One of the key indicators of the quality of care provided by hospitals to acute stroke victims is the percentage of patients who die within a 30-day period. A new study shows that the decisions made by patients and their families to stop care may account for as many as 40 percent of these stroke-related deaths, calling into question whether it is a valid measure of a hospital's skill in providing stroke care.
Culture
When it comes to cooking, grocery shopping and playing with children, American moms with full-time jobs spend roughly three-and-half fewer hours per day on these and other chores related to their children's diet and exercise compared to stay-at-home and unemployed mothers, reports a new paper by a Cornell University health economist.
A new report by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy examines the risk factors for injuries to U.S. military personnel from crashes involving highly mobile multipurpose wheeled vehicles (HMMWVs), more commonly known as Humvees. According to the study, involvement in combat and serving as the vehicle's operator or gunner posed the greatest risk for injury. It is the first published analysis of factors associated with Humvee injury risk in a deployed setting, and is in the August issue of the journal Military Medicine.
Each year as many as 40,500 critically ill U.S. hospital patients die with an unknown medical condition that may have caused or contributed to their death, Johns Hopkins patient safety experts report in a recent study.
In a discussion of their findings, described online in BMJ Quality & Safety, researchers say that although diagnostic errors in the intensive care unit (ICU) may claim as many lives each year as breast cancer, they remain an underappreciated cause of preventable patient harm.
ROCHESTER, Minn. -- People who are of normal weight but have fat concentrated in their bellies have a higher death risk than those who are obese, according to Mayo Clinic research presented today at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Munich. Those studied who had a normal body mass index but central obesity -- a high waist-to-hip ratio -- had the highest cardiovascular death risk and the highest death risk from all causes, the analysis found.
Munich, Germany – Healthy behaviours regarding alcohol, physical activity, vegetable intake and body weight reduce the risk of hypertension by two thirds, according to research presented at the ESC Congress today. The findings were presented by Professor Pekka Jousilahti from National Institute for Health and Welfare.
Munich, Germany – Patients with psoriasis are at high risk of new-onset diabetes mellitus, according to research presented at ESC Congress 2012. The findings were presented at the press conference by Dr Ole Ahlehoff from Copenhagen University Hospital, Gentofte, Denmark and at the scientific session by Usman KHALID.
Munich, Germany – Normal weight individuals who carry weight concentrated in their belly have a higher death risk than obese individuals, according to research presented at ESC Congress 2012. The results were presented by Dr Karine Sahakyan from the Mayo Clinic.
Philadelphia, PA, August 27, 2012 – Reducing television viewing may be an effective strategy to prevent excess weight gain among adolescents, according to a new study released in the September/October 2012 issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.
Munich, Germany – Rates of stent thrombosis at three years were low and comparable between zotarolimus-eluting and sirolimus-eluting stents, according to findings from the PROTECT study described here today at ESC Congress 2012.
Munich, Germany – Data from four French nationwide registries of STEMI (ST-elevation myocardial infarction) patients initiated five years apart and covering more than 15 years show that mortality rate decreased by 68% over this period, from 13.7% to 4.4%. Around one quarter of this mortality reduction could be attributed to a change in patient characteristics.
Munich, Germany – The German Aortic Valve Registry (GARY) was started in July 2010 and is the only registry so far to include both transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) and conventional aortic valve replacements and repair.(1) The intention is to deliver a complete picture of current and future practice of treating aortic valve disease and to deliver reliable data on the short and long-term outcome of different treatment strategies. This specifically includes data about quality of life before and after treatment besides numerous medical variables.
Munich, Germany – A sub-study of the Outcome Reduction with an Initial Glargine Intervention (ORIGIN) trial, designed to investigate the effect of insulin glargine and omega-3 fatty acids on atherosclerosis progression, has found that, compared to standard care, only insulin glargine (a long-acting insulin) had a "modest" statistically non-significant reducing effect on the primary outcome of rate of change in maximum carotid intima media thickness (CIMT) at 12 carotid sites.
Munich, Germany – Cardiovascular screening with ECG in young athletes is a cost effective way of diagnosing cardiac abnormalities, at just 138 Swiss Francs (about €115) per athlete. The findings were presented today, August 26, at the ESC Congress 2012 by Dr Andrea Menafoglio from Switzerland.
Sport is beneficial for health in most people. But for the small minority of the population who has cardiovascular abnormalities, sport can cause harm and very rarely – in one to three per 100,000 athletes per year – it can lead to sudden cardiac death.