April 1, 2003

Preparticipation ocular examination and use of protective eyewear can help to prevent sportsrelated eye injuries in athletes.

The bed-wetting alarm is the single most effective therapy for nocturnal enuresis. Desmopressin or imipramine can also be effective, but relapse rates are relatively high.

As men age, their risk for osteoporosis and fracture increases; one year after hip fracture, men have a higher mortality rate than women.

Regular screening and awareness of “red flags” can help family physicians detect substance abuse in their patients.

The fusiform excision technique is commonly performed by family physicians for removing skin and subcutaneous lesions. This office procedure offers the advantage of a definitive, single-stage diagnostic and therapeutic intervention.

In an earlier column, I invited readers to join a panel of representatives who would provide AFP's editors with occasional feedback on various topics. We are looking for some volunteers to act as a sounding board when we want to test new ideas, products, or services, and to…

While comprising about 15 percent of the physician workforce, family physicians provided approximately 20 percent of physician office-based mental health visits in the United States between 1980 and 1999. This proportion has remained stable over the past two decades despite a…

Agencies Respond to Potential Risks of Supplements Containing Ephedra | FDA Proposal Creates Production Standards for Dietary Supplements | HHS Proposes Smallpox Vaccination Compensation Plan | Report Shows Health Care Costs Top Americans' Economic Concerns | AAFP Adds New…

If your patients don't like shots, they can join the Congregation of Universal Wisdom. As reported in an article published in The New York Times, members of the Congregation are not allowed to have any foreign materials of unhealthy or unnatural composition injected, ingested…

As Mersy1 points out in his article in this issue of American Family Physician, substance use problems are common and serious. They are also hidden.

On July 9, 2002, the Data and Safety Monitoring Board of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) announced the abrupt termination of the continuous hormone replacement therapy (now referred to as hormone therapy, or HT) portion of the WHI trials sponsored by the National Institutes…

The towering young man squeezed himself onto the mobile coach and into the clinic examination room. The medical student took a detailed history and physical examination, but she was unsure of the diagnosis or plan. Living in the woods along the Scioto River during one of the…

What are the effects of interventions to prevent postherpetic neuralgia? What are the effects of treatments in established postherpetic neuralgia?

Case study: Your office is reviewing its disease screening policies and procedures, and you wonder if depression screening should be included. You are concerned about the effectiveness of screening, your partners' comfort with depression diagnosis and treatment, and the amount…

Photo Quiz presents readers with a clinical challenge based on a photograph or other image.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has published a clinical management guideline on the diagnosis and management of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). As proposed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the diagnostic criteria are chronic…

CDC Guidelines for QuantiFERON-TB Test | NIH Launches HIV/AIDS Web Site | AHRQ Launches Web-Based Quality Measures Resource | FDA Approval

As a rule, physicians should avoid giving money directly to patients. Like most decisions in medical practice, the determination to give a patient money must be weighed carefully, and each case must be evaluated individually.

Sports cause more than 40,000 eye injuries each year. More than 90 percent of these injuries can be prevented. Overall, basketball and baseball cause the most eye injuries, followed by water sports and racquet sports.

Bed-wetting, or losing urine during sleep, is a common problem in children. As many as 7 million children in the United States wet the bed at night. Bed-wetting happens three times more often in boys than in girls.

YES, if you are:

The fusiform excision technique is a simple way to remove tumors or growths from the skin or from the tissues below the skin. The word “biopsy” means the removal of tissue for examination under a microscope. This procedure frequently is performed to find out whether a growth is…

Sex is any behavior that involves using a person's sex organs for pleasure. When people talk about “sex,” they usually refer to sexual intercourse, which is penetration of the vagina by the penis. But “sex” also can include oral sex, manual sex (masturbation), and anal sex. You…

The type of birth control (or “contraception”) you choose depends on your needs. Some people only need to prevent pregnancy. Other people also may want to protect themselves or their partners from diseases that can be passed by having sex. These are called sexually transmitted…

A progestin-only contraceptive is one kind of birth control pill. It is often called the “mini-pill.” Regular birth control pills have two female hormones: estrogen and progestin. The mini-pill has only progestin in it. Because this pill does not contain estrogen, it may not…