Can Virtual Reality Help Us Prevent Falls in the Elderly and Others?
Every year, falls lead to hospitalization or death for hundreds of thousands of elderly Americans. Standard clinical techniques generally cannot diagnose balance impairments before they lead to falls. But researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University have found evidence that virtual reality (VR) could be a big help - not only for detecting balance impairments early,
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Telestroke Guidelines from American Telemedicine Association in Telemedicine & e-Health
New guidelines to help clinicians use the latest telemedicine communication technologies to provide remote care for patients with symptoms of acute stroke are published in Telemedicine and e-Health, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The guidelines are available free on the Telemedicine and e-Health website until May 19, 2017.
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Gaming Helps Personalized Therapy Level Up
Using game features in non-game contexts, computers can learn to build personalized mental- and physical-therapy programs that enhance individual motivation, according to Penn State engineers. They seek to use machine learning to train computers to develop personalized mental or physical therapy regimens - for example, to overcome anxiety or recover from a shoulder injury - so many individuals can each use a tailor-made program.
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Biased Bots: Human Prejudices Sneak into Artificial Intelligence Systems
In debates over the future of artificial intelligence, many experts think of the new systems as coldly logical and objectively rational. But in a new study, researchers have demonstrated how machines can be reflections of us, their creators, in potentially problematic ways. Common machine learning programs, when trained with ordinary human language available online, can acquire cultural biases embedded in the patterns of wording, the researchers found.
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FDA Allows Marketing of First Direct-to-Consumer Tests that Provide Genetic Risk Information for Certain Conditions
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today allowed marketing of 23andMe Personal Genome Service Genetic Health Risk (GHR) tests for 10 diseases or conditions. These are the first direct-to-consumer (DTC) tests authorized by the FDA that provide information on an individual's genetic predisposition to certain medical diseases or conditions, which may help to make decisions about lifestyle choices or to inform discussions with a health care professional.
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Which Self-Help Websites Actually Improve Health? New Research Yields a List
From depression to weight loss, insomnia to cutting back on alcohol or cigarettes, the Internet teems with sites that promise to help people improve their health. Which of these really help - with evidence from gold-standard studies to back up these claims? A new paper compiles only the best of the best: a list of over 40 sites backed by evidence from randomized controlled trials.
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Public Funding Essential for Advances in Biomedical Research
In the budget President Trump recently submitted to Congress, he asked for a reduction in the 2018 funding of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) of almost 20 percent - or $6 billion. That could have consequences for those suffering from a variety of illnesses and conditions and for biomedical innovation, based on results from an article to be published in Science and coauthored by
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