Culture

The use of social media by older people can offer valuable additional support in cases of sickness and diseases, new research from the University of Luxembourg has shown.

In a new publication, Dr Anja Leist from the University's Research Unit INSIDE, concludes that possibilities for a systematic application in clinical practice seem promising.

Patients' health outcomes improve when physicians individualize care and take their patients' life circumstances into account, according to a new study by the University of Illinois at Chicago and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

The study is the largest ever to be conducted using real patients to collect data about their doctors' behavior using concealed audio recorders. It appears in the April 16 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine and was funded by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Research at Johns Hopkins suggests that if hospitals would show physicians the price of some diagnostic laboratory tests at the time the tests are ordered, doctors would order substantially fewer of them or search for lower-priced alternatives.

INDIANAPOLIS and WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Information collected from individual patients at doctor's office and hospital visits could be used to improve health care and reduce costs on a national scale, according to a discussion paper released by the Institute of Medicine.

Physicians at the Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center have become the first in Virginia to successfully implant a telescope in a patient's eye to treat macular degeneration.

ANN ARBOR—The larger the group, the smaller the chance of forming interracial friendships, a new University of Michigan study shows.

Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study examines how the size of a community affects the realization of people's preferences for friends. U-M researchers Siwei Cheng and Yu Xie tested their theoretical model using both simulated and real data on actual friendships among 4,745 U.S. high school students.

TORONTO, April 15, 2013—A review of published research has found no evidence that drugs, herbal products or vitamin supplements help prevent cognitive decline in healthy older adults.

The review, conducted at St. Michael's Hospital, found some evidence that mental exercises, such as computerized memory training programs, might help.

"This review provides some evidence to help clinicians and their patients address what strategies might prevent cognitive decline," said Dr. Raza Naqvi, a University of Toronto resident and lead author of the review.

Sex apparently is like income: People are generally happy when they keep pace with the Joneses and they're even happier if they get a bit more.

That's one finding of Tim Wadsworth, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder, who recently published the results of a study of how sexual frequency corresponds with happiness.

As has been well documented with income, the happiness linked with having more sex can rise or fall depending on how individuals believe they measure up to their peers, Wadsworth found.

New research from the University of Copenhagen shows how public opinion on homosexuality has changed dramatically over the past 25 years. In his Ph.D. thesis, "Somewhere, over the Rainbow", Michael Nebeling Petersen analyzes Danish legislation, press coverage and films and concludes that homosexuality has become a symbol of liberal Danish values.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Patients whose severe depression goes into remission for six months following electroconvulsive therapy report a quality of life similar to that of healthy individuals, researchers say.

"If we can get you into remission, you get this big, big improvement in quality of life at six months such that our patients' quality of life is as good as that of the overall general population," said Dr. W. Vaughn McCall, Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University.

NEW ORLEANS (April 15, 2013)—Kidney failure patients on dialysis derive long-term benefit from the minimally invasive placement of a stent that improves the function of dialysis access grafts, according to 12-month trial results being presented at the Society of Interventional Radiology's 38th Annual Scientific Meeting in New Orleans.

The invasive kudzu bug has the potential to be a major agricultural pest, causing significant damage to economically important soybean crops. Conventional wisdom has held that the insect pests will be limited to areas in the southern United States, but new research from North Carolina State University shows that they may be able to expand into other parts of the country.

It is unnecessary to scan trauma patients based on a non-focused standard trauma CT protocol, if the patient is transferred for care after already undergoing a focused CT examination based on the patient's history and physical examination, a new study shows.

Adding a photo of a face to x-ray images can reduce "wrong-patient" errors five-fold, a new study finds.

"X-rays can look alike, and if one patient's images are confused with another before the radiologist sees them, it can be difficult for the radiologist to determine there is a mismatch," said Dr. Srini Tridandapani, of Emory University and an author of the study.

Long commute times and urban areas that leapfrog over open space make it harder for people to socialize, but cities that are decentralized are even worse, University of Utah researchers say in a study published online today in the Journal of Transport Geography.