Stepladders, a household product used by thousands of people every day, are a surprisingly common cause of injury. In 2009, more than 187,000 Americans visited the hospital after sustaining stepladder injuries, many of which resulted from a fall. A recent human factors/ergonomics study explores how improved design and user behavior can decrease the likelihood of future accidents.
Culture
Doctors at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are performing a new procedure to treat atrial fibrillation, a common irregular heartbeat.
New research by the University of Warwick and Humboldt university shows that the frequency of wars between states increased steadily from 1870 to 2001 by 2% a year on average. The research argues that conflict is being fed by economic growth and the proliferation of new borders.
The global economic recession of 2008-09 has been followed by a decline in fertility rates in Europe and the United States, bringing to an end the first concerted rise in fertility rates in the developed world since the 1960s, according to research published today.
Johns Hopkins University graduate students have invented a device to reduce the risk of infection, clotting and narrowing of the blood vessels in patients who need blood-cleansing dialysis because of kidney failure.
The device, designed to be implanted under the skin in a patient's leg, would give a technician easy access to the patient's bloodstream and could be easily opened and closed at the beginning and end of a dialysis procedure.
The prototype has not yet been used in human patients, but testing in animals has begun.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD), driven by the global pandemics of obesity and diabetes, poses a daunting challenge to clinicians in the 21st century. Despite progress, there is still much to be done to improve the control of dyslipidaemia, a key risk factor. In Europe, as many as one-half of patients are inadequately treated.1,2 The first European guidelines specifically focused on managing dyslipidaemias offer new hope.3,4 Experts from the European Atherosclerosis Society (EAS) and the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) worked together to develop these guidelines.
OAK BROOK, Ill. – Researchers may have discovered one reason that African Americans are at increased risk for heart attacks and other cardiovascular events.
According to a new study published online in the journal Radiology, African Americans have increased levels of non-calcified plaque, which consists of buildups of soft deposits deep in the walls of the arteries that are not detected by some cardiac tests. Non-calcified plaque is more vulnerable to rupturing and causing a blood clot, which could lead to a heart attack or other cardiovascular event.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — With the threats of cybercrime, cyberterrorism and cyberwarfare looming over our hyper-connected world, the best defense for the U.S. might be a good offense, says new research by a University of Illinois expert in technology and legal issues.
Law professor Jay P. Kesan warns that an active self-defense regime, which he terms "mitigative counterstriking," is a necessity in cyberspace, especially to protect critical infrastructure such as banking, utilities and emergency services.
Individuals with diastolic dysfunction (an abnormality involving impaired relaxation of the heart's ventricle [pumping chamber] after a contraction) appear to have an increased risk of death, regardless of whether their systolic function (contraction of the heart) is normal or they have other cardiovascular impairments, according to a report in the June 27 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Hospitals in U.S. territories appear to have poorer outcomes and higher mortality rates for patients with acute myocardial infarction (heart attack), heart failure or pneumonia, compared to hospitals in U.S. states, according to a report published Online First today in the Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
There is a 17% greater risk of dying after a heart attack if you are treated in a hospital located in a U.S. territory—i.e. the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and Northern Mariana Islands—rather than in a hospital in the mainland United States, according to new findings published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
The study by Yale School of Medicine researchers shows that many U.S. citizens who call the U.S. territories home, are at a major healthcare disadvantage.
SEATTLE – June 27, 2011 – In today's society where access to media is ever present, many parents worry about what is appropriate media usage for their children and how media consumption can potentially affect them. Two new studies led by Dr. Dimitri A. Christakis, MD, MPH and Dr. Michelle M. Garrison, PhD of Seattle Children's Research Institute, focus on different uses of media and assess how media usage can lead to depression in college students and disrupt sleep patterns in preschool aged children. The results of Dr. Christakis' study, "Problematic Internet Usage in U.S.
NEW YORK (June 27, 2011) -- As required under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, millions of people will soon be added to the ranks of the insured. However, this rapid expansion of coverage is colliding with a different, potentially problematic trend that could end up hampering access to health care.
MIAMI – Shark populations over the last 50 years have decreased dramatically. From habitat degradation to overfishing and finning, human activities have affected their populations and made certain species all but disappear.
A new article in Current Issues in Tourism by Austin J. Gallagher and Dr. Neil Hammerschlag of the R.J. Dunlap Marine Conservation Program at the University of Miami study the impact of these apex predators on coastal economies and the importance of including conservation efforts in long term management plans.
When taken with higher doses of aspirin (more than 300 milligrams), the experimental antiplatelet drug ticagrelor was associated with worse outcomes than the standard drug, clopidogrel, but the opposite was true with lower doses of aspirin.
The study is a secondary analysis of a clinical trial that compared the two drugs and found ticagrelor to be less effective in North America than in other countries.Researchers suggest the aspirin dose in combination with anti-clotting medicine may alter ticagrelor's effectiveness.