_ Access to E-Health Records Could Improve Care By article Unlike medical records kept in paper charts, electronic health records (EHR) provide numerous access points to clinicians to review a patient's medical history. A multi-university study published in the May 2014 issue of Health Affairs has found that access to electronic health records in acute care situations may influence the care given to that patient, and in some cases, failure to review the EHR could have adversely affected the medical management.
_ New Cancer Tx Raises Blood Pressure By article The upside of new cancer therapies that block vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) signaling is that these agents have improved the outlook for patients with some cancers and are now used as a first line therapy for some tumors. However the downside is that almost 100% of patients who take VEGF inhibitors (VEGFIs) develop high blood pressure, and a subset develops severe hypertension. That is the finding of a study done at the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences, University of Glasgow.
_ Vision Health Coffee May Prevent Retinal Damage By article Here’s one more reason to enjoy your morning coffee: A study done at Cornell University and published in the May 2014 issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistryfound that drinking a cup of joe every day may prevent retinal degeneration, a leading cause of blindness due to glaucoma, aging, and diabetes.
_ Sleep Health Sleep and "Exploding Head" Syndrome By Jane Farrell article “Exploding head syndrome” sounds like the latest slang term, but it’s a real, though underdiagnosed, sleep disorder. People who have the syndrome usually hear loud noises – doors slamming, fireworks or gunshots – as they are going to sleep and waking up.
_ Women Recover Faster from Concussions By article A study of concussion patients at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine found that males took longer to recover after concussion than females did. The study, which shows that using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) as a bias-free way to predict concussion outcome, was published online May 6th 2104 in the journal Radiology.
Caring for Horses Can Help Dementia Symptoms By Jane Farrell article Spending time with horses eases dementia symptoms for Alzheimer’s patients, according to the first study of its kind. The research, a collaboration between The Ohio State University and an adult daycare center, revealed that patients could groom, feed and walk horses under supervision. That experience improved patients’ mood and made them less likely to resist care or become upset later in the day.
_ Unlocking the Secrets of the Fountain of Youth By article A first of its kind atomic level look at the enzyme telomerase may “unlock the secrets to the fountain of youth”, according to scientists at Arizona State University in collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai. The study was published on May 4th 2014 in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.
_ Women's Health and Wellness Women & Peripheral Artery Disease By Sondra Forsyth article Women, especially older women, face greater limits on their lifestyle and have more severe symptoms as a result of peripheral artery disease (PAD) than men do. The condition happens when fatty deposits build up in arteries outside the heart, usually the arteries supplying fresh oxygen and blood to the arms, legs and feet. About 8 million Americans have peripheral artery disease.
_ Breast Cancer Sleeping Well Boosts Survival for Breast Ca Patients By article A study done at Stanford and published in the May 1st 2014 issue of the journal Sleep reports that “sleep efficiency”, defined as the ratio of time asleep to time spent in bed, is predictor of survival time for women with advanced breast cancer.
_ Mental & Emotional Health Can Money Buy Happiness? Maybe, Maybe Not By article Spending money on life experiences such as theater tickets or travel may not make materialistic shoppers any happier. Yet for these people, the purchase of high-end items fails to boost their mood as well. That is the conclusion of a study done at San Francisco State University and slated for publication in the June 2014 edition of the Journal of Research in Personality.
_ Home Health Visits Keep Heart Patient Out of the Hospital By article Research done at North Shore University Hospital on Long Island demonstrated a very significant reduction in hospital readmissions after coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery for patients who received home health care through the “Follow Your Heart” program. The study was published in the May 2014 issue of The Annals of Thoracic Surgery.
_ Heart Health Original Oily Fish Study Flawed By article You’ve heard it here on ThirdAge and probably elsewhere as well: Oily fish such as salmon, fresh tuna, and swordfish are currently recommended as part of a heart healthy diet. Oops! An international team of researchers have called into question the validity of a now-classic study from the 1970s that claimed that because the diet of Eskimos in Greenland is rich in whale and seal blubber, these peopledon’t have coronary artery disease at the same rate as other populations.On the contrary, the Eskimos turn out to have alarmingly high rates of lethal CAD and stokes.
Vision Health Abnormal ΓÇ£Binocular VisionΓÇ¥ as We Age By article Abnormal “binocular vision”, which involves the way our eyes work together as a team, increases dramatically as we age, according to research from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. A release from the university reports that the study also found that general health and antidepressant use are also linked to this disorder, which affects depth perception and therefore may increase the risk of falls.
_ For Meds Adherence, Feedback Trumps Digital Nagging By article A device that monitors people when they take their meds and then give feedback has advantages over “automated nagging” according to a release from Carnegie Mellon University about a study done there and presented on April 30th 2014 at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) in Toronto.
_ Human Cartilage Created From Stem Cells By Jane Farrell article For the first time, scientists have grown fully functional human cartilage from human stem cells. The experts, from Columbia University, said that the process could help repair cartilage defects in humans. It could also make a composite graft with bone. The discovery was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
_ Osteoporosis Fracture Risk Tool Is Flawed By article If you’re between the ages of 40 and 65, or if you’ve ever broken a single bone, the World Health Organization's tool for assessing the likelihood of breaks would underestimate your risk of “fragility fractures” resulting from falls. That is the conclusion of a study done at the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec, Canada and published in April 2014 published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).
_ Vitamin D and Aggressive Prostate Cancer By Jane Farrell article Researchers say that Vitamin D deficiency is an indicator of aggressive prostate cancer risk in middle-aged men who underwent a biopsy. Adam B. Murphy, M.D., MBA, assistant professor in the Department of Urology at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said that the finding affected European-American and African-American men, although the link between Vitamin D deficiency andaggressive prostate cancer was stronger in African-Americans.
_ Healthy Diet & Nutrition Mental & Emotional Health Stress Management Stress-Free Living Chronic Stress Makes Junk Food Even Worse for You By article File this under “That’s not fair!” People who are not dealing with chronic stress can get away with eating a lot of high-fat, high-sugar food without upping their risk of metabolic syndrome, but stressed out people can’t. That’s the finding of research done at the University of Califorina, San Francisco.