Patients Say Ask before Using Medical Records for Research
With electronic medical records creating an ideal source of data to inform quality care and new discovery, a key question emerges: How much say should patients have in how their data is used? A new study led by Michigan Medicine researchers finds that even when patients understand the overall benefit to society, they still want to be able to give consent at least once before their de-identified data is used for research.
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Virtual Medical Visits Get Wary Welcome from Older Adults
The technology is there. The funding is nearly there. The health providers are getting there. But a new US poll suggests that people over 50 aren't quite ready to fully embrace virtual health visits with their doctors and other providers - also known as telehealth. Only 4% of those polled by the National Poll on Healthy Aging had had a video-based telehealth visit with a provider via smartphone or computer in the past year. Their reactions were mixed.
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Secret-Shopper-Style Study Shows Online Birth Control Prescription Overall Safe, Efficient
Web-based and digital-app services that offer oral contraception appear to be overall safe and efficient, according to the findings of a secret-shopper-style study conducted by researchers at Harvard Medical School and UC Davis that analyzed the birth control prescription services of nine U.S. vendors.
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Up-Close and Personal with Neuronal Networks
How our brain cells, or neurons, use electrical signals to communicate and coordinate for higher brain function is one of the biggest questions in all of science. For decades, researchers have used electrodes to listen in on and record these signals. The patch clamp electrode, an electrode in a thin glass tube, revolutionized neurobiology in the 1970's with its ability to
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Brain-Computer Interfaces without the Mess
It sounds like science fiction: controlling electronic devices with brain waves. But researchers have developed a new type of electroencephalogram (EEG) electrode that can do just that, without the sticky gel required for conventional electrodes. Even better, the devices work through a full head of hair.
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Machine Learning Improves the Diagnosis of Patients with Head and Neck Cancers
Researchers from Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the German Cancer Consortium (DKTK) have successfully solved a longstanding problem in the diagnosis of head and neck cancers. Working alongside colleagues from Technische Universität (TU) Berlin, the researchers used artificial intelligence to develop a new classification method which identifies the primary origins of cancerous tissue based on chemical DNA changes.
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The Future of Mind Control
Electrodes implanted in the brain help alleviate symptoms like the intrusive tremors associated with Parkinson's disease. But current probes face limitations due to their size and inflexibility. "The brain is squishy and these implants are rigid," said Shaun Patel. About four years ago, when he discovered Charles M. Lieber's ultra-flexible alternatives, he saw the future of brain-machine interfaces.
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