Culture

NEW YORK— Markle Connecting for Health today released a wide-ranging compendium of resources designed to further support the interoperable, private, and secure sharing of health information.

Cardiac catheterization – an invasive diagnostic procedure that allows doctors to see the vessels and arteries leading to the heart and its chambers – is performed thousands of times in the United States each year and, in some cases, can be the best method to diagnose heart problems. Still, the procedure is costly and may pose risks to certain patients, so determining when the benefits of performing the procedure outweigh the risks is essential.

Women with high family support and limited pressure to achieve the 'thin and beautiful' ideal have a more positive body image. That's according to a new study looking at five factors that may help young women to be more positive about their bodies, in the context of a society where discontent with appearance is common among women. The work by Dr. Shannon Snapp, from the University of Arizona in the US, and colleagues is published online in Springer's journal, Sex Roles.

Washington—The American College of Physicians (ACP) today applauded Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.) and Rep. Joe Heck (R-Nev.) for their bipartisan introduction of the Medicare Physician Payment Innovation Act of 2012 this morning.

Older women who have been diagnosed with an irregular heart beat are at higher risk of stroke than men. A new study led by the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI MUHC) shows that warfarin, the most common anticoagulant therapy used to prevent stroke in patients with Atrial fibrillation (AF) may not be as effective in women, 75 years or older, as in men. The results of the study are published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Many diners cringe at the thought of waiting for a table in a crowded restaurant, while restaurant managers hope they do not lose customers due to long waits. Now, a University of Missouri researcher has studied restaurant design and has recommendations for how restaurateurs can design waiting areas to be more comfortable, thus increasing diners' willingness to wait for a table.

ANN ARBOR, MI (May 9, 2012): Newly published results from a clinical study of the Diabetes Insulin Guidance System (DIGS™), under development by Hygieia, Inc., demonstrate DIGS' potential to improve blood glucose control for insulin-using patients with type 2 or type 1 diabetes. DIGS automatically adjusted insulin dosage based on each individual's reported blood glucose results. Over the 12-week intervention period of the study, investigators observed:

Schools, local councils and professionals need better guidance and training to work with migrant families from Eastern Europe and their children, according to new research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

Patients who were sexually active before suffering a heart attack were one and a half times more likely to recapture their sex lives if they received guidance on the topic before leaving the hospital, a new study finds.

While it's no surprise that sexual activity tends to decline slightly for both men and women during the year following a heart attack, or acute myocardial infarction (AMI), researchers found that many patients who said they did not get medical counsel prior to hospital discharge either unnecessarily delayed or refrained from sex.

Findings are to be announced today (May 9) on why ex-armed forces personnel end up in prison.

Dr James Treadwell from the Department of Criminology at the University of Leicester will present his research before his peers at a research seminar.

The evidence underlying the current widely-held view that foreign aid for health in a recipient country leads to a displacement or diversion of government funds from that country's health sector is unreliable and should not be used to guide policy, according to experts writing in this week's PLoS Medicine.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - A new review of survey results says that higher levels of income inequality in the United States lead to more deaths in the country over a period of years. The findings suggest that income inequality at any one point doesn't make a difference but it leads to increasing mortality rates 5 years later, and its influence peaks after 7 years, before fading again after 12 years. If that sounds odd, yeah. Welcome to sociology.

Below are highlights of orthopaedic research studies appearing in the May 2, 2012 issue of the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS), as well as the issue's full Table of Contents.

Study Quantifies the High Cost of Hand and Wrist Injuries (Patients Available for Interviews)

A key change in Brazilian law simplifying the sale of repossessed cars has enabled low-income borrowers in the country to get credit more easily and buy newer, more expensive cars, a new study shows.

The study from the Consortium on Financial Systems and Poverty examines car loans from one of Brazil's leading banks before and after a 2004 law that enabled banks to sell repossessed cars quickly without going through a lengthy court process.

PHILADELPHIA, May 8, 2012 – New data released today at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association show that patients with unipolar, non-psychotic Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) receiving transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) with NeuroStar TMS Therapy® achieved significant improvements in both depression symptoms and in quality of life measurements. Overall, 58 percent of patients achieved a positive response to NeuroStar TMS therapy, with 37 percent of patients achieving remission from their depression.