July 1st, 2011 by Berci in News
Tags: Blood Flow, Frontal Cortex, Harvard, Natalie Hershlag, Natalie Portman, Neuroimaging, Neurology, Neuroscience, Neurosurgery, Object Permanence, Pediatrics, Science
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Did you know that Natalie Portman (under the name, Natalie Hershlag) published a paper in a scientific journal in 2002 while at Harvard?
Frontal lobe activation during object permanence: data from near-infrared spectroscopy.
The ability to create and hold a mental schema of an object is one of the milestones in cognitive development. Developmental scientists have named the behavioral manifestation of this competence object permanence. Convergent evidence indicates that frontal lobe maturation plays a critical role in the display of object permanence, but methodological and ethical constrains have made it difficult to collect neurophysiological evidence from awake, behaving infants. Near-infrared spectroscopy provides a noninvasive assessment of changes in oxy- and deoxyhemoglobin and total hemoglobin concentration within a prescribed region. The evidence described in this report reveals that the emergence of object permanence is related to an increase in hemoglobin concentration in frontal cortex.
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
June 28th, 2011 by Berci in News, True Stories
Tags: Blogging, Britain, Cancer, Daniel Sencier, Dissatisfaction, Law Suit, Legal Action, NHS, Oncology, Web 2.0
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I’ve recently come across a really controversial story about a cancer patient who blogged and complained about his hospital treatment and has been threatened with legal action by an NHS trust.
Daniel Sencier was worried about delays at Carlisle’s Cumberland Infirmary and had surgery at another hospital. He complained to North Cumbria University Hospital Trust and it came up with an action plan to improve care.
But Mr Sencier, 59, of Penrith, then received a letter threatening legal action. The trust declined to comment.
Mr Sencier, a photography student, had expected an apology but then received a letter saying the trust would consider legal action if his blog contained “unsubstantiated criticism”.
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
June 26th, 2011 by ChristopherChangMD in News
Tags: Anti-histamine, Azelastine, Clinical Trials, Dymista, ENT, Fluticasone, Meda Pharmaceuticals, Nasal Spray, Phase 3, Steroid
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Meda Pharmaceuticals has announced a new nasal spray “Dymista” that contains both a steroid and an anti-histamine active ingredient. Why is this significant? It’s because it’s the first and only one to do so. Of course, it’s not available yet until the FDA approves it, but at least it has shown effectiveness in Phase 3 clinical trials.
At this time, nasal sprays as it relates to nasal allergies come in two separate flavors:
1) Steroid Nasal Spray (flonase, nasonex, nasacort, rhinocort, veramyst, omnaris, etc, etc)
2) Anti-Histamine Nasal Spray (patanase, astepro, astelin)
This new combo nasal spray “Dymista” contains Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Fauquier ENT Blog*
June 20th, 2011 by Iltifat Husain, M.D. in News
Tags: Apps, Bates' Guide to Physical Examination and History Taking, Brown University, Chronicle, Essential Clinical Anatomy, Grant's Atlas of Anatomy, Individual Chapters, Inkling, Inkling E-book App, iPad, Ivy League, Luba Demenco, Medical Textbooks, PDF based curriculums, Textbooks, Warren Alpert Medical School
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In a little seen nugget published in an article of the Chronicle, the Ivy League medical school, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, will be requiring their incoming medical students to use the Inkling e-book app for key medical textbooks in their first year of medical school.
They will be requiring their incoming first year class to purchase iPads as well.
We have been the first to report how and why Inkling is a game changer in the arena of medical e-books when we reviewed Ganong’s Review of Medical Physiology:
Ganong’s Review of Medical Physiology for the iPad allows you to highlight, write notes, view innovative multimedia modules, and easily search for content — taking what you can do on a paper based textbook to a higher level — and taking e-learning to a completely different stratosphere.
The three key Inkling textbooks that will be required by Brown University’s medical school: Essential Clinical Anatomy, Grant’s Atlas of Anatomy, and Bates’ Guide to Physical Examination and History Taking.
The medical school’s director of preclinical curriculum, Luba Demenco, had the following thoughts to share with the Chronicle on the iPad implementation into the curriculum: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at iMedicalApps*
June 15th, 2011 by RyanDuBosar in News
Tags: Adverse Events, Confusion, Drug Labels, Drugs, Health Literacy, Legal, Patient Communication, TMI
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Drug labels warn about a mean of 70 adverse events per medication, leading researchers to conclude that the glut of information is confusing patients.
Jon Duke, MD, an ACP Member, and other researchers extracted 534,125 adverse drug events from 5,602 product labels. There was a mean of nearly 70 events per label. They found 588 with more than 150 adverse drug events and 84 with more than 300, with the top offender having 525 events listed. This top group included selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, anti-virals, and restless leg syndrome drugs.
Labels for the 200 most commonly dispensed medications contained significantly more adverse drug events than others (median, 79 vs. 47; P<.001). By specialty, there were more adverse drug events listed in the fields of neurology (n=168), psychiatry (n=116), and rheumatology (n=111).
Drugs approved during the 1980s and 1990s had the highest overall number of adverse drug events, while newer medications had significantly more labeled adverse drug events than older medications.
“The findings aren’t unexpected,” wrote Dr. Duke and colleagues in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Newer drugs face more rigorous clinical trials and postmarketing surveillance than older medications. More commonly prescribed drugs are more likely to generate more reports of adverse events. The high volume of events in neuropsychiatric medications “may relate as much to patient population as to the effects of the drugs themselves.”
But, Dr. Duke and colleagues concluded, “The presence of such excess data still may induce information overload and reduce physician comprehension of important safety warnings.”
While the Food and Drug Administration tried to revamp warning labels in 2006, labels have grown more complex since then. “This finding underscores the tremendous challenge faced by the FDA in reversing the long-standing trend toward overwarning.”
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
