Johns Hopkins Medicine A Womans Journey: Health Insights that Matter

A Woman's Journey: Insights that Matter is devoting this time to the COVID-19 pandemic. We are pleased to offer audio transcripts of a series of webcasts where Johns Hopkins experts focus on a number of pertinent topics.

What follows is the audio of the first of six webcasts featuring Johns Hopkins Medicine psychiatrist Karen Swartz who talks about coping with stress and social isolation during the pandemic.

Low vision affects approximately 2.9 million Americans age 40 and older. This month's guest is researcher Bonnielin Swenor, an assistant professor of ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute and an assistant professor of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health discusses her personal experience and research that focuses on the impact of and eye disease such as age-related macular degeneration, on aging. She also shares her personal connection to her research.

Heart disease remains the #1 cause of death for women in the U.S. Preventative cardiologist Erin Michos discusses risk factors for women, cardiovascular prevention methods and finally, the 2019 primary prevention cardiovascular guidelines and topics such as Vitamin D, daily aspirin to prevent heart attack, hormone replacement and statin therapy.

The practice of staying present in the moment benefits individuals by lowering chronic stress, anxiety, blood pressure and pain intensity while also improving focus, memory and even immune function. Listen as clinical psychologist and director of the mindfulness program at Johns Hopkins Dr. Neda Gould discusses the importance of a mindfulness practice.

The Johns Hopkins National Proton Therapy Center at Sibley Memorial Hospital opened its door the Fall of 2019. Proton therapy is an advanced and highly precise radiation treatment for tumors and compared to other methods, focuses more energy on the tumor itself with less radiation to surrounding healthy tissue.

Proton beams can be used to treat:

• Sarcomas, particularly those in the base of the skull, spine or the retroperitoneum
• Breast cancer
• Prostate cancer
• Rhabdomyosarcoma, melanoma and other cancers around the eye
• Lung cancer and other thoracic cancers such as lymphoma or thymoma
• Head and neck cancer
• Liver cancer
• Pancreatic cancer
• Benign tumors

Lillie Shockney interviews radiation oncologist Akila Viswanathan, who is the interim director for Johns Hopkins Radiation Oncology and Molecular Radiation Sciences, the director for the National Capital Region for radiation oncology, and a professor of radiation oncology and molecular radiation sciences for Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

September is National Atrial Fibrillation Awareness Month. Atrial fibrillation (also called AFib or AF) is a quivering or irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia) that can lead to blood clots, stroke, heart failure and other heart-related complications. According to the American Heart Association, at least 2.7 million Americans are living with AFib.

Sleep is a vital part of our lives. Without quality sleep we have no energy and cannot perform 100%. With 50 to 70 million people in the US suffering from one or several sleep disorders and 30% of adult U.S. population suffering from insomnia and 10% from chronic insomnia, getting quality sleep is a topic no one can ignore.

The number of individuals being diagnosed with brain disorders is increasing: Alzheimer's disease: 5.4M Americans and 24M globally; Parkinson's: 630,000 Americans; Dementias: 46.8M globally; and Stroke: 795,000 Americans. Learn about new research shedding light onto the mysteries of the brain with Dr. Justin McArthur, neurologist and director of the Johns Hopkins Department of Neurology.

June is Alzheimer's disease Awareness Month. In honor of the estimated 5.7M Americans are living with Alzheimer's today and an estimated 14 million by 2050, Dr. Constantine Lyketsos, director of Memory and Alzheimer's Treatment Center and director of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins Bayview discusses the difference between Alzheimer's and other dementias, recent research to uncover the causes and treatments for Alzheimer's disease, efforts to intervene in the progression of changes in the brain, and progress in diagnosing Alzheimer's earlier in life.

May is Bladder Cancer Month.

Did you know that bladder cancer is one of the most common genitourinary cancers in adults worldwide, and it is the fourth most common cancer in men? Women should be aware than although less common in women, women tend to have a worse prognosis if diagnosed.

The American Cancer Society's estimates in 2019: about 80,470 new cases of bladder cancer (about 61,700 in men and 18,770 in women) will be diagnosed and about 17,670 deaths from bladder cancer (about 12,870 in men and 4,800 in women) will occur.