monthly service fee by the insurance company for all the patients the HMO assigns to him or her, regardless of the number of visits each patient makes. [...]