1. Health: Avoiding Shoulder Injury in Baseball Spring Training
2. Health: Knowing Your Breast Cancer Risk Can Help Save Lives
3. Health: The Realities of Living with Juvenile Arthritis
4. Sports: 10 Tips for Game Preparation: Prepare to Win
5. Television: Voting Biases in 'American Idol'
1. HEALTH: AVOIDING SHOULDER INJURY IN BASEBALL SPRING TRAINING. KEVIN D.
PLANCHER, M.D., a leading New York City and Connecticut orthopaedic surgeon
and sports medicine expert: "When baseball spring training starts, it's
tempting to hit the field with a little boy's energy. But pre-season
conditioning is crucial to preventing a shoulder injury that could mean game
over. The shoulder is the most flexible joint in the body, with a range of
nearly 1,000 different positions. Because of this, it is the area most prone
to injury, whether you pitch or play the field. It's not just pros who need to
go slow: weekend warriors and youths should also take precautions before it's
time to play ball. Shoulder-related injuries and surgeries have increased
threefold in the last decade for youths who play baseball. Although it's not a
contact sport, hundreds of kids are seriously injured each year playing
baseball." News Contact: Melissa Chefec, [email protected] Phone: +1-203-
968-6625 (2/25/10)Advertisement
2. HEALTH: KNOWING YOUR BREAST CANCER RISK CAN HELP SAVE LIVES. DR. OLGA FALKOWSKI, pathologist and associate medical director of ACUPATH LABORATORIES in New York: "Just learning you're at risk for breast cancer can help increase your chance of survival. Women as young as 18 are encouraged to educate themselves about sophisticated new diagnostic options that, in some cases, can detect a woman's breast cancer risk as many as eight years before a lesion can be seen or felt. For the majority of women, a baseline mammogram at 40, and then annual mammograms, is often the best option. But those with high risk factors for the disease should talk with their doctor about new tools that can identify potentially dangerous cells years before an actual tumor forms. Breast cancer is the leading cause of death in women 20 to 59 years old, and the second most commonly diagnosed cancer in women. In 2009, more than 40,000 women died from the disease." News Contact: Melissa Chefec, [email protected] Phone: +1-203-968-6625 (2/25/10)
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3. HEALTH: THE REALITIES OF LIVING WITH JUVENILE ARTHRITIS. KELLY ROUBA, disability advocate and author of the book "Juvenile Arthritis: The Ultimate Teen Guide": "Imagine waking up every morning so stiff from joint pain that you are barely able to crawl out of bed. You hobble your way to the tub to fix a hot bath -- after all, it's the only thing that will help your joints loosen up. After taking a bath, your stiffness has lessened, leaving you with just the normal aches and pains you're faced with daily. Today, the pain may not be so severe, but tomorrow it could be much worse. It's the type of pain that makes everyday tasks quite difficult -- sometimes even impossible. Admittedly, the onset of juvenile arthritis can be very painful, especially during the weeks or even months it takes for the medicine to take effect, but hang in there because, eventually, your body will respond and begin to feel better." Rouba can discuss what is currently being done to help combat juvenile arthritis. She is located in Trenton, N.J. News Contact: Patricia Vaccarino, [email protected] Phone: +1-206-979-3380 (2/25/10)
4. SPORTS: 10 TIPS FOR GAME PREPARATION: PREPARE TO WIN. CATHY SCHICK ("Coach Schick"), athletic director, SEATTLE ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES: "As a coach, the best way to help you play your best is to ask you to follow tips that will help you prepare for a competition. To help you prepare for competition, you must first have your basic physical needs met by getting plenty of rest, eating the right types of foods and by drinking plenty of water. These are your essential physical needs and there is no way of getting around it; take care of your body. You must also visualize success; your most important physical attribute is actually your brain. Visualize your performance from warm up to cool down. Find your 'focus mode' -- everyone is different, and the ability to focus well is called different things, from 'Zen' to 'getting in the zone.' The important thing is to find what works for you." Schick can discuss all of her tips that she gives to her student athletes. News Contact: Patricia Vaccarino, [email protected] Phone: +1- 206-979-3380 (2/25/10)
5. TELEVISION: VOTING BIASES IN 'AMERICAN IDOL.' JASON GERSHMAN, assistant professor of mathematics at NOVA SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.: "Geography and performance order contribute to voting bias on 'American Idol.' Contestants who are originally from, or are popular in, the Mountain and Hawaiian time zones -- regions that have fewer busy signals -- have an advantage. Contestants who sing late in the show, who are fresh in the minds of voters, have an edge, too. There are several ways producers could make the contest fairer -- by making performance order random, by opening phone lines at the beginning of the show, by limiting votes or weighting them by time zone -- but as long as the ratings are high, producers don't care about fairness." Gershman is the author of a paper, "America's Idol: How the Contestant Most Voted for Doesn't Always Win." News Contact: Laura Snyder, [email protected] Phone: +1-347-224-4259 (2/25/10)
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