DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa officials have launched a communications tool that aims to inform residents about new and emerging drug concerns. The Governor’s Office of Drug Control Policy says the service will provide updates via a monthly newsletter. Special alerts may be issued via social media and local news.

Policy Director Steve Lukan says it’s important for Iowa residents to get timely information about the growing number of new synthetic drugs and other modified substances of abuse. Residents can sign up for the monthly newsletter online.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa public health officials have received a $1.8 million federal grant to help ensure children and some adults get adequate dental care. The money from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be used to expand a school-based dental program called I-Smile Dental Home Initiative and to monitor and evaluate the state’s dental public health program.

I-Smile helps Iowa’s children connect with dentists who provide treatment and evaluation. Other health professionals including dental hygienists, physicians, nurse practitioners, registered nurses, physician assistants, and dietitians are a part of a larger network providing oral screenings, education, guidance, and preventive services as needed. Since I-Smile began, 62 percent more low-income Iowa children have received dental services. Iowa is one of 18 states to receive CDC funding.

Funeral services will be held tomorrow (Saturday) in Harlan, for a five-year old Atlantic boy whose body was found August 31st in a ravine near Logan, in Harrison County. 17-year old Cody Metzker-Madsen has been charged with 1st degree murder in connection with the death of Dominic Lloyd Elkins. Metzker-Madsen is scheduled for his first court appearance on Monday.
Dominic’s mother, 24-year old Barbara Kunch, of Atlantic, told the Daily NonPareil that Dominic had behavior problems, but was getting better. Those problems eventually led to his placement in foster care and also a treatment program at Children’s Square U.S.A. in Council Bluffs. Staff at Children’s Square told Kunch that her son’s behavior was improving and that he reacted better to medications for his attention deficit disorder, oppositional defiant disorder and sleeping disorder.Dominic was placed in the Children’s Square treatment program in October 2012 and left in February of this year. He had lived with his foster parents near Logan for only three-weeks when the incident that led to his death occurred. Metzker-Madsen initially claimed he wasn’t responsible for the boy’s death, and that while he and Dominic were playing, the 5-year old hit both himself and Metzker-Madsen in the head with a brick before running off toward the ravine where his body was found face-down in a small stream. Authorities say the child had multiple injuries to his head and torso. An official autopsy result has not yet been released.
Funeral services for Dominic Elkins will be held on Saturday, September 7th at 1:00 pm in the Pauley-Jones Funeral Home in Harlan. Metzker-Madsen is being held in the Harrison County jail under a $500,000 bond, and will be tried as an adult. His preliminary hearing is scheduled 11 a.m. on Sept. 9 at the Harrison County courthouse.

School’s back in session for Iowa kids and a sleep expert says readjusting to the schedule can lead to problems of not enough sleep. Dr. Stephen Grant of Iowa Sleep in West Des Moines says it can be a problem for kids regardless of their age. “Basically school-aged children aged six to 12 years, these children need on average nine to 12 hours a night of sleep. And it’s rare that I see any of these kids getting more than eight on average,” Grant says. “And especially in the adolescents its even more salient that they believe they need even less sleep, when in fact they need at least nine hours themselves. But on average, the average teenager that I see gets about seven hours a night.”

Grant says the kids may also think they can catch up by sleeping in on the weekends — but that’s not the case. “It actually takes you about three days to catch up on your sleep, it’s nothing that you can do in one fell swoop,” he explains. It’s a matter of adjusting the schedules so the kids have the time they need. Dr. Grant says the method varies based on the age of the children. “In the school-age children it’s kind of just getting more of ceremony or kind of the expectation that sleep will happen sooner. But in the adolescents its really kind of reigning in some screen time or some smartphone time, or just allowing the teenager to window in on the potential of what life could be like with eight or nine hours under their belt instead of seven,” according to Grant.

Making sure the kids sleep at the proper time is a key. or they could suffer from “delayed sleep phase.”
“Given their own proclivity to define a sleep period, they would probably want to go to bet about maybe one or two o’clock in the morning and then sleep until 10 or eleven the next morning,” Grant says. “And if you take a look at it that would be perhaps a sufficient degree of sleep, but the timing of it radically impairs their pyscho-social functioning. School starts at eight o’clock in the morning and they need to be up and going and prepared. And these children suffer from delayed sleep phase, and it’s a real struggle for them.”

The doctor says he gets a lot of questions from parents about kids talking or walking in their sleep and snoring. For the most part, he says it’s not a major concern. He says about 40-percent of most adolescents sleep walk, and most eventually outgrow it by the age of 15. “And snoring in and of itself does not predict that these children have obstructive sleep apnea, but there is some concordance between patients that snore and the possibility of sleep disruptive breathing — specifically obstructive sleep apnea,” Grant says. Grant says if adjusting your child’s schedule does not do the trick and allow them to get enough sleep, then you can see someone like him who is a sleep specialist.

(Radio Iowa)