Mojave Adult, Child and Family Services now offers metabolic syndrome clinic
Back to All News Items10-08-2009
Author: Edgar Antonio Nunez - (email)
LAS VEGAS, Nev.—Mojave Adult, Child and Family Services now offers a metabolic syndrome clinic at its location at 4000 East Charleston Boulevard in Las Vegas.
The clinic currently serves more than 50 patients and continues to receive physician referrals.
"This may not seem like many patients," says Coni Kalinowski, M.D., medical director at Mojave, "but these are patients at the highest risk for complications from metabolic syndrome."
"Patients who are referred to the clinic did not benefit from standard outpatient medical treatments."
Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of health conditions that occur together, increasing a patient's risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes. Having just one of these conditions—increased blood pressure, elevated insulin levels, excess body fat around the waist or abnormal cholesterol levels—isn't diagnosed as metabolic syndrome, but it does contribute to a risk of serious disease. If more than one of these conditions occur at once, a patient's risk is even greater.
If a patient has metabolic syndrome, patients can make lifestyle changes to possibly delay the development of serious diseases.
According to preliminary outcomes, patients who received treatment at the clinic showed improvement in six of eight risk factors after a year, while other patients in standard treatments showed improvement in only three.
Mojave Adult, Child and Family Services, an affiliate of the University of Nevada School of Medicine, also offers mental health services to approximately 3,000 patients.
"We can help people recover from psychiatric disability using psychosocial treatments and medications," says Michael Howie, director, "but, we also need to ensure that people don't die prematurely or become physically disabled from complications from the very medicine that assist their recovery."
"The only responsible course of action is to intertwine primary medical care with psychiatric services across treatment settings. We only hope that our small model will become the standard of care in the near future."
For information about Mojave Adult, Child and Family Services, call 702-968-5000.
University Health System, the clinical practice of the University of Nevada School of Medicine, offers care in more than 40 medical specialties. As Nevada's largest medical practice, University Health System's more than 300 doctors practice and teach medicine throughout the state. For more information visit uhsnevada.org.
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