Kids are settling back into school routines and parents are back to balancing work, PTA meetings and sports practices.

With so much going on this time of year, it is easy to forget the details, but one thing parents need to remember is that flu season is just around the corner.  

To help parents fit their child's flu vaccination into their own busy schedule, many school children across Georgia will have the opportunity to receive a flu vaccine at school-based flu clinics through the Georgia Department of Public Health's (DPH) school-based flu program. By making sure Georgia's school children are vaccinated, the children and their families are better protected against the flu.

 

There's something beautiful about a sleeping baby.

One would think that's when a baby is safest, but each year in the U.S., thousands of babies younger than 1 year of age die suddenly and unexpectedly during sleep.

These deaths are called SUID, Sudden Unexpected Infant Death. SUID includes all unexpected deaths: those without a clear cause such as SIDS (Sudden Infant Death) and those from a known cause, such as suffocation, entrapment or strangulation. In Georgia, it is a leading cause of death and in 2010 it claimed 202 infants.        

There are ways to reduce the risk associated with sleep and since the launch of the Back to Sleep campaign in 1994, the SIDS rate has dropped by more than 50 percent. However, the rate has plateaued in recent years and in some areas these deaths are increasing.
 
 

North Central Health District employee Regina Andrews attends the first pilot session of remote computer training at her desk in Macon.

On Aug. 23, North Central Health District employee, Regina Andrews attended an Excel Formulas & Functions class from her desk in Macon while Lisa Miller instructed the class from the 2 Peachtree computer lab in Atlanta, initiating the first pilot session of remote computer training for Microsoft classes.

After two successful pilot sessions and feedback such as "The training was almost as good as having Lisa in the room," remote computer training was officially launched in September and is available to all non-Atlanta public health employees.

"The feedback back for the remote training has been better than expected. I'm excited that amongst all the budget cuts, leadership has decided not to cut training for our employees," said Lisa Miller, Microsoft computer instructor. "And this tool makes the training that has been mostly only available to Atlanta employees available to everyone state-wide without incurring travel costs."
 
 

Just as the parents of the Baby Boom generation were terrified years ago by what they assumed was a death-for-certain diagnosis of cancer, their middle-aged children worry today about something they believe is even worse -- living long enough to develop Alzheimer's disease (AD). Only now, the worry is as much for themselves as their parents.
 

Louise Turner, 70, and her mother Anne Eighmie, 100, on their daily mile-long walk. Eighmie has Alzheimer's disease.

The disease -- and its assault on the circuitry of the brain that controls memory -- has supplanted cancer as the most feared medical condition among those 60 years of age and older.

With good reason: In the past decade, the death rate from stroke, heart disease, and HIV/AIDS in the United States decreased in each category by double digits, while that from AD rose by more than 33 percent. Then there's this: Among the top 10 causes of death, AD (now number six) is the only one that cannot be cured, prevented, or even significantly slowed.

No wonder we're terrified.

Still, this often-repeated narrative masks what's happening on the frontlines of the battle at places like Emory, one of about 30 research and clinical care centers for AD designated by the NIH. Here, knowledge about the disease is increasing exponentially, and new approaches to diagnosis and treatment reveal themselves routinely. Renewed experiments have begun with gene therapy and a vaccine, both of which might slow the process and even reverse it. Moreover, caregivers and patients are being trained to stimulate the brain's plasticity -- with good nutrition, exercise, playing music, working on computer puzzles, keeping a daily memory diary -- that could alter the disease's course. With advancements in these areas, there is even talk about prevention.
 

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