Articles > Health

Art for the Health of It

By Diana Lambdin Meyer

    Why does a blue sky lift our spirits? Shifra Stein, a Kansas City artist, writer, and workshop instructor, thinks it’s the color.     “It’s calming and promotes physical and mental relaxation, stimulates healing and creativity, relieves pain, and lowers blood pressure,” Stein says.     After recovering from a debilitating depressive illness in 1996 that left he…... Read more >

Under One Roof

By Pamele Inzerillo

    Children and seniors who need care can both benefit by spending some time together, and now the new 4 Life Center at Lexington adds a third and fourth dimension, health and dental care, for the children, the seniors, and the busy sandwich generation trying to care for both.     Small towns or rural communities, especially, sometimes don’t have all four options in one town. Lexing…... Read more >

The Doc Makes House Calls

By Diana Lambdin Meyer

Dr. Natalie Hodge goes about her work as a pediatric physician each day the old fashioned way — she makes house calls to her young patients in the St. Louis suburb of Clayton and surrounding neighborhoods.

Dr. Hodge estimates it has been more than thirty years since doctors have made regular house calls in this country. While a handful of physicians make house calls for a portion of their practice, she is believe…... Read more >

Nordies at Noon

By Anita Neal Harrison

When Kim Carlos, a native of Hallsville, found a lump in her breast at age thirty, she called Patti Balwanz, a friend she made at Missouri State University at Springfield. Patti, who’s from Columbia, could empathize because she had found a lump at age twenty-four. She could also introduce Kim to two more young women fighting breast cancer: Jana Peters and Jennifer Johnson, both diagnosed at age twenty-seven.

Kim…... Read more >