Health Highlights: May 14, 2008

The guidelines recommend:

Making the doctor who implants the device responsible for follow-up care, including working with the patient's primary care doctor if the patient moves. Giving each patient an ID card, which would include information about emergency care and solving potential safety issues.Getting a checkup every three to 12 months.Urging the government to brand manufacturer recalls as "safety alerts," to avoid scaring patients into thinking they need immediate surgery to remove an affected product.Using wireless technology to monitor patients remotely from their homes.

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Former Supreme Court Justice Pleas for Alzheimer's Research

Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to sit on the nation's high court, is urging Congress to help boost research on Alzheimer's disease.

O'Connor retired from the bench in 2005, when she and her spouse moved to an assisted care center in Phoenix, theAssociated Pressreported. "My beloved husband John suffers Alzheimer's," she told the Senate Special Committee on Aging. "He is not in very good shape at present."

O'Connor welcomed recently approved legislation to ban discrimination based on genetic testing results. "My own sons I have not wanted to go be tested ... out of fear they would be ineligible for insurance," she told the panel on Wednesday.

More than 5 million Americans have Alzheimer's, theAPreported, a number that's forecast to rise to 16 million by 2050. Some 10 million people are already caring for loved ones with the disease, the Alzheimer's Association estimates.

"I suspect that you will not hear from many of my fellow caregivers directly ... simply because they do not have the resources to take time away from their loves ones in order to come before you," O'Connor said in her prepared testimony.

"Our nation certainly is ready to get deadly serious about this deadly disease," she said.

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More Americans Taking Drugs for Chronic Health Problems