Posts tagged Health at Switched

Posts with tag health

World's Oldest Pacemaker Has Kept Mother Alive for 25 Years

by Peter Mychalcewycz, posted Jul 14th 2008 at 8:04AM

A woman in England has been using the same pacemaker for over 25 years. According to Guiness World Records, it is the longest lasting pacemaker in the world.

Leslie Iles, from Essex, England, had the pacemaker implanted after repeatedly fainting and falling. After a series of tests, doctors realized that her heart was beating a mere 30 times a minute. That is half of a normal heart rate.

Most pacemakers last approximately 12 years. Though it was designed to last approximately twenty years, no one knows why this particular pacemaker has lasted a quarter century.

Mrs. Iles doesnt seem to be too concerned about the situation. She celebrated her 50th birthday by finishing a marathon in just over six hours. [Source: Telegraph]

Artificial Kidney Enables "Dialysis-On-the-Go"

by Darren Murph, posted Jul 13th 2008 at 1:20PM

Not like we haven't heard of at-home dialysis before, but a pair of researchers from UCLA and the Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System concocted a design which would make the process even more portable. The AWAK (automated, wearable artificial kidney) would "avoid the complications patients often suffer with traditional dialysis" by being bloodless in nature; additionally, it would theoretically "reduce or even eliminate protein loss."

Fittingly, UCLA-VA has already inked an agreement with Singapore-based AWAK Technologies in order to develop a commercial version, but there's no mention of how soon the creators expect said device to be widely available. [Source: UCLA via Physorg]

HealthMap Tracks Outbreaks With Google Maps

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Jul 11th 2008 at 11:02AM

There are plenty of tools out there to track disease and infections, but only HealthMap.Org uses Google Maps to give you a frightening visual of outbreaks around the world.

The service uses a complex algorithm that searches Google News, World Health Organization alerts and other online news and discussion groups for reports of outbreaks. The algorithm is able to distinguish between articles about cases of illness and reports of vaccine availabilities or other general health alerts by parsing the language used by reporters. It is even able to detect and filter out duplicate reports of the same outbreak from multiple news sources. The reports are then listed as points on a map grouped by either country and state or province.

Though the site is aimed at health professionals, the information is freely available to the public. So tracking the latest outbreak of salmonella-tainted tomatoes should be much easier. [Source: ABC News]

85% of Online Pharmacies Don't Require a Prescription, Survey Reveals

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Jul 10th 2008 at 12:02PM

Prescription Drugs Easy to Find, Cheap to Buy Online

The Internet is a virtual cornucopia of cheaply-purchased controlled substances. Don't believe us? Just swing by your local college campus and start asking a few questions. According to a recent survey of 365 Internet pharmacies, 85 percent filled orders for prescription drugs (a majority of which were for controlled substances) without requiring a prescription. Many of the sites even flaunt this fact, clearly stating that no prescription was required, a clear violation of U.S. law.

The sites are often hard to track because they only stay up for short periods of time before moving and opening up under a new name at a new address.

These illegal pharmacies are of particular concern since the rate of abuse of prescription drugs has skyrocketed over the past few years. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 48 million Americans over the age of twelve have abused prescription drugs at some point in their lives. [Source: Reuters]

Online Doctor Visits More Effective Than Physical Ones, Study Finds

by Tim Stevens, posted Jun 27th 2008 at 1:43PM

Online Doctors Visits More Beneficial than Physical Ones?

It's been a long, long time since most doctors stopped making house calls (unless you count the iPod Doctor). People have gotten used to the idea of heading into the office to sit in a waiting room and thumb through a dull yet well-read magazine. However, Internet-based house calls are looking as though they may become far more common in the not-too-distant future, and a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association is showing that they may be even more beneficial than trips into the doctor's office.

For the study -- conducted by Dr. Beverly B. Green at Group Health in Seattle -- 778 patients with high blood pressure were split into three separate groups. One continued their usual treatments, which included visits to a doctor's office. The second group received home monitoring kits and training via Web sites on how to regulate their blood pressure. The final group received home monitoring kits and training as well, but also were able to e-mail their test results to pharmacists, and the pharmacists were able to adjust prescriptions based on those e-mails. Surprisingly it's the last group that did best, with more than half bringing their blood pressure in check, while only a third of those patients assigned to the first two groups were able to do the same.

Some will surely see this as another step away from the friendly and familiar doctor of yore, but for quick follow-ups and other similar appointments, these sorts of house calls could not only save huge amounts of time for patients, but money as well. [Source: Reuters]

Radio-Frequency ID Tags Interfering With Hospital Equipment

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Jun 26th 2008 at 4:02PM

There is plenty of paranoia and weariness surrounding the potential for radio frequency identification tags (RFID) being used by shady governments and corporations to track your every move, or becoming yet another target for hackers with nefarious motives. But they have proven useful for tracking equipment, goods, and patients who may not be fully capable of caring for themselves.

Though this isn't the first instance of electronics getting in the way, a new study shows that RFID tags may in some cases interfere with life-sustaining medical equipment such as respirators and external pace makers. Of 123 tests performed on 41 different machines, 24 produced "significant" or "hazardous" incidents which varied from changing setting to completely halting a dialysis machine.

The danger of RFID tags in hospitals is likely to debated for a long time to come, just like cell phones. [Source: BBC]

Freedom Meditech Promises Glucose-Monitoring Eye Scanner

by Donald Melanson, posted Jun 23rd 2008 at 1:23PM

There's certainly no shortage of efforts out there to make glucose monitoring a bit easier for diabetics, but Freedom Meditech is now claiming to have developed one of the least invasive to date and, what's more, it says it's actually gearing up to start some clinical trials. That latter bit is apparently possible thanks to a newly formed partnership with Batelle, which is helping to raise the necessary capital, while the former bit got a boost from an arrangement with the University of Toledo, whose technology it is licensing.

The key bit, it seems, is that Freedom Meditech's method involves scanning only the front portion of the eye (or, more specifically, the Aqueous humor where the glucose resides) instead of shining a light on the retina, which some similar methods use. That apparently not only delivers results faster, but reduces the risk of any potential long-term safety hazards from repeated laser exposure, which would also make it better suited as a tool for early screening of diabetes. [Source: Diabetes Mine]

Fewer Than 1 in 5 Doctors Use Efficient Electronic Medical Records

by Tim Stevens, posted Jun 19th 2008 at 9:41AM

Doctors Say Electronic Records Are Good, But Don't Use Them

The next time you sign in for a doctor's appointment, take a look behind the registration counter. What do you see? Is it an array of modern computer terminals, or row upon row of shelves crammed with paper medical records? Chances are it's the latter, according to a recent survey, which found just one-in-five doctors have access to electronic records, with the rest stuck shuffling through folders when trying to diagnose a patient.

This is despite that very same survey showing that those who do have electronic record-keeping systems in their offices are far more efficiently able to treat their patients. Why the disparity? Cost, of course. Doctors are saying that adopting these systems are prohibitively expensive. Doctors are also saying that their productivity is greatly reduced as they transition from paper to electronics. For these reasons , they're asking the government aid to make the upgrades.

It's incredible that today's outrageous HMO fees and co-pays can't cover the cost, but one way or another, that stack of paper that's tracked you since birth is destined for the recycling bin -- ideally after a run through a shredder. [Source: The New York Times]

This Computer Keyboard Tells You When It Needs to be Cleaned

by Blake Besharian, posted Jun 18th 2008 at 4:01PM

We've written about the microscopic horrors infesting your keyboard before -- bacteria can grow at levels five times worst than found on a toilet seat -- and researchers in the UK have developed a new keyboard that they hope will cut down on deadly drug-resistant staph infections among patients.

On average, more than 8,000 people die each year from methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) that was contracted while being treated for something else in a hospital. Along with taking other measures to clean up the hospital environment to fight infection, British researchers at the University College London Hospital have created the Medigenic keyboard, an easy-to-clean, flat silicone keyboard that will tell you when it needs to be cleaned (usually at 12 hour intervals).

Why spend time and money developing a new keyboard? Doctors and nurses already wash their hands between touching patients, but keyboards are shared by many people and are actually a big source of cross-contamination. Researchers found that many of the hospital's keyboards contained more than 150 times the recommended safe level of bacteria. Most people only clean their keyboards with compressed air -- if at all -- which won't kill the bacteria the dirty keys are harboring.

No word yet on a price, but the Medigenic Keyboard is manufactured by Advanced Input Systems, and the clean device sounds like the perfect gift for germaphobe friends, preschool teachers, and OCD sufferers alike. [Source: Daily Mail]

Serene Scenes on HDTV No Substitute for Nature

by Darren Murph, posted Jun 17th 2008 at 2:01PM

Ruh roh. Seems you can't use the "it's good for my health" excuse to watch just one more hour of Sunrise Earth, as a recent study has shown that watching serene scenes on HDTV just doesn't have the same calming effect as does watching a similar scene in nature.

The University of Washington-based study discovered that heart recovery rates in people exposed to minor stress were the same when viewing peaceful imagery on a plasma or starting directly at a blank wall. Yeah, a blank wall.

It was also noted that heart rates dropped more quickly when these same folks viewed a calming scene through a window, suggesting that technology may not be ready to replace reality just yet in this particular case. We just have to wonder if they were using true HD signals on the display -- nothing gets our heart racing like a bad episode of Pool Watchers in SD. [Source: Science Daily]

[Thanks, Ben]

Excessive TV Viewing May Give Your Kids Asthma

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Jun 17th 2008 at 11:34AM

So guess what? It looks like sitting in front of that TV will give your kid asthma. Okay, so that's a bit of an exaggeration, but a new study published in the medical journal Epidemology finds that regularly plopping your youngster down in front of the TV for hours at a time may be a health hazard.

Televisions don't radiate asthma rays or lung-destroying radiation by themselves, but they aren't good for children who spend five or more hours a day in front of them, since couch potato kids develop shallow breathing patterns when they aren't moving around much. Those deep inhalations are necessary for developing and maintaining proper lung health. Children who watched just one hour or less of television were 50 percent less likely to develop asthma than those who watched five.

Still television isn't the greatest threat to your child's lungs. Obesity and high salt diets were the two biggest risk factors, though the study did find that the more TV a child watched or the more video games he/she played the more likely they were to have unhealthy diets. [Source: Telegraph]

Sleep Texting Is Like Sleepwalking, But for Text Messaging

by Tim Stevens, posted Jun 17th 2008 at 9:01AM

Sleep Texting: Modern Epidemic, or Myth?

We've all heard of sleepwalkers -- people who wander the house (or neighborhood) at night completely unaware of what they're up to. There have been claims of other similarly motivated sleepers, too, like dozing drivers or even snoozing cooks, but a new supposed disorder has some experts crying foul: sleep texting, the act of sending text messages while asleep and without remembering a thing in the morning.

One such supposed sufferer is 24-year-old frequent texter Jessica Castillo, who, in the middle of the night, sent her boyfriend a text message that said "Baby u there? Need to tell somethin ...," then included a number of random digits and letters. The Italy, Texas resident sent a second similar message after the first one, but in the morning had zero knowledge of either. Others have reported similar incidents, leaving some to think that texting has become as innate an activity as walking to many.

Navigating through the menus on many phones to send a text is hardly an intuitive thing, and doing it without being awake is quite impressive, leaving many incredulous, thinking that people are simply lying to cover up for sending inadvertent messages at night.

It sounds believable enough to us, much more-so than some other claimed sleeping disorders, at least. [Source: TheStar.com]

How Much Radiation Does Your Phone Emit?

by Evan Shamoon, posted Jun 15th 2008 at 2:38PM

There's a fine line between health-consciousness and hypochondria, but if you're concerned about things like "brain cancer" and "dying", you might want to check out CNET's new report on cell phone radiation. The site has compiled two lists that show which cell phones give off the most and the least amount of radiation.

The ten worst phones on the chart (in terms of radiation) were mostly made up of Motorola and BlackBerry models, while LG's KG800 is the lowest-emitting phone out there.

For the record, the FDA (along with CNET) says there's not yet enough information to determine whether cell phones are actually, you know, brain-cancer-causing. [Source: NY Times]

Promising New Computer Chip Filters Out Cancer Cells

by Joshua Fruhlinger, posted Jun 10th 2008 at 4:22PM

Normally, we get excited when a slab of silicon makes our games run at a smooth 60 frames per-second, but in this case we're impressed with a new chip that filters out cancer cells. The device, created by some impressive souls at Princeton and Boston University, directs and focuses streams of cells in a liquid. Like a change sorter, it then separates regular cells form unusual ones.

The silicon wafer is tacked with tiny pillars that catch abnormal cells that are, in the end, potentially cancerous. The device hasn't been used to any major extent, but we'll keep an eye on this promising discovery. [Source: New Scientist]

LED Flashlight Talks You Through Basic CPR

by Joshua Fruhlinger, posted Jun 10th 2008 at 11:07AM

Here's a survival product combo we never thought of: an LED flashlight that talks you through the basic steps of CPR. The high-efficiency LED in an ultra-compact AAA battery-based design will talk you through an important emergency skill while the world crumbles around you. The whole flashlight measures 4-inches in length and sports push-button on/off and CPR read-off -- all for $35. Images of armageddon and self-taught nurses abound. [Source: Book of Joe]

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World's Oldest Pacemaker Has Kept Mother Alive for 25 Years

Artificial Kidney Enables "Dialysis-On-the-Go"

HealthMap Tracks Outbreaks With Google Maps

85% of Online Pharmacies Don't Require a Prescription, Survey Reveals

Online Doctor Visits More Effective Than Physical Ones, Study Finds

Radio-Frequency ID Tags Interfering With Hospital Equipment

Freedom Meditech Promises Glucose-Monitoring Eye Scanner

Fewer Than 1 in 5 Doctors Use Efficient Electronic Medical Records

This Computer Keyboard Tells You When It Needs to be Cleaned

Serene Scenes on HDTV No Substitute for Nature

Excessive TV Viewing May Give Your Kids Asthma

Sleep Texting Is Like Sleepwalking, But for Text Messaging

How Much Radiation Does Your Phone Emit?

Promising New Computer Chip Filters Out Cancer Cells

LED Flashlight Talks You Through Basic CPR

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