Culture | Page 2314 | Science Codex

U-M guidelines help family physicians evaluate, manage urinary incontinence for women

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Millions of women experience a loss of bladder control, or urinary incontinence, in their lifetime.

It's a common and often embarrassing problem that many patients don't bring up with their doctors – and when they do, it may be mentioned as a casual side note during a visit for more pressing medical issues.

Now, new guidelines from doctors at the University of Michigan Health System offer family physicians a step-by-step guide for the evaluation of urinary leakage, to prevent this quality-of-life issue from being ignored.

Perceived control affects complication rates in patients with acute coronary syndrome

Patients admitted to hospital with obstructed heart arteries were three times more likely to experience complications when they were in hospital if they felt they were not in control of their condition, according to research published in the October issue of the Journal of Advanced Nursing.

However, persistent anxiety on its own appeared to have little effect on whether patients experienced complications or not.

Photo ID laws may minority turnout unless a free Photo ID plan is implemented

Election turnout among young people of color, including African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans, may drop by nearly 700,000 voters in states with new photo ID laws, a decline potentially impacting presidential contests in the battleground states of Florida and Pennsylvania, according to a report released today by the Black Youth Project.

When violence among couples is mutual, stereotyping happens too

Los Angeles, CA (September 12, 2012)--The topic of domestic abuse remains a controversial issue when it comes to determining punishment for battered women who use violence towards their partner. According to a recent study in Psychology of Women Quarterly, battered women who engage in domestic (including mutual) violence and shared substance abuse are often regarded negatively and subject to harsher sentences.

Facebook boosts election turnout

About one third of a million more people showed up at the ballot box in the United States in 2010 because of a single Facebook message on Election Day, estimates a new study led by the University of California, San Diego.

Published in Nature, the massive-scale experiment confirms that peer pressure helps get out the vote – and demonstrates that online social networks can affect important real-world behavior.

Official US poverty rate remains high, middle class incomes decline

Data released by the U.S. Census Bureau today show that, after increasing since 2008, the poverty rate for the U.S. remained stable at 15 percent between 2010 and 2011. Poverty is greatest among children (21.9 percent), compared with seniors (8.7 percent) and working-age adults (13.7 percent).

While poverty remained unchanged, the median annual household income declined for the second year in a row, to $50,054, down 1.5 percent from 2010.

With food insecurity rising in US, SNAP benefits should be left alone

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — In a time of record-high food insecurity rates in the U.S., cutting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (the former Food Stamp Program) is the wrong approach to fighting hunger, says a University of Illinois economist who studies the efficacy of food assistance programs on public health.

GPs using unreliable websites for tinnitus information, study finds

GPs are not always using the most comprehensive and reliable online resources to support them in treating patients with the debilitating hearing condition tinnitus, researchers have found.

The study looked at the 10 main websites used by GPs to get information on clinical practice and found that the two best websites for assessing or managing tinnitus — Map of Medicine and the British Tinnitus Association (BTA) — were rarely used by family doctors, with only two per cent logging on to access their pages.

Russia fails to grasp democratic ideals

EAST LANSING, Mich. — The brutally repressive Soviet Union Vladimir Shlapentokh left behind 33 years ago may have opened its borders to the world, but today's Russia has become wracked with greed, corruption and mass emigration that threaten the nation's future.

So argues Shlapentokh, a Michigan State University sociologist, in the academic journal Communist and Post-Communist Studies.

Sandia, OurEnergyPolicy.org release 'Goals of Energy Policy' poll results

LIVERMORE, Calif.— U.S. energy policy should simultaneously pursue security of its energy supply, economic stability and reduced environmental impacts, says a national poll of energy professionals jointly prepared by Sandia National Laboratories and OurEnergyPolicy.org.

The findings of the national poll, "The Goals of Energy Policy," show that the vast majority — more than 85 percent — of the 884 energy professionals surveyed prefer policymaking that pursues all three goals at once.

Uncertain about health outcomes, male stroke survivors more likely to suffer depression than females

Philadelphia, PA, September 12, 2012 – Post-stroke depression is a major issue affecting approximately 33% of stroke survivors. A new study published in the current issue of Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation reports that the level to which survivors are uncertain about the outcome of their illness is strongly linked to depression. The relationship is more pronounced for men than for women.

Active follow-up with telephone help can reduce deaths in chronic heart failure patients

Chronic heart failure (CHF) patients are less likely to have died a year after discharge if they are involved in a programme of active follow-up once they have returned home than patients given standard care, according to a new Cochrane systematic review. These patients were also less likely to need to go back into hospital in the six months that follow discharge.

Results from world's first registry of pregnancy and heart disease

Results from the world's first registry of pregnancy and heart disease have shown that most women with heart disease can go through pregnancy and delivery safely, so long as they are adequately evaluated, counselled and receive high quality care.

Human remains discovered in search for King Richard III

A team from the University of Leicester is today (Wednesday September 12) announcing a dramatic development in the search for King Richard III.

The search, which has entered a third week, has uncovered evidence of human remains – the first time in the search that this is disclosed.

The University of Leicester is leading the archaeological search for the burial place of King Richard III with Leicester City Council, in association with the Richard III Society.

Over the past two weeks, the team has made major discoveries about the heritage of Leicester by:

Hundreds more bleeding trauma patients could be saved if tranexamic acid was used more widely

The clot stabilizer drug tranexamic acid can be administered safely to a wide range of patients with traumatic bleeding and should not be restricted to the most severe cases, a study published on bmj.com today suggests.

Previous studies have already shown that tranexamic acid significantly reduces death from all causes, without increasing the risk of thrombotic adverse events (formation of a blood clot in a blood vessel). As such, tranexamic acid is being incorporated into trauma protocols around the world, but these tend to focus on the most severely injured.