A meta-analysis of 55 published research studies reveals programs designed to teach social skills to children with autism are failing to meet their goals. The study, conducted at Indiana University, found that outcomes for social skills training were poor overall, but programs held in normal classroom settings were more likely to result in positive changes than programs held in other environments.
Ovarian germ cell tumor patients treated with platinum-based chemotherapy and fertility-sparing surgery are likely to retain their menstrual function and reproductive ability, according to the largest and most comprehensive survey of survivors ever conducted.
Can adopting a healthier lifestyle later in life help – or is it too late? In a study published in the July 2007 issue of The American Journal of Medicine, researchers from the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston found that people 45 to 64 years of age who added healthy lifestyle behaviors could substantially reduce their risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and reduce their death rate.
Chancellor Larry Hollier, MD, announced that the Louisiana Board of Regents voted to award LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans a $3.3 million grant and an equal share of a $5.9 million grant from their Research Commercialization and Education Enhancement Program.
In the new book Blind Spots: Why Smart People Do Dumb Things (Prometheus Books, $18), psychologist Dr. Madeleine Van Hecke investigates many humorous anecdotes that gently nudge the reader into a deeper understanding of human fallibilities. Dr. Van Hecke explains why we mess up and shows how our minds only work for us 80 to 90 percent of the time. She combines humor, pragmatism, and theory to help the reader understand what gets in the way of good thinking.
A senior official from the United Nations Children?s Fund (UNICEF) currently in Iran has called for maximum efforts to prevent HIV and AIDS from becoming a general epidemic in the country.
A sequence of breathing and relaxation exercises known as the Papworth method has been shown to reduce asthma symptoms by a third by the first randomised controlled trial to investigate the technique, which is published online ahead of print in Thorax.
In a study involving unannounced visits by actors portraying new patients, primary care physicians shared personal information about one-third of the time, according to a report in the June 25 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Only 10 (14 percent) of these disclosures were in response to a patient question, and most (62, or 85 percent) appeared not to be useful to the patient.
Men and women with multiple sclerosis (MS) equally transmit the genetic risk of the disease to their children, according to a study published June 27, 2007, in the online edition of Neurology?, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
A survey of nearly 700 surgical residents in 17 U.S. medical centers finds that more than half failed to report needle-stick injuries involving patients whose blood could be a source of HIV, hepatitis and other infections.