American Morning
Calculating the risks of skiing in Quebec
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/04/09/gupta.mont.tremblant.jpg caption="Dr. Sanjay Gupta on assignment in Mont Tremblant, Canada."]
By Dr. Sanjay Gupta
CNN Chief Medical Correspondent
Watch Dr. Gupta's full report Thursday on AC360 at 10pm ET.
I just returned from Mont Tremblant, Canada. It is one of the more beautiful ski resorts in eastern, Canada, and it is also the place where actress Natasha Richardson fell and suffered a fatal brain injury. What caused her death is now well known, but there were some other details that struck me while I was there. Let me try and work through this with you.
What no one knew at the time was that she had hit her head hard enough to cause a fracture in her skull. Just underneath that fracture is a small blood vessel that runs just on top of the brain, and it was that blood vessel that started to bleed. By many reports, Richardson got up after her fall and felt well enough to go back to her room and wave off paramedics who had been called. In neurosurgery, we refer to this as a lucid interval. She may have lost consciousness briefly, but now felt fine. The problem for Natasha or anyone with an epidural hematoma is that the pressure continues to build up in the brain.
Fuming over tobacco tax hike
However they satisfy their nicotine cravings, tobacco users are facing a big hit as the single largest federal tobacco-tax increase ever takes effect Wednesday.
Tobacco companies and public-health advocates, longtime foes in the nicotine battles, are trying to turn the situation to their advantage. The major cigarette makers raised prices a couple of weeks ago, partly to offset any drop in profits once the per-pack tax climbs from 39 cents to $1.01.
Medical groups see a tax increase right in the middle of a recession as a great incentive to help persuade smokers to quit.
What do you think? Is the tobacco tax fair to smokers?
Can you explain frontal lobe dementia?
CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta reaches into his mailbag and answers your questions.
Question
A lifelong friend of mine, a “young” 58-year-old, has just been diagnosed with frontal lobe dementia. She was told she’s had it for 20 years, but there have been no noticeable symptoms until the last two years. Can you please shed some light on this disease?
Answer
Thank you, Kathy, for sharing you friend’s story and for the question. While there are many potential causes of dementia, Alzheimer’s is something that often springs to mind. It is often thought of as an older person’s disease, but it can occur in people that are relatively young, like your friend was. Having never seen your friend or examined her, let me instead talk a little about Alzheimer’s. It is a tough thing to understand because we don’t quite know what causes it, or how to cure it.
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