The Society for Vascular Medicine (SVM) is a part of a coalition of five leading nonprofit professional societies that has made recommendations for the treatment of peripheral artery disease (PAD) to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Medicare Evidence Development and Coverage Advisory Committee (MEDCAC) panel. The coalition's recommendations are explained in an editorial that appears in Vascular Medicine, the official journal of SVM.
Culture
A collaborative research team has found humanoid robotics and computer avatars could help rehabilitate people suffering from social disorders such as schizophrenia or social phobia. It is thanks to the theory of similarity, which suggests that it is easier to interact socially with someone who looks, behaves or moves like us.
Results of a small study of people with tingling pain in their hands and feet have added to evidence that so-called prediabetes is more damaging to motor nerves than once believed, in a report on the study published online in JAMA Neurology on April 11.
Johns Hopkins neurologists say the study of patients with small fiber neuropathy showed unexpected deterioration over the entire length of sensory nerve fibers, rather than just at the longest ends first, which the investigators say defies the conventional wisdom of how nerves were thought to deteriorate.
The world's largest shark fin industry lies in the heart of the Coral Triangle, a region of the Indian and Pacific Oceans home to the world's most diverse coral reefs and known as the Amazon of the seas. This idyllic-sounding environment sustains an industry responsible for the deaths of over 3 million sharks a year. With a reported annual catch of 100,000 tons, Indonesia's shark fishery contributes more to the international shark fin trade than any other nation.
Researchers have characterized the prevalence and risk factors of fatty liver disease in patients who undergo liver transplantation. The findings, which are published in Liver Transplantation, a journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, could have important implications for safeguarding transplant recipients' health.
The Director of the Centre for Comparative and Public Law at the University of Hong Kong Ms. Puja Kapai released the findings of her comparative, empirical study into the help-seeking behaviours of ethnic minority women in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong on October 3, 2015.
When complications arise in the delivery room that lead to traumatic childbirth, clinicians providing care may feel upset and experience secondary traumatic stress. A new study published in Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica, a journal of the Nordic Federation of Societies of Obstetrics and Gynecology, found that feelings of blame and guilt dominate when midwives and obstetricians struggle to cope with the aftermath of a traumatic childbirth, but such events also made them think more about the meaning of life and helped them become better midwives and doctors.
TORONTO, April 8, 2016--A growing number of patients are being discharged from intensive care units, cured of the critical illness that put them there but facing a new and potentially debilitating condition -- ICU-acquired weakness.
Intensive care patients are known to lose muscle mass and function for many reasons, ranging from prolonged immobilization, to the effects of ICU treatments such as mechanical ventilation to the critical illness itself.
Skateboarding is a popular recreational sport and participation has increased the last several decades, faster than any other sport or recreation activity between 1998 and 2007.* With growing participation, has come an increasing rate of injuries from skateboarding.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] --In a general sense, medical studies support the popular intuition -- a staple of movies and literature -- that suicidal behavior and substance misuse are linked. But the relationship between the two is not so simple. A new study of hundreds of suicidal emergency department (ED) patients from around the U.S. found that the significance of the link varied with age, gender and race. Across the board, however, the use of cocaine and alcohol together was a red flag.
BOSTON - Researchers from Massachusetts Eye and Ear/Harvard Medical School have identified inflammatory factors that cause optic neuropathy in the back of the eye following implantation of a keratoprosthesis (KPro) -- similar to what glaucoma patients experience, without the rise of pressure in the eye -- and have shown that blocking one of those factors, tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFa), successfully halts the development of optic nerve damage in a mouse model.
COLUMBIA, Mo. - Tissue engineering is a process that uses novel biomaterials seeded with stem cells to grow and replace missing tissues. When certain types of materials are used, the "scaffolds" that are created to hold stem cells eventually degrade, leaving natural tissue in its place. The challenge is creating enough of the material on a scale that clinicians need to treat patients. Elizabeth Loboa, dean of the MU College of Engineering, and her team recently tested new methods to make the process of tissue engineering more cost effective and producible in larger quantities.
LOS ANGELES - The University of Southern California (USC) Roski Eye Institute researchers and clinicians published the results of the National Eye Institute-funded "Chinese American Eye Study (CHES)," the largest ophthalmology study among those with Chinese ancestry living in the U.S. The findings, published in JAMA Ophthalmology, point to critical interventions in the prevention and treatment of blinding eye diseases, such as age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy (DR), among Chinese Americans.
INDIANAPOLIS -- A new study from the Indiana University School of Medicine and the Regenstrief Institute has found that person-centered dementia care, which involves both patients and their caregivers, can be effectively provided by an engaged low-cost workforce -- care coordinator assistants.
WASHINGTON - A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine identifies six promising practices to improve health care for individuals with social risk factors for poor health care outcomes, such as people who are in a low socio-economic position, reside in disadvantaged neighborhoods, identify as a racial or ethnic minority, or possess limited health literacy.