Culture

SEATTLE, WA – As cases of Little League Shoulder (LLS) occur more frequently, the need for additional information about the causes and outcomes of the condition has become clear. Researchers presenting at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's (AOSSM) Annual Meeting today shared new data identifying associated risk factors, common treatment options and return to play.

SEATTLE, WA – College athletes experiencing in-season shoulder instability regularly return to play within one week of injury, but developed recurrent instability in 63% of cases, according to research presented today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's (AOSSM) Annual Meeting. This latest information may help guide team physicians in providing the most optimal treatment plans for injured players.

Australian researchers reveal that sudden, acute episodes of low back pain are not linked to weather conditions such as temperature, humidity, air pressure, wind direction and precipitation. Findings published in Arthritis Care & Research, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), indicate that the risk of low back pain slightly increases with higher wind speed or wind gusts, but was not clinically significant.

Cellphone metadata has been in the news quite a bit lately, but the National Security Agency isn't the only organization that collects information about people's online behavior. Newly downloaded cellphone apps routinely ask to access your location information, your address book, or other apps, and of course, websites like Amazon or Netflix track your browsing history in the interest of making personalized recommendations.

BOSTON – Over the last 60 years, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved 20 medications for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) based on clinical trials that were not designed to study their long-term efficacy and safety or to detect rare adverse events, researchers at Boston Children's Hospital report today in PLOS ONE. The study highlights gaps in how the long-term safety of drugs intended for chronic use in children is assessed as part of the FDA approval process.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Researchers from The Miriam Hospital have found that people with Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who are also depressed have difficulty sticking to a pulmonary rehabilitation program. This appears to be particularly true for women, and screening and brief treatment of depression should be considered as part of treatment. The study and its findings are published in print in Respiratory Medicine.

DALLAS – July 9, 2014 – There has been a sharp increase in the number of cancer patients at UT Southwestern Medical Center using MyChart, the online, interactive service that allows patients to view laboratory and radiology results, communicate with their healthcare providers, schedule appointments, and renew prescriptions.

BOSTON (July 9, 2014) — A retrospective study conducted by researchers at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine and colleagues reports that among adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, the likelihood of having cavities decreased as the number of years receiving dental care increased. The findings, published in the July/August issue of Special Care in Dentistry, may help improve interventions designed to address the oral health of individuals in this population.

Small print and poor printing on prescription labels handed out by pharmacists may be misread and may lead to errors in taking medication, according to new research by the University of Waterloo and CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind).

The study, published recently in the Canadian Pharmacists Journal, found that labels on prescription medications dispensed by pharmacies do not consistently follow professionally recommended guidelines for legibility.

Not even geckos and spiders can sit upside down forever. Nanophysics makes sure of that. Mechanics researchers at Linköping University have demonstrated this in an article just published in Physical Review E. Knowledge that can be of great industrial benefit.

In some countries, a region that can lay claim to being the birthplace of a country's political leader is likely to get preferential treatment – bias that shines out when the intensity of night lights is compared with that in other regions.

Big data can yield big savings, if they are used in the right ways. David W. Bates of the Brigham and Women's Hospital and coauthors analyzed six use cases with strong opportunities for cost savings—high-cost patients; readmissions; triage; decompensation (when a patient's condition worsens); adverse events; and treatment optimization when a disease affects multiple organ systems. They suspect that cost-savings benefits will vary widely, though the current costs associated with all six scenarios will be significant.

SAN FRANCISCO – July 9, 2014 – The first clinical trial to examine integrated low vision and mental health treatment has shown that the approach can reduce the incidence of depression by half among people with low vision due to age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The results of the study were published online today in Ophthalmology, the journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

Researchers using fossils of a 410-million-year-old arachnid – one of the first predators on land – have created images and stitched them together to try and duplicate the animal walking.

The scholars used exceptionally preserved fossils from the Natural History Museum in London to create the video showing the most likely walking gait of the animal; the study is published in a special issue of the Journal of Paleontology.

DURHAM, N.C. – The changing dynamic of health studies driven by "big data" research projects will empower patients to become active participants who provide real-time information such as symptoms, side effects and clinical outcomes, according to researchers at Duke Medicine.