Research published in the British Dental Journal shows that Brush DJ, an app designed to encourage youngsters to adopt and maintain an effective oral health care routine using evidence-based techniques, is effective in its aims. Brush DJ was launched on the Apple App Store at the end of 2011 and in 2013 it was accepted into the NHS Choices Health Apps Library.
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Clinic Notes Should Be Re-Engineered to Meet Needs of Physicians
When physicians prepare for patient visits, one of their first steps is to review clinic notes or health records that recap their patients' medical history. Since the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009, approximately 78 percent of office-based physicians in the United States have adopted electronic health records (EHR).
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Cellphone Data Can Track Infectious Diseases
Tracking mobile phone data is often associated with privacy issues, but these vast datasets could be the key to understanding how infectious diseases are spread seasonally, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Princeton University and Harvard University researchers used anonymous mobile phone records for more than 15 million people to track the spread of rubella in Kenya and were able to quantitatively show for the first time that mobile phone data can predict seasonal disease patterns.
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Smartphone App May Prevent Dangerous Freezing of Gait in Parkinson's Patients
Many patients in the latter stage of Parkinson's disease are at high risk of dangerous, sometimes fatal, falls. One major reason is the disabling symptom referred to as Freezing of Gait (FoG) - brief episodes of an inability to step forward that typically occurs during gait initiation or when turning while walking. Patients who experience FoG often lose their independence, which has a direct effect on their already degenerating quality of life.
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Birmingham Event to Showcase the Digital Revolution in Youth Mental Health
Leading mental health clinicians, academics and young people are to see the launch of a suite of apps designed to deal with the growing problem of youth mental health at an event celebrating the use of technology in the treatment of mental illness. Co-designed by clinicians from one of the largest mental health trusts in the country, and young people affected by mental illness, the apps will show how mHealth can be a vital tool in the treatment of psychosis, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and emotional resilience.
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Researchers Call for Support for Data in the Cloud to Facilitate Genomics Research
In the journal Nature prominent researchers from Canada, Europe and the U.S. have made a powerful call to major funding agencies, asking them to commit to establishing a global genomic data commons in the cloud that could be easily accessed by authorized researchers worldwide.
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Mammography Benefits Overestimated
An in-depth review of randomised trials on screening for breast, colorectal, cervical, prostate and lung cancers, published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, shows that the benefits of mammographic screening are likely to have been overestimated.
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