IEEE recognizes doctoral student’s robotics work with ‘Best Paper’ award
Ying Mao, a doctoral student studying mechanical engineering at the University of Delaware, earned the “Best Student Paper” award at the 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.
IEEE is the “world’s largest professional association for the advancement of technology.”
The paper, titled“Transition from Mechanical Arm to Human Arm with CAREX: a Cable Driven ARm EXoskeleton (CAREX) for Neural Rehabilitation,” was selected from among nearly 800 papers accepted to the conference. (more…)
TORONTO, ON – Elderly people taking anti-hypertensive drugs are at a 43 per cent increased risk of having a hip fracture in the first 45 days of treatment, according to research conducted by family medicine Assistant Professor Dr. Debra Butt. A member of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto and a family physician affiliated with The Scarborough Hospital, Dr. Butt’s study was published on November 19, 2012 in Archives of Internal Medicine. The study examined data from health care administrative databases in Ontario, looking at records from 2000 to 2009 for community-dwelling hypertensive patients with a mean age of 80.8 years.
There are serious consequences to a hip fracture for the elderly. In the first year of a hip fracture there is a higher mortality rate than is seen for many chronic diseases. Those who recover often lose their independence due to reduced mobility, which can result in depression and overall decreased quality of life. (more…)
Health practitioners should use behavior-change tactics so patients take medications as prescribed
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Nearly half of patients taking medications for chronic conditions do not strictly follow their prescribed medication regimens. Failure to use medications as directed increases patients’ risk for side effects, hospitalizations, reduced quality of life and shortened lifespans. Now, a University of Missouri gerontological nursing expert says patients’ poor adherence to prescribed medication regimens is connected to their beliefs about the necessity of prescriptions and concerns about long-term effects and dependency.
MU Assistant Professor Todd Ruppar found that patients’ beliefs about the causes of high blood pressure and the effectiveness of treatment alternatives significantly affected their likelihood of faithfully following prescribed medication regimens. In his pilot study, Ruppar focused on older patients’ adherence to medication treatments that control high blood pressure, a condition that affects nearly 70 million adults in the U.S. and can lead to heart disease and stroke. (more…)
Playing football (soccer) could be the best way for people with high blood pressure, known as hypertension, to improve their fitness, normalise their blood pressure and reduce their risk of stroke, according to research published today (Monday 15 October 2012) in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise.
Research from Universities of Exeter and Copenhagen, and Gentofte University Hospital in Denmark suggests football training prevents cardiovascular disease in middle-aged men with hypertension and is more effective than healthy lifestyle advice currently prescribed by GPs.
After six months of football training, three out of four men in this study had blood pressure within the normal, healthy range. (more…)
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Despite differences in rituals and beliefs among the world’s major religions, spirituality often enhances health regardless of a person’s faith, according to University of Missouri researchers. The MU researchers believe that health care providers could take advantage of this correlation between health – particularly mental health – and spirituality by tailoring treatments and rehabilitation programs to accommodate an individual’s spiritual inclinations.
“In many ways, the results of our study support the idea that spirituality functions as a personality trait,” said Dan Cohen, assistant teaching professor of religious studies at MU and one of the co-authors of the study. “With increased spirituality people reduce their sense of self and feel a greater sense of oneness and connectedness with the rest of the universe. What was interesting was that frequency of participation in religious activities or the perceived degree of congregational support was not found to be significant in the relationships between personality, spirituality, religion and health.” (more…)
Researchers at the UCL Institute of Neurology have found that giving the drug rotigotine as a skin patch can improve inattention in some stroke patients.
Hemi-spatial neglect, a severe and common form of inattention that can be caused by brain damage following a stroke, is one of the most debilitating symptoms, frequently preventing patients from living independently. When the right side of the brain has suffered damage, the patient may have little awareness of their left-hand side and have poor memory of objects that they have seen, leaving them inattentive and forgetful. Currently there are few treatment options. (more…)
UD researchers discover that JAM-A protein keeps blood clots in check
Cut your toe, and platelets — those disc-shaped cells circulating in your blood — rush to the scene, clumping together to plug the leak.
But when an unwanted clot forms in an artery, and an overaccumulation of platelets blocks blood flow, a heart attack or stroke occurs, too often with fatal results.
Heart disease and stroke rank as humankind’s top killers, according to the World Health Organization. Ulhas Naik, director of the Delaware Cardiovascular Research Center at the University of Delaware, hopes to help change that grim statistic for the better. (more…)
Older people are a benefit, rather than a burden, to the economy and society according to a new report from the UCL School of Pharmacy.
The report, Active Ageing: Live Longer and Prosper (produced with financial support from Alliance Boots) refutes the view that older people are a major source of economic problems such as reduced international competitiveness. It provides evidence that the benefits of living longer will outweigh the additional health and social care costs of population ageing.
“All too often old age is seen as a time of increasing dependency, vulnerability and frailty. But older people already contribute significantly to their families’ and wider communities’ wellbeing,” said Dr Jennifer Gill (UCL School of Pharmacy), co-author of the report. (more…)
