Health News

EHRs Will Likely Have Positive Impact On Health Care According To Clinicians

Date: Oct-07-2012
Survey results reveal that an overwhelming majority of clinicians believe that the electronic exchange of health information will have a positive impact on improving the quality of patient care, coordinating care, meeting the demands of new care models, and participating in third-party reporting and incentive programs. The American College of Physicians (ACP), the Bipartisan Policy Center, and Doctors Helping Doctors Transform Health Care developed the survey and analyzed 527 responses in the report Clinician Perspectives on Electronic Health Information Sharing for Transitions of Care...

Boston Scientific Receives FDA Approval Of First-In-Class S-ICD® System For Patients At Risk Of Sudden Cardiac Arrest

Date: Oct-07-2012
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE: BSX) regulatory approval for its S-ICD(R) System, the world's first and only commercially available subcutaneous implantable defibrillator (S-ICD) for the treatment of patients at risk for sudden cardiac arrest (SCA). The S-ICD System sits entirely just below the skin without the need for thin, insulated wires -- known as electrodes or 'leads' -- to be placed into the heart...

Covidien Announces FDA 510(k) Clearance And CE Mark For Nellcor™ Bedside Respiratory Patient Monitoring System

Date: Oct-07-2012
Covidien (NYSE: COV), a leading global provider of healthcare products and recognized innovator in patient monitoring and respiratory care devices, has announced U.S. Food and Drug Administration 510(k) clearance and European Economic Area (EEA) CE Mark approval for the Covidien Nellcor™ Bedside Respiratory Patient Monitoring system. This new system provides continuous monitoring of blood oxygenation (SpO2) and pulse rate, along with trend data to help clinicians detect and respond to dangerous respiratory events sooner...

Why Hypnosis Doesn't Work For All

Date: Oct-07-2012
Not everyone is able to be hypnotized, and new research from the Stanford University School of Medicine shows how the brains of such people differ from those who can easily be. The study, published in the October issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, uses data from functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging to identify how the areas of the brain associated with executive control and attention tend to have less activity in people who cannot be put into a hypnotic trance...

Novel Technology To Identify Biomarkers For Ulcerative Colitis

Date: Oct-07-2012
Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have developed a novel technology that can identify, in animal models, potential biomarkers of ulcerative colitis, a type of inflammatory bowel disease that affects the lining of the colon. The study was published, in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The new research focuses on the protein arginine deiminases (PAD), which have been implicated in a number of diseases, including cancer, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis...

BPA Risks To Pregnant Women, Newborn Boys Through Thyroid Hormone Changes

Date: Oct-07-2012
Bisphenol A (BPA), an estrogen-like compound that has drawn increased scrutiny in recent years, has been linked to changes in thyroid hormone levels in pregnant women and newborn boys, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. Normal thyroid function is essential to the healthy growth and cognitive development of fetuses and children. Yet, until this study in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, little was known about the effects of BPA exposure on thyroid hormones in pregnant women and newborns...

Behavioral Intervention May Enhance A Key Aspect Of Empathy

Date: Oct-07-2012
A compassion-based meditation program can significantly improve a person's ability to read the facial expressions of others, finds a study published by Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. This boost in empathic accuracy was detected through both behavioral testing of the study participants and through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans of their brain activity. "It's an intriguing result, suggesting that a behavioral intervention could enhance a key aspect of empathy," says lead author Jennifer Mascaro, a post-doctoral fellow in anthropology at Emory University...

Breast Cancer Symptom Management May Be Improved By Memory, Thought-Process Training

Date: Oct-07-2012
A new Indiana University study is the first of its kind to show it may be possible to improve memory and thought process speed among breast cancer survivors. Diane M. Von Ah, Ph.D., R.N., assistant professor at the IU School of Nursing and a researcher at the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center, and colleagues studied two different treatment options for breast cancer survivors because they often report problems with memory or feelings of mental slowness, which can lead to depression, anxiety, fatigue and an overall poorer quality of life...

Maternal Mental Health, Parenting Affected By Economic Abuse

Date: Oct-07-2012
Mothers who experience economic and psychological abuse during the first year of a relationship with their child's father are more likely to become depressed and spank the child in year five, researchers from the Rutgers School of Social Work have found. The Rutgers team, which studied the impact of intimate partner violence - known as IPV - and the effects of such violence over time on women, also determined psychological abuse experiences during the first year of the relationship had a significant effect on the level of mothers' engagement with their children in the fifth year...

Heart Attack Mortality Risk Greater For People With Schizophrenia

Date: Oct-07-2012
The risk of death resulting from heart attack is higher in people with schizophrenia than in the general public, according to scientists at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES). On average, people with schizophrenia have a lifespan 20 years shorter than the general population. This is partly due to factors such as smoking, increased rates of diabetes, and metabolic problems brought on by the use of some antipsychotic medications...