New Evidence Points to Outcomes and Cost Benefits of Telemedicine in Managing Chronic Diseases
Congestive heart failure, stroke, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are three of the leading causes of death in the U.S. The use of telemedicine to help manage chronic diseases such as these can yield clear benefits including fewer and shorter hospital stays, fewer emergency room visits, less severe illness, and even fewer deaths, as reported in a study published in Telemedicine and e-Health, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.
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Trans-Atlantic Tele-Robotic Medicine Breakthroughs
While in Germany, Partho P. Sengupta, MD, of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai used a computer to perform a robot-assisted trans-Atlantic ultrasound examination on a person in Boston. In another study Kurt Boman, MD, of Umeå University in Sweden in collaboration with Mount Sinai, showed how a cardiologist's video e-consultation, coupled with a remote robot-assisted echocardiogram test, dramatically reduces
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Social Networking Can Help People Lose Weight
Social networking programmes designed to help people lose weight could play a role in the global fight against obesity, according to research. Analysis by researchers from Imperial College London combining the results of 12 previous studies shows that such programmes have achieved modest but significant results in helping participants lose weight.
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Visualising Plastic Changes to the Brain
Tinnitus, migraine, epilepsy, depression, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's: all these are examples of diseases with neurological causes, the treatment and study of which is more and more frequently being carried out by means of magnetic stimulation of the brain. However, the method's precise mechanisms of action have not, as yet, been fully understood. The work group headed by PD Dr Dirk Jancke from the Institut für Neuroinformatik was the first to succeed in illustrating the neuronal effects of this treatment method with high-res images.
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Traditional Prescription Goes Digital in Veneto Region, Italy
From today, in Veneto Region the traditional prescription will make room for the digital one. The prescription drug will no longer be delivered to patients by general practitioners on the traditional "red prescription", but through a memo printed on white paper. With this reminder citizens will, as usual, go to the pharmacy and pick up the prescribed medication.
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A Novel Decision Support System Makes Malaria Diagnostics More Effective
A Finnish-Swedish research group at the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM), University of Helsinki, and Karolinska institutet, Stockholm, has developed a novel "man and machine" decision support system for diagnosing malaria infection. This innovative diagnostic aid was described in PLOS One scientific journal.
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EU Researchers Use Brainpower to Get Moving
Grabbing a glass or typing an email: these are some everyday gestures that are not possible for people with serious physical impairments - even though they have the will and the brainpower to do so. EU-funded projects such as TOBI (Tools for Brain-Computer Interaction) are working on technologies that could greatly improve the quality of life of people such as 20-year-old Francesco or 53-year-old Jean-Luc.
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