Medicare to test paying for elderly home day care
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Medicare will test the possibility of paying for day-care services for disabled elderly people, the agency said on Thursday.
“This demonstration will permit Medicare to assess whether providing medical adult day-care services through the home health benefit will improve patient outcomes and provide the opportunity for some respite for beneficiaries’ caregivers,” Dr. Mark McClellan, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said in a statement.
Millions in US suffer migraines needlessly
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The results of a new survey suggest that more than 11 million Americans could benefit from treatment to prevent migraines, yet only 1.4 million actually take these medications.
Based on findings from the American Migraine Prevalence and Prevention study, which involved a survey of 162,576 US residents, researchers estimate that about 28 million Americans experience migraine headaches. Of these individuals, 11.5 million are considered candidates for preventative medications, because they experience at least one migraine per week.
High-tech fertility treatment growing
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A high tech treatment for infertility has become the most common therapy in Europe to help couples have children, according to figures released on Wednesday.
Scientists are not sure why ever more fertility clinics are carrying out ICSI, or intracytoplasmic sperm injection, but it could be due to rising infertility in men.
The technique involves injecting a single sperm - selected for its quality - directly into an egg. In regular IVF treatment, thousands of sperm are mixed with the egg in the laboratory but still have to get through the egg wall.
South Asia heat wave kills at least 375
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At least 375 people have died from sunstroke and dehydration in a month-long heat wave sweeping India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh, as South Asia endures one of its hottest summers on record, authorities said.
Temperatures hit 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) in some parts of South Asia this week, parching fields, emptying dams and drying riverbeds ahead of the annual monsoon.
Freak weather extended as far as northern China, where the heat set off explosives at a chemical plant in Shanxi province that injured hundreds. In central Chongqing city, authorities opened old bomb shelters so people can cool off.
US docs’ group wants package fixes for herbal meds
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The American Medical Association says packaging of some herbal remedies is confusing and gives the impression that the supplements are pharmaceutical products. The group wants it stopped.
On Tuesday the AMA approved a resolution urging that supplement manufacturers be required to clearly name and label products in a way that would clearly differentiate the products from pharmaceuticals. For example, the AMA is suggesting that the word “herbal” be included in product names.
Cardiac arrest response slow for hospital visitors
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You might think that, if it’s going to happen, the best time for your heart to stop might be while you’re in a hospital, visiting. That isn’t necessarily so, according to a new study.
“As a public citizen, you’re better off suffering a cardiac arrest in a casino or airport terminal than in a hospital lobby,” Dr. Bruce D. Adams, from Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, told Reuters Health. “The time to defibrillation in hospital lobbies appears to be much worse than what has been reported for casinos and airports.”
Cellphones take up driver attention
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Using a cellphone - even with a hands-free device - may distract drivers because the brain cannot handle both tasks, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.
Imaging tests show the brain directs its resources to either visual input or auditory input, but cannot fully activate both at the same time, the team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore found.
“Our research helps explain why talking on a cell phone can impair driving performance, even when the driver is using a hands-free device,” said Steven Yantis, a professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences who led the study.
Cost seen limiting use of flu drug on birds in China
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High costs will limit the use of an anti-viral drug to treat Chinese poultry infected with deadly bird flu, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Wednesday.
The World Health Organisation gave tacit confirmation on Tuesday that amantadine, an anti-viral drug meant for humans, had been used on birds at Chinese farms, a practice that threatens to make the medication useless for fighting human influenza.
Antibiotics usually not needed for pink eye
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For most kids with pink eye, also known as acute infective conjunctivitis, the condition will usually resolve on its own, without antibiotic treatment, results of a UK study suggest.
Pink eye often results from a bacterial infection and standard clinical practice is the prescription of antibiotic eyedrops or ointments, Dr. Peter Rose of the University of Oxford and colleagues explain in The Lancet. Previous studies showing that antibiotics were the best treatment for pink eye largely involved patients with severe forms of the disease.
Chinese medicine kills one child, makes 151 sick
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Herbal medicine prescribed to primary schoolchildren in southwest China to ward off chickenpox killed one and made 151 sick, Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday.
The accident happened in Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, on Wednesday when more than 200 children took a homemade herbal concoction, Xinhua said.
About 150 children suffered diarrhea, nausea and vomiting after taking the medicine, a mixture of some 15 types of traditional herbs, it said.
Docs want to dispense drugs if pharmacists won’t
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The American Medical Association wants legislation that will allow physicians to dispense drugs when pharmacists say their consciences will not allow them to fill prescriptions for contraceptives, painkillers and mood stabilizers.
The AMA says conscientious objection by pharmacists is a major public health problem in many areas of the country.
To solve the problem, the AMA’s policy-making House of Delegates voted Monday to ask for changes in state laws so that physicians can dispense medications when there is no “willing pharmacist within 30 miles.”
More than 40 dead in Pakistani heat wave
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More than 40 people have been killed across Pakistan by extremely hot weather and the searing temperatures are expected to last at least a couple more days, officials said on Tuesday.
Most of the fatalities have come in the central province of Punjab, the country’s most populous province, where temperatures soared to 48 degree Celsius (118 Fahrenheit) on Monday. Tuesday might get even hotter, a weather official said.
UK baby death expert faces misconduct hearing
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A British doctor who gave evidence at the trial of several women wrongly convicted of murdering their children faced charges of serious professional misconduct on Tuesday.
Paediatrician Sir Roy Meadow appeared at a hearing of the General Medical Council (GMC) in London and could be banned from practising if found guilty.
Meadow was an expert witness in the trial of Sally Clark, Angela Cannings and Donna Anthony, who were all freed by the Court of Appeal after serving years in prison after they had been wrongfully convicted of killing their children.
Glaxo and IAVI to develop HIV vaccine
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A public-private partnership to develop a vaccine to prevent AIDS was announced on Tuesday by GlaxoSmithKline and the not-for-profit International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI).
In a statement, GSK said the collaboration—the first between IAVI and a major vaccine company—would facilitate early research and development of its “promising” adenovirus vaccine vector technology.
The vectors are derived from adenoviruses, originally isolated from non-human primates, which have been engineered to be non-infectious and capable of efficiently delivering genes expressing HIV proteins to the immune system.
Australia’s ‘Dr Death’ kind, smart—Indian hometown
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An Indian-born surgeon dubbed “Dr Death” who has been linked to the deaths of 87 Australian patients is a kind and brilliant man with a passion for playing cricket, said his family and friends.
Jayant Patel, who left Australia in March and could face murder, negligence and fraud charges if he returns, was the brightest student ever to pass through the medical college in his hometown of Jamnagar, on the west Indian coast, they said.
