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You take care of Mom, but who will take care of you?
Date: Aug-27-2013The pool of family and friends to care for Baby Boomers as they age into their 80s will be less than half as deep as it is today, according to a new report from AARP. The report predicts the ratio of potential family caregivers to elders needing care will plummet from today's seven caregivers for each person over age 80 to fewer than three caregivers per elderly person in 2050...
Stress fuels cancer spread by triggering master gene
Date: Aug-27-2013A new study from the US published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation finds that activation of a master gene called ATF3 that is important for helping cells adapt to stress may be involved in helping breast, and possibly other cancers spread to other parts of the body (metastasis). With the vast majority of all cancer suffering and death associated with metastasis, researchers are keen to learn more about what causes it. The American Cancer Society says metastasis is the single most significant challenge to management of cancer...
Stuttering preschoolers fare as well, if not better
Date: Aug-27-2013New research from Australia suggests that stuttering is more common among preschoolers than first thought and refutes the idea that it is associated with developmental problems. If anything, the study, which followed 1600 children from birth to age 4, found the opposite: stuttering was tied to better language and non-verbal skills, and showed no discernible link with mental or emotional drawbacks. The findings also support the idea that for many cases of preschool stuttering, "watch and wait" may be better than giving speech therapy straight away...
How TB evolves to get the better of humans
Date: Aug-27-2013New analysis of tuberculosis (TB) genomes gathered from around the world has revealed secrets of the pathogen's brilliance in adapting itself to prey on human poverty. By any measure, TB is highly successful in its basic success criteria of survival and replication. The authors give estimates that TB infects one-third of the world's population. It has also firmly resisted all attempts at countermeasures...
How inhibitory neurons behave during critical periods of learning
Date: Aug-27-2013We've all heard the saying "you can't teach an old dog new tricks." Now neuroscientists are beginning to explain the science behind the adage. For years, neuroscientists have struggled to understand how the microcircuitry of the brain makes learning easier for the young, and more difficult for the old. New findings published in the journal Nature by Carnegie Mellon University, the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of California, Irvine show how one component of the brain's circuitry - inhibitory neurons - behave during critical periods of learning...
Assessing pediatric readmission and revisit rates and hospital performance
Date: Aug-27-2013Readmission rates of adult patients to the same hospital within 30 days are an area of national focus and a potential indicator of clinical failure and unnecessary expenditures. However, a new UC San Francisco (UCSF) study shows that hospital readmissions rates for children are not necessarily meaningful measures of the quality of their care...
Fabricated illness in children: Healthcare professionals need to be vigilant
Date: Aug-27-2013While it's rare for a parent to fabricate an illness in their child, a McMaster University researcher says physicians and other health professionals need to be on the alert for this form of child abuse. Dr. Harriet MacMillan, a pediatrician and child psychiatrist of the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, said caregiver-fabricated illness in a child often goes unrecognized. "It is probably more common than we realize," said MacMillan, who conducts family violence research, including trials of interventions aimed at preventing child maltreatment and intimate partner violence...
Counseling youth against tobacco use has potential to interrupt the trajectory from experimentation to regular use
Date: Aug-27-2013The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends that primary care clinicians provide interventions, including education or brief counseling, to prevent initiation of tobacco use in school-aged children and adolescents. This recommendation statement is being jointly published in the peer-reviewed medical journals Annals of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics. This recommendation is an update. In 2003, the Task Force found insufficient evidence to recommend for or against primary care relevant interventions for youth tobacco prevention...
Discovery of essential brain circuit in visual development could lead to new treatments for amblyopia
Date: Aug-27-2013A study in mice reveals an elegant circuit within the developing visual system that helps dictate how the eyes connect to the brain. The research, funded by the National Institutes of Health, has implications for treating amblyopia, a vision disorder that occurs when the brain ignores one eye in favor of the other. Amblyopia is the most common cause of visual impairment in childhood, and can occur whenever there is a misalignment between what the two eyes see - for example, if one eye is clouded by a cataract or if the eyes are positioned at different angles...
The search for genetic mutations enhanced by new tool
Date: Aug-27-2013Concealed within the vastness of the human genome, (comprised of some 3 billion base pairs), mutations are commonplace. While the majority of these appear to have neutral effect on human health, many others are associated with diseases and disease susceptibility...
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