According to a Fox 10 report, after suffering a leaking nose for 18 months, Joe Nagy was told by a doctor that the fluid coming from his nose was actually brain fluid. It turned out that Nagy had a hole in the membrane protecting his brain.

Doctors told Fox 10 that such a condition can be easy to miss, since many people simply assume they have a constantly running nose. Many patients find out about the problem when the fluid becomes infected. Nagy himself developed a serious case of meningitis just before undergoing brain surgery to repair his leaking membrane.

The surgery used cartilage from Nagy’s nose to repair the membrane. It was successful and Nagy stated he was surprised by how quickly the issue was repaired.

“I was waiting for the dribble, you know?” said Nagy. “I was so used to it every day, I got a hanky, a cloth ready, a tissue. Nothing. And all of a sudden, it’s never come back.”

According to a Reuters report, 66-year-old Loren Kransky is alleging that Johnson & Johnson subsidiary DePuy knew their implants could release metal into patients’ bodies. DePuy contends that Kransky was a life-long smoker with diabetes and kidney cancer, and that the company’s tests did not find that their implants released enough metal to be a health problem.

Last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a warning about all-metal hip implants. Those types of implants can release small bits of metal particles when patients walk or run while using them. The particles can cause damage to the soft tissue and bone around the implant and joint. The metal debris can also cause adverse reactions in some patients, causing the implant to fail and requiring surgery to replace it. The agency warned doctors against all-metal implants, suggesting instead that alternative hip implants, such as metal-on-polyethylene, ceramic-on-polyethylene, ceramic-on-ceramic, or ceramic-on-metal implants, be used instead.

Opening arguments in the trial began on January 25. According to Reuters, more than 10,000 lawsuits have been filed since the hip implants were recalled. The recall was a voluntary one by DePuy, and the company also set up a patient reimbursement program to pay for patients’ medical bills and other costs related to the recall.

Researchers at the Boston Children’s Hospital have designed an oxygen microparticle that can be injected directly into the bloodstream. From there, it oxygenates the blood without the need for breathing. Obviously, the breakthrough has immense importance in the medical field.

The creator of the microparticle, Dr. John Kheir, had to watch a young girl die as her brain was damaged beyond repair due to lack of oxygen. He started the research in hopes of finding a way to keep the blood oxygenated during situations in which the lungs might not be working. The injection can keep oxygen levels at normal for about 20 minutes. That’s enough time to save thousands of lives.

Of course, there are other awesome applications beyond saving lives. The new microparticle will enable people to breathe underwater. They wouldn’t literally be breathing underwater, but it would allow people to hold their breath for 20 minutes at a time. It doesn’t even have to apply to being underwater. Any scenario that requires a person to hold their breath would be instantly relieved with an injection of oxygen.

In all honesty, this is probably the biggest advancement in medical technology in years. As it improves, doctors may even be able to get rid of expensive respirators altogether. Saving lives will be much easier when you can just inject the oxygen.

[h/t: TechWench]

A theory published today in Ecology Letters suggests that menopause was a development of evolution to prevent competition between in-laws. The study, performed by ecologists at the University of Turku in Finland looked at meticulous birth, death and marriage records that were kept by the Lutheran church between 1702 and 1908. The results may surprise you.

They found that children died more often when the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law gave birth around the same time. How often? Survival rates for children of the mother-in-law dropped by 50 percent whereas survival rates for children of the daughter-in-law dropped by 66 percent. Strangely enough, survival rates weren’t affected when the two gave birth at the same time.

So what does this all mean? Menopause may have come about to ensure the survival of the species. They theorized that the women giving birth around the same time would lead to the two fighting over which child gets food and shelter. Among poorer families, this would most assuredly lead to one child being given up. It’s theorized that older women go through menopause earlier so they can focus on raising their grandchildren instead of their own.

They also said that their research might help prove the “Grandmother hypothesis.” The hypothesis states that women stay alive long after their reproductive years end so that they can care for the next generation. It’s a huge contrast to the animal kingdom where a wide variety of females in non-mammalian species die not long after giving birth.

Of course, this is just one theory out of many that hopes to explain menopause. It’s still one of the greater mysteries of the human body that’s still not fully understood. Scientists hope that they can one day fully understand the cause in case the need ever arises to reverse the effects.

[h/t: Nature]

“One thing that really stood out among the relapsers is how their urge to smoke just never dropped, in contrast to those who were successful in quitting for a month — their urge dropped quickly and systematically — almost immediately upon quitting,” said Stephanie Lanza, scientific director of The Methodology Center at Penn State. “That was surprising to see.”

With a new statistical model to interpret data and the ability to collect data via mobile devices, the researchers looked at how baseline nicotine dependence and negative emotional states influenced people’s urge to smoke while they were trying to quit.

The Centers for Disease Control found in a 2010 National Health Interview Survey of 27,157 adults that about 52 percent of cigarette smokers tried to quit during the year. Six percent of all smokers — who had been smoking for two years or more — quit for at least six months. Also in 2010, the CDC reported that even though cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable death and disease in the U.S., nearly one in five Americans smokes.

The team found that those who successfully quit during the four-week study period had a weaker association between their urge to smoke and their ability to quit. However, those who were unable to abstain did not show any association between their urge to smoke and their self-confidence.

Saul Shiffman, professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, followed 304 long-term cigarette smokers as they tried to quit. On average, the participants smoked more than a pack a day for 23 years. Forty participants quit smoking for the initial 24 hours, but subsequently relapsed. During the two weeks after quitting, 207 participants remained relatively tobacco-free. If smokers relapsed but smoked less than five cigarettes per day, they were considered successful quitters in this study. The remaining 57 participants were unable to quit for even 24 hours.
Five times randomly throughout the day, mobile devices prompted participants to answer questions. These questions asked the smokers about their emotional state, their urge to smoke and if they were smoking. They rated their urge to smoke at that moment on a scale of zero to 10. Using this data collection method, the researchers collected data from subjects in their natural environments.

Researchers followed subjects for two weeks prior to their attempt to quit, and for four weeks after their attempt to quit, the researchers report online inPrevention Science.

The Penn State team used a flexible statistical model — a time-varying effect model — that allows the researchers to look at more than one variable at a time. This model is a decade old, but until now was not user-friendly. The Methodology Center created accessible software (methodology.psu.edu/downloads/tvem) to analyze data that vary over time.

“To me, the biggest innovation here is looking at how something like baseline dependence is predictive of that behavior over time or (specifically) the urge to smoke over time,” said Lanza. “It’s now expressed as a function of time. Instead of saying ‘if you’re higher on dependence you’re going to have a higher urge to smoke over time,’ you can now depict how that association between baseline dependence and urge to smoke varies with time in a very fluid and naturalistic way.”

One advantages of this model is that researchers are not confined to changes in one dimension. Researchers can look at time in a smooth way, viewing it as a gradual and constant variable and simultaneously view two or more variables that can change over time, such as smoking urges and negative affect. Lanza noted that this method could be used to look at addiction and behavior in many other areas, such as obesity, alcohol dependence, stress and more.

“Our goal is to work hand-in-hand with tobacco (and other) researchers, to help them understand these really intricate processes that are happening,” said Lanza. “We want to really understand addiction and how to break addiction, so that interventions can be targeted and adaptable.”

The device could be used in ambulance emergency calls, natural disaster sites, military combat operations and many other instances where treatment is required in remote locations.

The plasma flashlight, outlined in IOP Publishing’s Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics is driven by a 12 V battery and doesn’t require any external generator or wall power; it also doesn’t require any external gas feed or handling system.

In the experiment, the plasma flashlight effectively inactivated a thick biofilm of one of the most antibiotic- and heat-resistant bacteria, Enterococcus faecalis– a bacterium which often infects the root canals during dental treatments.

The biofilms were created by incubating the bacteria for seven days. The biofilms were around 25 micrometers thick and consisted of 17 different layers of bacteria. Each one was treated for five minutes with the plasma flashlight and then analysed to see how much of the bacteria survived.

Results showed that the plasma not only inactivated the top layer of cells, but penetrated deep into the very bottom of the layers to kill the bacteria.

Co-author of the study, Professor Kostya (Ken) Ostrikov, from the Plasma Nanoscience Centre Australia, CSIRO Materials Science and Engineering, said: “The bacteria form thick biofilms, which makes them enormously resistant against inactivation which is extremely difficult to implement. High temperatures are commonly used but they would obviously burn our skin.

“In this study we chose an extreme example to demonstrate that the plasma flashlight can be very effective even at room temperature. For individual bacteria, the inactivation time could be just tens of seconds.”

Plasma – the fourth state of matter in addition to solids, liquids and gases – has previously shown its worth in the medical industry by effectively killingbacteria and viruses on the surface of the skin and in water.

Although the exact mechanism behind the anti-bacterial effect of plasma is largely unknown, it is thought that reactions between the plasma and the air surrounding it create a cocktail of reactive species that are similar to the ones found in our own immune system.

The researchers ran an analysis to see what species were present in the plasma and found that highly-reactive nitrogen- and oxygen-related species dominated the results. Ultraviolet radiation has also been theorised as a reason behind plasma’s success; however, this was shown to be low in the jet created by the plasma flashlight, adding to the safety aspect of the device.

The temperature of the plume of plasma in the experiments was between 20-230C, which is very close to room temperature and therefore prevents any damage to the skin. The device itself is fitted with resistors to stop it from heating up and making it safe to touch.

“The device can be easily made and costs less than 100 US dollars to produce. Of course, some miniaturisation and engineering design may be needed to make it more appealing and ready for commercialisation,” Ostrikov continued.

Sultan suffers from acromegaly, a condition caused by a tumor in the pituitary gland. This tumor causes and excess of growth hormone to be produced in the brain, and if it starts while a patient is still growing in puberty, the condition can cause gigantism.

At the University of Virginia Medical Center, Sultan was receiving treatments with a new drug designed to control the production of growth hormone. He then underwent a new non-evasive radiation therapy called Gamma Knife radiosurgery in August 2010.

World’s tallest man Sultan Kosen with his UVA medical team in 2010 twitter.com/uvahealthnews/…

— UVA Health System (@uvahealthnews) March 13, 2012

Due to the groundbreaking new surgery Sultan’s doctors in Turkey have told him that he has finally stopped growing

Dr Jason Sheehan, neurogurgeon at the University of Virginia Medical Center, and one of the doctors responsible for Sultan’s therapy told the New York Post, “I’m most pleased that we were able to help Sultan. If he had continued to grow, it would have been life-threatening.”

Part of the problem with medication errors is the multiple steps needed to administer a drug in a traditional hospital setting. In the inpatient setting, a doctor writes the prescription order for the patient’s chart, a nurse transfers the order to the pharmacy, the pharmacy reviews it, sends it back, and the nurse finally administers the medication. Mistakes can be made at the many points of this process – handwriting can be illegible, drug allergies or drug interactions can be missed, etc. E-prescription systems seek to eliminate these sorts of errors, which can cost hospitals up to $3 million per year.

E-prescription systems allow healthcare providers to log prescription medication into a computer, which is then sent to a pharmacy, and administered. Many of the aforementioned points of error are eliminated, and doctors have better access to menus regarding dosing options, routes of administration, patient medical history, possible drug allergies, etc. A recent Australian study reports that the use of e-prescriptions cut down on medication errors by about 60%, and reduced serious drug related errors by 44%. Hardwriting legibility issues and incomplete prescription orders were mostly eliminated with the e-system, though interestingly, drug allergy/interaction errors were not really affected – though these issues were rare going into the study.

The use of e-prescriptions is in the rise, according to a report by Cal eConnect, which shows a jump from 3% to 25% between 2007 and 2011. Coupled with the latest developments of an iPhone-connected smartpill, advances in e-prescribing for the administering of e-drugs might all but eliminate preventable adverse elements in the future.

Google Translate is an amazing language tool that helps users better understand and communicate in over 60 languages including English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and now apparently in Cat. Thanks to Google’s Translate for Animals, Google’s April Fool’s application for Android phones that recognizes and transcribes words and phrases common to pets and other species, users can now better understand and communicate with hard to read feathered and furry best friends. This may have been a prank but not totally out of the realm of possibility that Google could do this in the future.

The Baycrest Center for Geriatric Care in Ontario, Canada has published the strongest evidence yet that a smartphone training program specifically designed for individuals with memory impairment, can result in “robust” improvements in day-to-day functioning, and boost independence and confidence levels.

“The goal of our study was to demonstrate the generalizability of our training protocol to a larger number of individuals with moderate-to-severe memory impairment,” said Dr. Eva Svoboda, a clinical neuropsychologist in the Neuropsychology and Cognitive Health Program at Baycrest, and lead author of the study.

“Our findings demonstrate that it is possible to harness powerful emerging technologies with brain science in an innovative way to give people with a range of memory deficits some of their independence back.”

Memory impairment, particularly when it is severe, can impact virtually all aspects of everyday life. Individuals are unable to readily acquire new information making it difficult or impossible to keep appointments and stay on top of changing personal, social and occupational responsibilities.

Two decades ago, Baycrest pioneered a theory-driven training program that tapped into preserved implicit memory systems in people with amnesia to teach them to use assistive memory devices. Implicit or procedural memory is a type of memory that supports learning but does not require conscious executive control. Common examples of this type of memory include riding a bicycle or brushing one’s teeth which doesn’t require conscious remembering of where the procedure was learned in order to perform it.

Commercial technologies such as smartphones and other mobile electronic devices have immense potential for individuals with memory impairment as they offer high storage capacity, auditory and vibration alerts, rich multimedia capability and high user acceptability.

The Baycrest study involved 10 outpatients, 18 to 55 years of age, who had moderate-to-severe memory impairment, the result of non-neurodegenerative conditions including ruptured aneurysm, stroke, tumor, epilepsy, closed-head injury, or anoxia (insufficient oxygen to the brain) after a heart attack.

Participants completed two phases of training on either a smartphone or another personal digital assistant (PDA) device. Prior to the training, all participants reported difficulty in day-to-day functioning. Some required ongoing supervision and regular assistance from family members due to their forgetting to pay bills, take medications or attend appointments.

In the first phase, instructors from Baycrest’s Memory Link program taught participants the basic functions of their device, using an errorless fading of cues training method that tapped into their preserved implicit /procedural memory. Each participant received several one-hour training sessions to learn calendaring skills such as inputting appointments and reminders.

In the second phase, participants took the device home to apply their newly-acquired calendaring skills in real-life situations. This included setting alarm reminders to take medications and attend future appointments, charging the device, and remembering to keep the device with them at all times. They also learned how to use other software functions, such as phone, contacts, and camera.

As part of the outcome measures, participants were given a schedule of 10 phone calls to complete over a two-week period at different times of the day – to closely approximate real life commitments. Family members who lived with participants kept a behavioural memory log of whether real-life tasks were successfully completed or not by their relative. Participants and family members completed a “memory mistakes” questionnaire which involved rating a list of common memory mistakes on a frequency-of-occurrence scale, ranging from “never” to “all the time”.

Participants and family also completed two additional questionnaires. One measured confidence in the participant when dealing with various memory-demanding scenarios (e.g. dentist calls to change appointment dates). The other examined the participant’s use of the device to support traveling back in time (e.g. searching activities and events from preceding days, weeks and months), traveling forward in time (e.g. planning ahead, entering future events and appointments), and technical ease of use of the device.

All 10 individuals showed “robust increases” in day-to-day memory functioning after taking the training, based on results from the functional and questionnaire-based measures. Participants continued to report benefit from smartphone and PDA use in short-term follow-up three to eight months later.