Daily Rounds: Close Schools For Flu?; Segregation By Healthiness; Misleading Australian Registry; Tai Chi For Parkinsons

When flu pandemics hit, closing schools can slow spread (NPR-Shots) - "A study of swine flu transmission in Alberta, Canada, published this week in Annals of Internal Medicine, lends weight to the benefits of school closure. Researchers compared rates of new diagnoses of swine flu from the beginning of the pandemic, in April 2009, through summer vacation and into the following school year. (NPR-Shots)

Tables reserved for the healthiest (The New York Times) - "For years after Harbor’s Edge, a nonprofit facility, opened in 2006, nobody seemed to care that some of these diners occupied independent living units in the high-rise building while others, in need of greater care, lived in assisted living apartments or in the facility’s nursing unit. But last spring, managers declared the River Terrace and two other dining facilities at the community off limits to anyone but independent living residents. Assisted living residents were told to use their own small dining room; nursing residents were restricted to theirs." (The New York Times — The New Old Age blog)

Misleading health care register puts patients at risk (The Global Mail) - "Set up by Australian state and territory governments at a cost of $20 million to taxpayers, the online register is billed as a one-stop-shop for employers,professionals and the public to look up reliable and complete information about the registrations of their doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists and a range of other health workers. But an examination by The Global Mail has identified nearly 100 instances where formal reprimands delivered by courts, tribunals or other oversight bodies across the country are not reflected on the register." (The Global Mail)

Tai Chi may help Parkinson's patients regain balance (The Los Angeles Times) - "A six-month program of Tai Chi exercises helped people with various stages of Parkinson's disease improve stability, their ability to walk and reduced the frequency of falls. A study released this week in the New England Journal of Medicine compared a six-month tailored Tai Chi program to resistance training and stretching to see which was most effective at improving functional movement, walking and balance for Parkinson's patients." (The Los Angeles Times)