Culture

LOS ANGELES (Sept. 25, 2012) – Chronic, debilitating pain and potential organ failure are what approximately 100,000 sickle cell patients in the United States live with each day. Yutaka Niihara, M.D., M.P.H. - lead investigator at The Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center (LA BioMed) and co-founder of Emmaus Medical, Inc., an LA BioMed spin-off company - is developing a low-cost, noninvasive treatment that helps provide relief for patients suffering from the debilitating effects of sickle cell disease.

Alcohol misuse is the third leading cause of preventable death in the United States after tobacco use and being overweight. About 30 percent of the U.S. population admits to alcohol misuse, with most engaging in what is considered risky drinking, or drinking more than is recommended during a given time period. Researchers reviewed 23 randomized, controlled trials that lasted at least six months in duration to evaluate the effect of behavioral counseling interventions on reducing alcohol misuse.

Improved patient education and ongoing psychological support will help people cope with the psychological distress of having an implanted defibrillator, according to a scientific statement from the American Heart Association.

Infectious bacteria received a taste of their own medicine from University of Missouri researchers who used viruses to infect and kill colonies of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, common disease-causing bacteria. The viruses, known as bacteriophages, could be used to efficiently sanitize water treatment facilities and may aid in the fight against deadly antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The presidential debates offer viewers a lot of substance about the issues of the campaign -- but postdebate media coverage can undermine the value they have for voters, a new study suggests.

Results showed that postdebate coverage that focused on the debate as a competition led viewers to think less about policy issues. By comparison, coverage that focused on the substance of the discussion increased the likelihood that viewers would come away with specific thoughts about candidates' policy proposals.

With more women in family medicine in Canada, what does this mean for the specialty and the profession, for patients and for society, asks a Salon opinion piece in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

Researchers from North Carolina State University and the Georgia Institute of Technology have demonstrated a less-expensive way to create textured nickel ferrite (NFO) ceramic thin films, which can easily be scaled up to address manufacturing needs. NFO is a magnetic material that holds promise for microwave technologies and next-generation memory devices.

SAN DIEGO (Sept. 24, 2012) – Healing touch combined with guided imagery (HT+GI) provides significant clinical reductions in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms for combat-exposed active duty military, according to a study released in the September issue of Military Medicine.

The report finds that patients receiving these complementary medicine interventions showed significant improvement in quality of life, as well as reduced depression and cynicism, compared to soldiers receiving treatment as usual alone.

Another affirms how important it is that everyone pay more money for worse health insurance - except people who actually have diseases. A new paper says many survivors of adolescent and young adult cancers avoid routine medical care because it's too expensive, despite the fact that they have health insurance. The results in CANCER indicate that expanding insurance coverage for young cancer survivors may be insufficient to safeguard their long-term health without efforts to reduce their medical cost burdens.

New research by University of Warwick historian Dr Tim Lockley has found why yellow fever had a green bias in 19th century fever outbreaks in the southern states of the US. Almost half of the 650 people killed by yellow fever in Savannah Georgia in 1854 were Irish immigrants.

Conflict-of-interest statements made by physicians and scientists in their medical journal articles after they had been allegedly paid by pharmaceutical manufacturers as part of off-label marketing programs are often inadequate, highlighting the deficiencies in relying on author candidness and the weaknesses in some journal practices in ensuring proper disclosure.

Most informed consent disputes involve disagreements about who said what and when, not stand-offs over whether a particular risk ought to have been disclosed. But doctors may "routinely underestimate the importance of a small set of risks that vex patients" according to international experts writing in this week's PLOS Medicine.

Researchers describe the development and validation of an instrument to measure continuity of care from the patient's perspective.

The measure, they conclude, reliably captures nine dimensions of continuity experienced by patients when they encounter multiple caregivers in various places.

Drawing from interviews with 23 recent stroke victims, researchers explore common disease trajectories, or longitudinal patterns of psychological distress and recovery, in the 12 months following stroke.

They identify four distinct trajectories — resilience, ongoing mood disturbance, emergent mood disturbance and recovery from mood disturbance.

Recovery from mood disturbance, they note, was facilitated by gains in independence and self-esteem and by having an internal health locus of control.