Health Topics

Each hol­i­day sea­son, Quincy’s Waver­ing Park trans­forms into a daz­zling win­ter won­der­land for the Fes­ti­val of Lights, a cher­ished tra­di­tion led by Eric Doo­ley and his fam­i­ly. For years, Eric’s health chal­lenges, includ­ing severe knee pain stem­ming from a high school ACL injury, made the phys­i­cal­ly demand­ing work of cre­at­ing the dis­play near­ly impossible.

Turn­ing to Quin­cy Med­ical Group (QMG) for help, Eric began treat­ment with Nurse Prac­ti­tion­er Mary Beth Deck­er and even­tu­al­ly under­went knee replace­ment surgery with Ortho­pe­dic Sur­geon Dr. George Crickard III. The surgery was life-chang­ing, allow­ing Eric to walk with­out pain and ful­ly embrace his role in the Fes­ti­val of Lights.

The QMG Pedi­atric Ther­a­py team has some gift sug­ges­tions for the kids in your life. 

It doesn’t take long for a pic­ture-per­fect win­ter set­ting to turn haz­ardous. Between the ice, snow, and bit­ing cold tem­per­a­tures, win­ter is a prime sea­son for slips, trips, and ankle injuries. Dur­ing win­ter, the amount of ankle sprains and breaks increas­es dra­mat­i­cal­ly. Here’s how you can pre­vent ankle injuries this season.

The ongo­ing COVID pan­dem­ic has affect­ed us all in one way or anoth­er. These times have brought many chal­lenges, which can sig­nif­i­cant­ly impact all aspects of your life, includ­ing your job.

Thanks­giv­ing is tomor­row, so I thought we’d talk about our ungrate­ful lit­tle brats, whoops, I mean our lit­tle dar­ling angels for a minute. But seri­ous­ly, kids can appear to be rather greedy and self-cen­tered at times. It’s in their nature. They are hard-wired for sur­vival but don’t yet under­stand the dif­fer­ence between ​“wants” and ​“needs.” So when they are los­ing their mind because you won’t buy them can­dy at the gro­cery store a mere twen­ty min­utes after you bought them some­thing at the toy store, it’s because their devel­op­ing brains are mis­in­ter­pret­ing your ​“no” as a threat to their needs being met.

Illog­i­cal, maybe. Annoy­ing, def­i­nite­ly. But the abil­i­ty to be thank­ful isn’t born in — it’s a skill that has to be learned.

Here you will find answers to fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions after receiv­ing a can­cer diagnosis.

Mem­o­ry loss is a com­mon con­cern for many indi­vid­u­als, often lead­ing to wor­ries about Alzheimer’s dis­ease or relat­ed dis­or­ders. Mar­i­anne McClain, PsyD, Adult Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist with Quin­cy Med­ical Group (QMG) and the QMG Mem­o­ry Clin­ic, empha­sizes that mem­o­ry loss does not always indi­cate a pro­gres­sive condition.

In no way am I try­ing to ruin Thanks­giv­ing, but we have to talk about one lit­tle cul­prit that makes the hol­i­days a lot less heart-healthy. Salt added to food is a com­bi­na­tion of sodi­um and chlo­ride, and this small crys­tal has a huge effect on our health. Too much salt can raise blood pres­sure and lead to dan­ger­ous flu­id reten­tion, espe­cial­ly in those with dis­eases like kid­ney dis­ease or heart fail­ure. The biggest prob­lem is rarely the salt shak­er, but rather foods found on gro­cery store shelves or at restaurants.

To get past a dif­fi­cult emo­tion, you need to first iden­ti­fy and embrace that emo­tion. Once you know what you are feel­ing and why, you are able to move into a state of mind that allows for more effec­tive prob­lem solv­ing and deci­sion mak­ing. When some­one tells you to calm down, they are basi­cal­ly sug­gest­ing that you skip right past this step and move imme­di­ate­ly to the prob­lem solv­ing state of mind. That’s just not how we work. We need that in-between step of iden­ti­fy­ing the tough feel­ing and sit­ting with it for a minute before we can move for­ward. What’s miss­ing when some­one says ​“calm down” is empa­thy.

Research shows that for emo­tion­al symp­toms, includ­ing depres­sion, anx­i­ety, and ADHD, a com­bi­na­tion of med­ica­tion and ther­a­py is often the best form of treat­ment. But when should you or your child try med­ica­tion? Are there oth­er things you should try first? How does any­one even make that deci­sion? Is there a pill for that? The fol­low­ing is a list of fac­tors to keep in mind as you nav­i­gate this poten­tial­ly over­whelm­ing decision.

In our con­tin­u­ous effort to pri­or­i­tize men­tal well-being and inclu­siv­i­ty, we join the nation in com­mem­o­rat­ing Minor­i­ty Men­tal Health Month. This ded­i­cat­ed obser­vance brings atten­tion to the unique strug­gles that racial and eth­nic minor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ties face regard­ing men­tal illness.

Focus­ing on pre­ven­tive care can help you live a longer and hap­pi­er, health­i­er life. Annu­al vis­its are a time to talk with your provider about rec­om­mend­ed screen­ings, fam­i­ly his­to­ry, and any con­cerns. It’s easy to put off these vis­its, but they can help you in the long-term.

Nave Wil­son has been attend­ing the Man Up event since its incep­tion. For him, it’s more than just an activ­i­ty; it’s a year­ly reminder to focus on his well-being. He encour­ages oth­er men to pri­or­i­tize their health as well.

As men age, the prostate can enlarge, increas­ing the risk of con­di­tions such as benign pro­sta­t­ic hyper­pla­sia (BPH), pro­sta­ti­tis, and prostate can­cer. Prostate can­cer can spread if not detect­ed ear­ly. To main­tain prostate health, reg­u­lar exer­cise, a healthy diet, weight man­age­ment, quit­ting tobac­co, and reg­u­lar screen­ings are recommended.