July 31st, 2010 by Medgadget in Better Health Network, News, Research
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A team of biomedical engineering masters students at Johns Hopkins have developed a device that they hope will be able to spot oncoming pre-term labor in pregnant women earlier than by using an external tocodynamometer.
The CervoCheck device is meant to be inserted into the vaginal canal/cervical opening where it then can measure electrical signals characteristic of contractions. Prototypes of the device are currently being tested in animals. We sympathize with those who have to insert them into pigs(?). Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
July 29th, 2010 by Medgadget in Better Health Network, News, Research
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Identifying autistic kids as early as possible is very important so that appropriate clinical interventions and upbringing can have the most beneficial effect.
Now a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has shown that analyzing the unique signature of children’s pre-speech vocalizations can be a pretty good way to identify potential cases of autism. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
July 27th, 2010 by Medgadget in Better Health Network, News, Research
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FDA researchers have published a study in Pediatrics that analyzed patient records from child and teen ER visits in 2004 and 2005. The investigators are reporting that 70,000 kids each year go to the ER because of issues caused by medical devices.
About a quarter of the injuries were from contact lenses, while the other major contributors were needles, wheelchairs, braces, and obstetric exam tools. The study also looked at the devices most likely to cause hospitalization, and they were found to be mostly invasive devices like ostomy appliances and implanted defibrillators. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
July 24th, 2010 by Medgadget in Better Health Network, News, Research
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A team from Northeastern University and Harvard Medical School has been analyzing words used in tweets by American users in an attempt to gauge the public mood around the country.
What they discovered was that users on the West Coast seem to be quite a bit jollier than those on the East Coast. It’s not clear whether the data was collected during the summer or winter months and accordingly adjusted, for that surely would affect the readings.
Researchers were able to infer the mood of each tweet using a psychological word-rating system developed by the National Institute of Mental Health’s Center for the Study of Emotion and Attention. The system ranks words based on how they make people feel. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
July 22nd, 2010 by Medgadget in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Health Tips, Humor, News, Opinion, Research
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In a development that may have you undergo your next medical procedure the old-fashioned way, two researchers from the University of California-San Francisco and the University of Oslo are reporting that inhaled anesthetics significantly contribute to the destruction of the ozone layer and add to the overall global warming gas content in the atmosphere.
Moreover, the study’s authors conclude with some valuable advice for your own practice: “From our calculations, avoiding N2O and unnecessarily high fresh gas flow rates can reduce the environmental impact of inhaled anesthetics.”
We’d like to venture even further. Not only would we recommend closed-circuit, low-flow anesthesia even with sevoflurane (damn those kidneys!), we’d also suggest that patients arrive by bicycle or, if absolutely necessary, a biodiesel-powered ambulance.
Press release: Study Shows Global Warming Impact of Anesthetics …
Abstract in Anesthesia & Analgesia: Global Warming Potential of Inhaled Anesthetics: Application to Clinical Use
Image: brutal
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
