Researchers predict as many as one in four people aged over 65 years will be diagnosed with dementia by 2020. To confront this looming health problem, a team of health care researchers led by the University of Western Sydney’s Professor Esther Chang, has been working on a series of related projects which aim to improve the lives of people with advanced dementia, their carers and families.
New Mental Health Minister Ivan Lewis in his first major announcement, signalled the Government’s commitment to lead a radical change in the way mental health services are delivered. He today gave the go-ahead for eleven new projects which will allow people with anxiety and depression better access to psychological therapies.
In an effort to find a better therapy and improve the lives of people with epilepsy, the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Epilepsy Service is participating in the RNS? System Pivotal Clinical Investigation, a study to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of a responsive brain stimulation device in reducing the frequency of uncontrolled seizures. MGH is one of only 28 centers across the country participating in this study.
State Health Secretary Dr. Calvin B. Johnson today reported this year?s first confirmed human case of West Nile virus in Pennsylvania. The individual, a 56-year-old Clearfield County man, is recovering and has been discharged from the hospital.
Secondary prevention programs for coronary heart disease that contain less than 10 hours contact with health professionals and those provided by family doctors are just as effective in saving lives as more expensive, longer and more specialized hospital-based alternatives, according to cardiovascular researchers at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.
A University of California, Irvine neurologist is part of a national group of scientists who have identified the active genes in sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a discovery that provides expanded opportunities for developing therapies to treat this chronic, incurable disease.
Scientists have discovered that at the same time the immune system is vigorously attacking invading viruses or bacteria, it is unexpectedly reducing its production of a particular type of factor that directs the movement of immune cells.
Ionizing radiation, toxic chemicals, and other agents continually damage the body’s DNA, threatening life and health: unrepaired DNA can lead to mutations, which in turn can lead to diseases like cancer. Intricate DNA repair mechanisms in the cells’ nuclei are constantly working to fix what’s broken, but whether the repair work happens “on the road” ? right where the damage occurs ? or “in the shop” ? at specific regions of the nucleus ? is an unanswered question.
The National Institutes of Health has provided $11.5 million in support to the Indiana University School of Medicine for the only institutional grant looking at the cause and treatment of heart failure in children.
Clinical information technology systems ? especially those known in the health care industry as computerized provider order entry (CPOE) systems ? promise to improve health outcomes, reduce medical errors and increase cost efficiency, but hospitals adopting them must plan for ?immense? workflow issues and a host of other unanticipated consequences that come with them or face potentially crippling problems, concluded a study led by researchers at Oregon Health & Science University.