Going to extremes to improve human health
.... "Physical and mental fatigue may not be commonly perceived as work hazards, but fatigue often is a fundamental cause of accidents and injuries," Minson said. Minson's work, which pertains to a range of disease conditions such as diabetes, involves uncovering the neural and vascular interactions in the skin d...Some male breast cancer patients may have unnecessary radiotherapy
...thy tissue when they remove the tumour, so men are perceived to be more at risk of the tumour recurring in the breast area. But an analysis of 60 male breast cancer patients and more than 4,000 female control patients, showed that gender was not a prognostic factor in recurrence, breast cancer survival or over...'Hollow-face illusion' affects estimates of distance and reaching tasks
...ers used the "hollow-face illusion" to test if the perceived shape of a face also affects participants' reaches...de verbal and reach estimates that indicated their perceived shape of the face. In the verbal task, participants gave a verbal estimate of the distance from the...Japanese doctors likelier than US counterparts to involve patients' families in decisions
...where the individual autonomy to make decisions is perceived as relatively more important." "Negotiating End-of-Life Decision Making: A Comparison of Japanese and U.S. Residents' Approaches" is published in the July issue of Academic Medicine. The researchers distributed surveys to 244 Japanese and 103 U.S. m...Health professionals believe gender bias limits women's progression in NHS
...itive discrimination to redress this imbalance was perceived as an unfair recruitment strategy by the majority ...origin. Disability and sexual orientation was also perceived as a barrier to career progression - 87% of disabled respondents felt their disability limited their...Specific regions of brain implicated in anorexia nervosa, finds Univ. of Pittsburgh study
...ation in dopamine function may affect the value of perceived rewards, or perhaps make it difficult to associate good feelings with things most people find rewarding, Dr. Kaye explained. Consequently, people with anorexia nervosa may appear to be obsessive about certain stimuli that may be uniquely rewarding to...Quality measures need to be field-tested, researchers find
...We believe that a strategy that is tailored to the perceived barriers of judicious antibiotic use will have the largest chance of succeeding." The investigators are performing further research to test the effect of such a strategy....US still spends more on health care than any other country
...not explain much of the cost differential. Another perceived cause of higher health care costs in the United States is that malpractice suits increase the prices charged by doctors and cause them to practice defensive medicine, which occurs when doctors order extra tests or procedures to reduce their risk of b...Hospital 'report cards' found not effective for quality improvement
...tion, including "that the administrative data were perceived as invalid or irrelevant to practice. It is possible that report cards constructed using chart review data may be more effective than those constructed using administrative data because physicians are less skeptical of their data quality." (JAMA. 200...Mental health following stroke, spinal cord injury; sensory evaluation tools
...his study examines the effect of daily hassles and perceived stress on psychological health, as well as the rol...urvey assessing sources of stress (daily hassles), perceived stress, social support, depression, anxiety, and life satisfaction. Physical abilities, health, mone...Doctors and care providers often underestimate the full impact of head injuries
...ving for the lifestyle they had before the injury, perceived discrimination and lack of understanding from others about the consequences of head injury, and self-consciousness caused by changes in physical appearance. The authors suggest that the rehabilitation of some patients may benefit from interventions s...Blood pressure poorly controlled in the elderly, especially women
...o treat older patients as aggressively, because of perceived lower benefits or possible increased risk of side effects. "In light of these findings, and the results from clinical trials, the very elderly may have the most to gain from hypertension treatment. We must make identification, treatment and, when po...Women missing out in heart treatment more needed in clinical trials
...ause cardiovascular diseases have erroneously been perceived as 'male' diseases. As most cardiovascular diseases tend to occur later in women, co-existing health problems and age limitations on trials have worked against their inclusion. Late diagnosis due to different and more ambiguous symptoms was another r...Tungsten in the environment: National symposium, Aug. 29
...ts discovery, tungsten and its compounds have been perceived as environmentally benign, a notion that has recently been challenged." In September 2001, the CES initiated a research program addressing various aspects of the environmental chemistry, toxicology, and fate and transport of tungsten and tungsten hea...Treating individuals with substance-abuse disorders who have attempted suicide
... treatment," he said. "A suicide attempt is often perceived as being so glaringly important that it overshadows other problems. People might just focus on the suicide attempt and forget to address other issues that were going on beforehand, when what they really need to do is make sure that the person gets t...Academic medical centers face multiple challenges for conducting medical research
...of academic-industry relationships include real or perceived pressures to relax scientific standards, inducements to become advocates (or shills) for industry, suppression of nonoptimal research results, incomplete or misleading descriptions and interpretations of trial results, and premature termination of cl...'Noise' affects how brain directs body to move
...acked a moving object and how accurately the brain perceived the trajectory. Findings showed that both the smooth pursuit system and the brain's perceptual system were nearly equal. "This teaches us that these very different neural processes are limited to the same degree by the same noise sources," says Li...Impact of somatization on health resource usage in patients with irritable bowel syndrome
...n. Since patients with somatization are sometimes perceived as "complainers" by their doctors, the researchers hypothesized that physicians might respond to these complaints by ordering excessive tests instead of treating the somatization itself. Researchers found that patients with high levels of somatiza...Survey of poultry workers shows high rate of injuries
...s at the company with the fewest reported injuries perceived a greater emphasis on workplace safety compared to workers at the other two companies. The researchers said additional research is needed, including physical exams to confirm self-reported levels of injuries and studies to investigate reasons for rep...New study at UNC shows concussions promote dementias in retired professional football players
...ncussion, 266, or 17.6 percent, reported that they perceived the injury to have had a permanent effect on their thinking and memory skills as they have gotten older. The findings showing a relationship between diagnosed mild cognitive impairment and history of concussions -- three or more -- suggest that a tru...