Although up to 20 percent of adolescents experience a depressive episode each year, the medical community has struggled to implement programs that effectively prevent depression. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have worked to fill this gap in pediatric primary care by conducting clinical trials to evaluate and compare interventions.
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Breakthrough Neurotechnology for Treating Paralysis
Three paraplegics who sustained cervical spinal cord injuries many years ago are now able to walk with the aid of crutches or a walker thanks to new rehabilitation protocols that combine targeted electrical stimulation of the lumbar spinal cord and weight-assisted therapy. This latest study, called STIMO (STImulation Movement Overground), establishes a new therapeutic framework to improve recovery from spinal cord injury.
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Stanford, Apple Describe Heart Study with over 400,000 Participants
A clinical trial to determine whether a smartwatch app that analyzes pulse-rate data can screen for a heart-rhythm disorder has enrolled more than 400,000 participants. Researchers at Stanford Medicine, in collaboration with Apple, launched the Apple Heart Study last November to determine whether a mobile app that uses the optical sensor on the Apple Watch to analyze pulse rate data can identify atrial fibrillation.
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Robotic Arm may Help to Rehabilitate Chronic Stroke Victims
New research published in Frontiers in Neurology finds that robotic arm rehabilitation in chronic stroke patients with aphasia, the loss of ability to understand or express speech, may promote speech and language function recovery. Robotic arm rehabilitation is a commonly-used intervention for treating impaired motor function in the arm, wrist, or shoulder subsequent to stroke.
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Augmented Reality may Assist Cardiologists Plan and Perform Complex Procedures
Augmented reality (AR), a technology that superimposes computer-generated information on a user's view of the real world, offers a new platform to help physicians better visualize complex medical data, particularly before and during medical procedures. A new self-contained AR device aims to provide an immersive AR experience in which surgeons can interactively explore data in three dimensions.
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Simple Stickers may Save Lives of Patients, Athletes and Lower Medical Costs
Heart surgery can be traumatic for patients. Having to continuously monitor your status without a doctor when you are back home can be even scarier. Imagine being able to do that with a simple sticker applied to your body. Purdue University researchers have advanced a sticker solution moving it several steps closer to reality. The research was recently published in ACS Advanced Materials and Interfaces.
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Breast Cancer Patients Use Twitter as a Non-Medical Forum to Share their Experiences
Twitter is a place where many cancer patients go to share and discuss their experiences of the disease. This is the main finding of a recent exploratory study, to be presented at the ESMO 2018 Congress in Munich, which analysed the contents of over 6,000 tweets and retweets about breast cancer.
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