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People regularly turn to the Internet for games and gossip, news and entertainment, essential information and high weirdness.

And now, apparently, for their health as well.

A number of successful online medical interventions have been reported in recent months, helping folks quit smoking, lower their blood pressure and deal with any number of ailments.

New York City cardiologist Dr. Nieca Goldberg figures it’s a great trend, as long as people are going to reliable and trusted sources for help.

“I think it is the wave of the future and, theoretically, it seems like a great idea,” said Goldberg, a spokeswoman for the American Heart Association, a clinical associate professor of medicine and medical director of the Women’s Heart Program at New York University Langone Medical Center and author of Dr. Nieca Goldberg’s Complete Guide to Women’s Health. “There could be multiple interactions with patients that are brief and effective.”

Online interventions have spanned a variety of medical issues. One program, for instance, used Internet and telephone interactions with heart attack survivors and cardiac patients to help improve their heart health. A study found that participants’ blood pressure and cholesterol levels fell, more of them quit smoking and they were one-third less likely to die than cardiac patients who did not receive the attention.

Several programs have popped up to help smokers quit. An analysis of 22 clinical trials found that Internet- and computer-based smoking cessation programs gave smokers nearly twice the chance of successfully quitting than if they had tried to quit without help.

Those successes have led the University of Illinois at Chicago to spearhead a $2.9 million federal effort to encourage young adults to use proven online smoking cessation programs.

Alcoholics also can find online support. A Dutch study found that one in five excessive drinkers who used an online self-help Web site to help them with their problem reported that they had lowered their alcohol intake to levels less likely to cause health problems.

And chronic conditions such as psoriasis also have been shown to be helped by online interventions. One study in Boston found that half of the users of online psoriasis support groups believed that the quality of their lives had improved, and two in five reported improvement in the severity of their psoriasis.

In some instances, the Internet also provides “nudges” to help push people into healthy habits. One worksite e-mail health program developed by Kaiser Permanente, for instance, provided participants with weekly e-mails and mid-week reminders that set personalized health goals for them based on an earlier survey they had filled out. They were encouraged to eat more fruits and vegetables, lower their intake of fats and sugars, and exercise more.

A study of the program found significant health improvements among people who received the e-mails. They were, in fact, eating better and exercising more.

Even those with advanced fitness goals can receive online assistance. The magazine Runner’s World currently offers online training programs featuring personal advice from world-class runner Bart Yasso.

Dr. Robert Mallin, an associate professor at the Medical University of South Carolina, said such online programs could appeal to people who don’t like going to doctors, therapists or support groups for help with their problems.

“There’s certainly an advantage to having face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball contact, but I think also people who would never step into a doctor’s office or a room with a support group will explore those things online,” said Mallin, a spokesman for the American Academy of Family Physicians.

Online support groups, for example, allow people to gather information and communicate with others who have a similar problem while retaining their anonymity. “You don’t have to participate,” Mallin said. “People don’t even have to know you’re there.”

However, both Goldberg and Mallin voiced concerns, too.

Goldberg wants to see large-scale studies of the effectiveness of these online programs before they are pursued to such an extent that they supplant regular modes of health care.

“When there’s a concern about cost containment, we have to make sure the cost containment occurs within the context of quality care,” she said. “This is a great idea, but I don’t think we’re 100 percent there yet.”

Mallin worries about people getting bad information from Web sites.

“The biggest worry everyone has about health information on the Web is how accurate it is,” he said. “I always ask my patients to run something by me they’ve read on the Internet or on one of those chat sites.”

Closing the heart’s left atrial appendage could offer an alternative to long-term warfarin treatment for people with non-valvular atrial fibrillation who are at risk for stroke, according to a new study.

Atrial fibrillation, the most common type of irregular heartbeat, causes the upper chambers of the heart to quiver. This can cause blood to pool and form clots in the left atrial appendage (LAA), a long, tubular structure connected to the left atrial cavity. More than 90 percent of atrial blood clots in people with non-valvular atrial fibrillation may originate in the LAA, according to background information in the study.

The study included 463 people who underwent percutaneous implantation of a device, known as the Watchman, to close off the LAA. Their outcomes were compared with those of 244 people who continued long-term treatment with warfarin.

The researchers determined the effectiveness of the treatments by assessing the occurrence, during an average follow-up of 18 months, of strokes, death from cardiovascular causes and systemic embolisms (blood clots that go somewhere other than the brain). They also totaled the occurrence of such serious problems as major bleeding, pericardial effusion (accidental puncture of the heart causing fluid collection in the heart sac) and clots caused by the implanted device.

After 1,065 patient-years of follow-up, there were 3.0 such occurrences per 100 patient-years among those who’d had the device implanted, compared with 4.9 in the warfarin group, for a risk reduction of 38 percent. But people in the device group had more serious safety events — 7.4 events per 100 patient-years versus 4.4 events in the warfarin group, the researchers found.

“The efficacy of percutaneous closure of the LAA with this device was non-inferior to that of warfarin therapy,” concluded Dr. David R. Holmes, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and his colleagues. “Although there was a higher rate of adverse safety events in the intervention group than the control group, events in the intervention group were mainly a result of periprocedural complications,” they wrote.

“Closure of the LAA might provide an alternative strategy to chronic warfarin therapy for stroke prophylaxis in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation,” they added.

Hairstylists can do more than make their clients look good, they may also be helpful in getting some elderly people the health-care services they need, an Ohio State University study suggests.

A survey of 40 stylists in the Columbus, Ohio-area found that most develop long-term relationships with their older clients, and these seniors tend to talk freely about their troubles — including those with family, health, depression and anxiety.

The hairstylists, in turn, told researchers that they thought they could do a good job recognizing symptoms of depression, dementia and self-neglect in their elderly clientele, although they don’t necessarily know what help to recommend in these situations.

According to the findings released online in advance of publication in an upcoming print issue of the Journal of Applied Gerontology, the stylists revealed that most do offer sympathy and encouragement to their clients, and they would even be willing to go as far as referring the person to a helpful community service. Unfortunately, less than half of those surveyed said they knew what these local services might be.

“It seems like a perfect set-up — stylists have access to older adults who may need someone to point them to the help they need. But at least this sample of stylists suggests they don’t know what services are out there to help these folks,” study co-author Keith Anderson, an assistant professor of social work at Ohio State University, said in a university news release.

Still, several have tried to offer advice to their clients and about one-quarter have attempted to convince a client to seek professional help at some time.

“While not expecting too much beyond the scope of their jobs, we may be able to help stylists direct elderly people in trouble to community services,” noted Anderson, who suggested salons be provided with brochures and other information about these services available to the elderly.

Anderson and colleagues conducted the study to test the popular notion of “salon therapy,” in which barbers and hairstylists offer sympathetic ears and act as world-weary counselors to clients who are under their care for long periods on a regular basis.

“Their older clients may sit in a chair for an hour or longer while they’re having their hair done, and this may happen once or twice a month. So stylists are in a good position to recognize when things change with a client, and when they may need help,” he said.

A national program to promote awareness of domestic violence, called “Cut It Out,” already helps hairstylists recognize when clients may be victims and how to help them. While a similar program could help stylists spot mental and physical health problems in seniors, the Ohio survey found that less than half of those polled showed interest in receiving such training.

“We can’t expect them to do everything, but our results suggest that most stylists care about their clients and would be willing to help them,” Anderson stated in the news release.

Create a regular bedtime schedule, and make sure your child sticks to it.
-Make sure your child avoids large amounts of food just before it’s time to sleep.
-Don’t let your child have anything with caffeine at least six hours before bedtime.
-After dinner, allow for play and relaxation time to begin winding down.
-Create a bedtime routine that’s relaxing and calming for your child.

The end of summer signals back to school. And preparing for the school-year routine means getting into a back-to-school sleep schedule.

Children aged 6 to 9 require about 10 hours of sleep each night, and older children need at least nine hours, the Federal Citizen Information Center says. It offers these suggestions for making sure children get enough sleep: