shooting the breeze.

music >> I've come a very long way.

I mean, I could not do a lot of this before.

>> See how a University of Louisville study is helping children take a big step forward.

>> It's good that people eat this way.

It's even better that we can get it to them.

Locally grown.

>> Find out why.

Sometimes the best medicine comes from the garden.

>> It's just a colorful, beautiful, Bountiful way to cook.

>> Plus, meet the Eastern Kentucky pharmacist putting her own twist on traditional Appalachian meals.

>> Production of Kentucky Edition is made possible in part by the KET Millennium Fund.

>> Good evening, and welcome to a very special edition of Kentucky Edition.

I'm Renee Shaw, and we thank you for spending some of your evening with us.

Tonight we're revisiting stories about the medical innovations, studies, and approaches happening right here in Kentucky that are improving lives and health outcomes.

We start at the University of Louisville, where a clinical study helped five children who were paralyzed due to spinal cord injuries take their very first steps.

One of those children is Malcolm McIntyre.

We spoke with him and his mother about how the therapy sessions improved both of their lives.

>> It turns out that the spinal cord is smarter than we ever thought.

We thought it was just a conduit or a cable that carried messages.

But it actually works a lot like your brain.

It interprets them, receives information, and can help you move again.

So things about the size of a quarter.

These little electrodes we put on your back over your spinal column goes right to your spinal cord.

And there are these sensory nerves that go into the spinal cord.

Once you charge it, then we try to do several things with the child.

One is increasing the sensory input to the spinal cord.

And that's by doing some stepping on a treadmill.

And the other is asking the child to think about walking when the stimulation is on or taking steps.

So they had to actually, for several minutes at a time, really give their cognitive effort, will and intent to try and take those steps.

Now it turns out it worked.

>> After doing the therapy, he has a ton more trunk control and he was actually able to hold himself up.

And then it just got better and better and better.

And he was able to find midline.

And he actually his scoliosis curve has actually started to reverse itself, which is unheard of with body weight support.

He can take a step as long as someone's holding one of his legs into extension and the other one back, he can swing it through.

So it's like that swing phase of when you're walking.

>> I've come a very long way.

The research studies have really, really helped me with this.

I mean, I could not do a lot of this before.

This is really helped me get back to do what I like to do.

>> And then what else?

And then he could kick a ball, which was really neat.

And that for a at the time eight year old kid was the coolest part.

>> One time.

Yeah, we used to have my red watch and we used to count my steps.

And one time I got like over a hundred.

It was a really big moment for me.

I also hit a target, I think spot on with the ball.

That was also a really big moment.

That might have been the biggest one overall.

It was like, like I can do this.

>> So from a scientific standpoint, we're changing their capacity and learning more about what's possible.

And so we tried some things then, but we've written a grant recently and have that under review, which would give us an opportunity to work with 6 or 7 more children who have a complete injury and, and very much target.

Can I weight bear?

Can we turn all the leg muscles that help you hold up against gravity?

And then we try and put them together, right.

Because we'd have swing and we'd have standing and and maybe that would help.

>> We want him to be healthy and happy, independent and functional, and everything we can do to help him get to that point is better and better and better.

And if he walks one day, amazing.

But it will not.

It will not change who he is.

This, this stuff has actually changed who he is.

You know what he's able to do and being able to he's able to do a sleepover at a friend's house, you know, and kind of live in an 11 year old's life, which is pretty awesome.

>> 321 go.

>> 321 go.

Pretty awesome indeed.

During the study, children also had improved bladder function and experienced more sensations.

And the researchers say that for some, that has lasted months and even years.

After the study at the University of Kentucky, researchers are exploring alternative ways to help dementia patients with agitation, anxiety and depression.

As part of the so-called Libby study.

Among the alternatives the study is looking at cannabis.

>> Like all medicines, we have to go through clinical trials to prove whether or not the medicine actually helps and to make sure that it doesn't have side effects.

And medical marijuana is really no different.

And so we all know that recently Kentucky has approved medical marijuana, and it's approved for many different conditions.

But dementia comfort care in the later stages of disease is not one of those indications.

And we really do feel that that was an oversight that needs to be corrected.

But the Libby study that we're doing is addressing this point directly.

This really is a pivotal study funded by the National Institutes of Health nationwide, multi-center, enrolling patients, providing medical marijuana.

To really examine those benefits.

We have very few medicines that actually can allow someone to maintain their quality of life and yet experience comfort rather than agitation.

And medical marijuana may actually be one of those miracle drugs.

For just this purpose, we hope to see reductions in depression, reductions in anxiety, increased appetite, better sleep.

The brain actually has receptors that directly interact and are stimulated by THC tetrahydrocannabinol that's in marijuana, and that these are tightly tied to anxiety circuits, circuits that can give us a sense of peace when anxiety rises.

And so there's biologic evidence that this should work.

And there have been several early studies in dementia that have actually shown positive benefits in patients with elevated anxiety or agitation, that medical marijuana is extremely safe and extremely effective without knocking somebody out, we're finding, is exactly what was found in the earlier, smaller studies.

Excellent safety profile.

It's not knocking people out.

They're awake.

They're smiling with their families rather than being agitated, combative when they need to bathe or or get dressed and need assistance for those activities.

They're smiling and laughing.

Where before the study they were miserable, crying, fearful, and agitated.

So anecdotally, we're seeing tremendous benefit.

But the study needs to complete.

>> Although the study is underway, Doctor Jessica says they're still searching for patients nationally and in Lexington to take part in the study.

To find out more, log on to Libby study.org.

A Western Kentucky school district is removing barriers to health care.

When a student gets sick, they can now see a doctor without even leaving school.

It's all thanks to new technology at Owensboro Public Schools.

Our Laura Rogers takes us there to see how it all works.

>> When students at Foust Elementary School in Owensboro get sick or need medication, they visit the health room for care.

>> They might have a fever or be vomiting or have an infection.

>> In that case, they need to see a doctor or nurse practitioner and they can do so now from school.

>> We liked the system a lot and decided this is something that we could use that would really benefit a lot of kiddos.

>> That system is technology called Tyto care, in which students can virtually see a medical provider.

>> The provider is able to listen to lung sounds and heart sounds.

They can look in the patients throats.

They can look at skin rashes.

>> Owensboro Public Schools received title care at the first of the year through a partnership with Audubon Area Community Services.

>> I definitely think this is helping to fill a health care gap.

>> Officials say it's helping medical professionals see more students, faculty and staff in less time since they're not traveling between schools for in-person visits.

>> Our visits have increased three times of what they were when we were actually seeing the kiddos in person only.

>> You're putting.

>> Audubon Area Community Services was able to purchase title care through a school based health extension grant from the U.S.

Department of Health and Human Services.

>> It's really helpful for those that might have transportation issues, or they can't afford to take another day off work, and they can be seen through title care.

The parent never has to leave work.

The child never has to leave school.

>> Unless it's a contagious illness or a lab test is needed.

The student can then go back to the classroom with little disruption to the school day.

>> The parents actually have the option to dial in on the visit with the kiddo as well.

>> The visit is covered by insurance or a sliding scale payment model.

>> That connects.

>> Prescriptions are called into a pharmacy, where families can pick them up later that day.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm Laura Rogers.

>> Thank you so much, Laura.

The telehealth service serves grades K through 12 and is in all Owensboro Public Schools.

The district says it gets parental permission before students appointment.

Time now to talk about our feelings.

Researchers from around the world are studying how different cultures talk about and understand emotions, to learn our similarities and even our differences among them.

A University of Louisville professor who says studying the nuances of emotions across different cultures is a key to understanding the human brain.

>> Some of the very first kind of categorical understanding of emotion was based on facial expression, especially that these facial expressions were all based on Caucasian middle age Americans, as opposed to understanding it from a greater kind of cultural perspective.

And it was a great start.

But now we're understanding that, you know, that categorical representation might need to be broadened.

So the human Effecten project is a conglomeration of over 100 international researchers that look to classify emotions in categorical ways and to understand how our linguistic representation of them is kind of categorized.

So one of the interesting things in a good example about how our language influences our emotion, or vice versa, it's easy to see when we get emotional, we might our pitch may differ and prosody look over there versus look over there.

And so understanding and perceiving how somebody might say something.

Definitely our interpretation of that affects our own emotions.

I was on the fear team because a lot of my research examines fear and anxiety.

And so my role was basically looking at the functional neuroimaging research that lies behind fear and looking at it from different rodent models, different human models, and kind of put some consensus together as how it's represented in the brain.

So some of the results of this project, how linguistics basically represents different emotional categories, and especially how this cuts across cultural and societal lines in different cultures and different societies.

We talk about maybe things like friendship or being embarrassed, which might differ somewhat from culture to culture, but looking at things that are also shared across culture and society.

So like things like fear, sadness, anger, things like that are kind of more of these basic emotions that cut across cultural lines.

It's very interesting to to understand through this linguistic approach that the words you use and say obviously carry weight depending on how somebody perceives it emotionally.

And so it gives a great understanding for further research to be done and just a deeper understanding of of the human psyche.

>> Doctor Depew was one of two Kentuckians on the Human Effect Project, which included 173 scientists from 24 different countries.

Students at Northern Kentucky University are getting hands on medical practice at a state of the art center.

We visited NKU center for Simulation Education, which also gives local high schoolers a glimpse into the health care world.

>> So our students are we're starting right off the bat.

They get simulation and their very first semester, and they get it.

Throughout the whole program, we see things that happen in the hospital.

We base our simulations on that.

>> Our nursing program has a nursing skills lab where they learn how to do all of the nursing skills, such as vital signs, putting in an IV.

We have our radiology lab where the students learn how to position patients for X-rays, how to do CTS.

We have our labs for cardiovascular perfusion, so those are the students who work in the Or, and specifically work with patients on bypass.

>> The mannequins will bleed, they sweat, they cry.

All different fluids.

They can do any heart sounds, lung sounds.

They have all pulses.

So we can mimic any disease process as well as being able to create any situation.

So I'll tell the students a lot of times while the mannequin doesn't seem real, the situation is very real.

>> I hate to say the word or use the word make a mistake, but it's far better to make that mistake on a mannequin than do it on a real patient.

>> So if the students give a medication and it's the wrong dose or the wrong medication, then the mannequins would respond just as a patient would in the hospital.

>> Obviously, if they're in a clinical environment such as a hospital, we can't have them practice independent at the bedside.

But in simulation we can.

We're doing labor and delivery.

I can't promise that someone's going to deliver while they're they're here in simulation.

We have control over that environment.

We can have our mannequin deliver a baby every half hour if we need to, so we can guarantee that they'll get those experiences.

>> One thing that we do here in the college is we give tours to our high school students in the area.

It's not just a tour, it's hands on.

So they get to see a lot of different things.

They go through all of the labs and the college and get to see what they do.

>> And so the class that's here today is our intro to BioMed students.

And so they are getting an overall view of different healthcare careers.

>> I'm looking to go into pre-med because that would be like the next step in following the journey.

Because I want to be a neurosurgeon.

I think that the lab is actually really cool because it shows like a bunch of different ways to help care for patients with shots and IVs.

And I think it's really cool that there's a whole room full of it.

>> I've had students that have come that I've had in class that have told me they were they came through as a high schooler to and that's what got them interested in our program.

>> You know, everybody wants to be a doctor or a nurse, and there's so many different things you can do even within those fields.

But this is allowing them to see, you know, exercise science, radiology, lab, respiratory and all the different things because it's not a one size fits all health care career.

>> Yes, doctors and nurses are critically important to the health care team.

However, it is a health care team made up of many different specialties, and all of those specialties are very much needed for the care of the patient.

>> The BSN program here at NKU has 100% pass rate on the NCLEX exam, their national exam they take for licensing hospitals and places where students are working are noticing that our students are very well prepared when they get out into the field, or even in the clinical setting.

>> There is still a gigantic need for health care workers in the area.

And so the more students we can expose to health care and health professions, the the hopefully the better off we are in the future with our health care workforce.

>> The simulation center opened in 2018 and is split between two floors.

The outpatient center mimics a doctor's office, and the inpatient center simulates a hospital.

This summer, Russell County Hospital launched a pilot program to help patients manage chronic conditions through better nutrition.

The Food Is Medicine program is a partnership between the Kentucky Department of Agriculture and the state's Association of Health Plans.

The aim is to improve health outcomes by providing healthy, locally grown food to patients.

>> What we noticed was that if you're in a county that has a hospital, it's usually the largest food consumer, single food consumer in the community.

And so looking at that from an agricultural standpoint, it seemed like a very missed opportunity that we've got throughout the state of Kentucky, around our hospitals and hospital systems to be able to get fresh, healthy, local food.

>> The first component is we're providing this locally sourced foods for the actual hospitals operations.

So that could be people that are in the hospitals, the families.

It's the cafeteria, it's those types of things.

But the other part that's also got a an academic pilot component to it is working with a group that has type two diabetes and seeing if by providing these fresh fruits, vegetables and other sundries, can we help them on their health journey.

>> We will identify the patients, get their consent, and then we'll start to follow them more closely.

And then the plan is once we get those patients in the program, we will hand the physician will write a prescription.

This is the neat part of it.

They'll write a prescription for food.

We'll give them pots and pans and utensils to cook with.

We'll give them education.

On what?

What does good food look like?

What does a healthy diet look like?

Get them in classes so they can learn to cook things that taste good but also are good for you.

The part that's the icing on the cake is yes, it's good that people eat this way.

It's even better that we can get it to them.

Locally grown.

>> One of the things that's unique about Kentucky is people forget what a huge agricultural state this is.

I think if memory serves, Kentucky has the largest cattle herd east of the Mississippi River.

This isn't something where we have to go looking for these farmers in the same way it's there.

We just have to we just have to to make that connection and go do it.

>> We know that if food is given to you that has been transported less, that's been on the truck less that's been in a rail, less that it's more nutritious the closer it is to you.

We also know that as people get, these things are more flavorful.

So and so.

They'll eat more of them.

They'll they'll consume them more.

They'll they'll desire them more.

We can impact our farmers and the profitability that we see in rural Kentucky to really try and save this farmland transition issue that we have in the loss of farmland and loss of farmers across this country, but particularly right here in Kentucky.

>> This is 35 years in health care for me, and maybe a lot of hospital administrators wouldn't say this, but let's be honest, we only exist because people are sick.

And if there weren't any more sick people, we wouldn't be in business.

But this is different if we can get to the end of that and people say, man, I never knew and I'm going to, I'm always going to do this.

And I'm, I don't know if my numbers show it, but I'm healthier and I feel better and my pants fit better if we can do that.

And then some other people can learn from this.

This is this is redemption for us in health care.

>> Kentucky Association of Health Plans is funding the program through a $300,000 grant over a three year period as a vegan living in eastern Kentucky, Jan Brandenburg has a lot of experience converting her favorite Appalachian comfort foods into plant based ones.

Now she's taking those recipes and published her own cookbook called The Modern Mountain Cookbook.

With over 130 Plant-Based recipes.

>> As a longtime vegan and native Appalachian, Jan Brandenburg has specialized in creating plant based versions of her favorite traditional recipes.

Now they're all written down in The Modern Cookbook, a plant based celebration of Appalachia.

>> It is traditional Appalachian recipes, the foods that I grew up eating my whole life only adapted into vegan foods.

It's just a colorful, beautiful, Bountiful way to cook.

>> Her love of cooking began in childhood with her first Easy-Bake oven.

>> Because as soon as I got that, it was like kind of magic.

>> And watching her family run two restaurants in Pulaski County.

>> You know, I grew up in those kitchens, and my grandmother would make like 10 to 12 pies every Saturday morning to sell at those two restaurants.

It helped my drive to cook, you know, it was just it was just kind of what we did.

And that I think about that sometimes, too.

It's just like, that is the music that continually plays in my head.

>> Brandenburg's cookbook shares stories of her life in Appalachia and transforms traditional recipes with plant based alternatives.

>> Some of my favorite recipes are Shepherd's pie.

I really love that one.

That's something that I made in college only we called it deep dish hamburger pie.

But now I make shepherd's it as a pie, using either a meat substitute or lentils as the base.

And then I cook very seasonally too, so I like to.

Peaches are really great right now, so I've been getting a lot of peaches for Peach Crisp.

If people are afraid that they might get something weird if they're getting vegan food, I always just think this is a really good one to have because it feels very it feels very familiar.

>> From spaghetti to cornbread to chocolate chip cookies, traditional taste of the mountain are present in this cookbook, but the plant based ingredients provide an extra health benefit to these dishes.

>> You know, you can say, hey, guess what?

This is cholesterol free.

So for people who, you know, most of us, even if we're not vegetarian or vegan, have got people in our family with dietary restrictions.

And so this is just an excellent resource for accommodating them.

You know, nothing in the book contains any cholesterol, and that's just really beneficial to a lot of people.

>> Brandenburg isn't a professional chef.

She's a pharmacist by trade and currently works in a local hospital.

She says.

In addition to all the measuring that they have in common, pharmacy and cooking both provide a level of human connection.

>> I think it's serving others.

You know, when you take time with somebody at the pharmacy counter, you're serving them.

They feel important when you cook for people, they feel important.

They feel a sense of belonging.

>> Brandenburg says one of her favorite parts of creating the cookbook was learning the histories of these traditional dishes and discovering new innovations in the plant based world of cooking.

For Kentucky Edition I'm Mackenzie Spink.

>> Thank you Mackenzie.

And the food looks yummy.

Brandenburg says most of her family isn't vegan, so don't be afraid to serve up some plant based meals, she says.

In her experience, it doesn't matter if it's plant based, as long as it tastes good, I would agree.

Well, that does it for Kentucky Edition, where we inform, connect and inspire.

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Until I see you again, take really good care.

Have a great night.