Los Angeles, CA – May 18, 2012: In recognition of Asthma Awareness Month, Health Nuts Media has launched an animated asthma education series titled Huff & Puff: An Asthma Tale. The seven-episode cartoon is already helping national healthcare insurance plans, health literacy partners, and local community organizations teach kids about asthma.

Watch the videos at: Huff & Puff: An Asthma Tale

“With rates of asthma rising among children, doctors and parents need health education that is engaging and fun for kids to watch,” said Tim Jones, CEO, Health Nuts Media. “If Health Nuts Media can get children excited about listening to the Big Bad Wolf talk about asthma, we have the opportunity to make a real impact on asthma, and help improve kids’ quality of life.” (more…)

Kids grow. Geez, that’s not much of a story, huh? It isn’t, but where kids’ bones grow, a special area called the growth plate, is maybe something many people don’t know much about. These growth plates are really important when it comes to broken bones – also known as fractures – in kids. Here’s a little serving on growth plates to help you understand why.

As I mentioned, kids grow, and their bones must grow to help make that happen. But bones – and we’re talking about the long bones here, like leg, arm, and finger bones – grow at a special place near their ends. This place is like a little slice through the bone that is filled with cartilage. (Cartilage is a “connective” tissue in the body, softer than bone, but more firm than muscle. The stiff parts of your ears and the lower part, the wiggly part, of your nose are good examples.) It’s in these cartilage zones where new bone is made that allows long bones to get longer. (more…)

Lying in a bed, careening down hilly Topdown Drive with one broken leg tied up in traction is not exactly what Hal had planned to do today. How he got there is still a bit of a mystery. (Well, it’s a mystery to most of us…you know, normal people who try to avoid doing dumb things that cause pain.)

It all started just like any other day…well, any other day that a kid finds himself lying in bed with his broken leg in a cast tied up to some contraption to help it heal right and not hurt so much. (OK, so it wasn’t like most other days.)

Hal had broken his left tibia. That’s the bigger of the two bones in his lower leg, the one in the front that most people call their shin bone. Turns out that trying to ride a bicycle on top of two skateboards down the very steep Topdown Drive isn’t such a good idea, especially when there are cars around. Who knew? (more…)

AAAAI!!! Sounds more like something you might scream when running away from asthma education, doesn’t it? But, actually, “AAAAI” is the short name for the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology and they have loads of asthma education tools. Plus, they now have a new Just for Kids section. It has games, puzzles, storybooks, video, and more.

Their new spokesperson is Mr. Nose-it-All. (As you can see from his picture, he’s actually more of a “spokes-nose”.) Mr. Nose-it-All has pages and pages of word games, bubble pop games, coloring books, matching games, storybooks, even a BrainPOP video with Tim and Moby. (more…)

Knocking down barriers between healthcare providers and consumers is generally a good idea, but is there such a thing as too much patient education? Apparently so, at least in some circles.

In the Health News section of UPI.com, a recent story notes just such a situation exists when it comes to children with cancer. More specifically, it exists for parents and adult caregivers of kids with cancer. As noted in the article, “Parents of kids with cancer distrust Web“, researchers at the University of (more…)

Throughout the world, telehealth services have shown their merit. The United States, however, has taken a bit longer to embrace it. Fortunately, telehealth, also referred to as telemedicine, is gaining bigger and stronger footholds in the U.S. The legal obstacles are being ironed out and reimbursement for telehealth services is improving.

One of the primary driving forces for this change is the lack of sufficient access to medical specialists for many people, especially those outside of major metropolitan areas. Specialists often have tremendous waiting lists; it can take months to gain an appointment. Plus, people in rural areas often must drive for hours to reach specialty care centers. (more…)

With the right asthma education and supervision, 85% of asthma patients can bring their condition under good control. So says a report in The Archives of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology in August, 2011. According to that same report, poorly-controlled asthma resulted 50% higher direct costs, 800% higher indirect costs (such as missed days of parental work), and huge academic impact on children from missed school days.

But asthma is complex. Asthma care and asthma attack prevention take some serious understanding to do well. Without the right tools, without the right kind of educational options that work for them, consumers face a huge challenge in understanding the complexities of asthma and its management. (more…)

OK, seriously, how many of you out there ever really thought you could use the terms “diabetes education” and “fun” in the same sentence?

I hear you. Those wiseacres of you out there are saying something like, “Sure. Easy. ‘Diabetes education is anything but fun.’” You know that’s not what I meant. What I meant was how often has diabetes education, or any educational stuff about any health topic, ever really been fun?

You know how it is. Diabetes education almost always involves some dry pamphlet or a long, boring book with way too many facts and far too many ultra-big words. They’re usually far, far too long and most times – come on, admit it – you either fall asleep before you finish the first page or you put it down with the unkept promise to get back to it after the headache it gave you goes away. (more…)