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Healthy brains impacting organ donation — but why?
Dr. Denise A. Valenti Medical & Allied HealthcareBrain death occurs when there is a total and irreversible loss of all the brain's functions. Organ donation most commonly occurs when there is a brain death. Dr. Andreas Kramer and colleagues at the University of Calgary, Alberta, recently published a study investigating changes in the availability of donated organ tissue over the last decade. The rate of organ donation is in decline despite significant efforts to educate the public.
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Understanding integration inhibitors for the treatment of HIV
Dr. Afsaneh Motamed-Khorasani PharmaceuticalIntegration of the retroviral genome into the host cell chromatin is the key step in the development of HIV disease. Blocking the integration of viral genome by integrase inhibitors is an attractive therapeutic strategy. Many integrase inhibitors were developed by rational drug design strategies. Many of these compounds proceeded for preclinical trials, but further clinical development was halted due to in vivo toxicity and nonspecificity of the drugs towards the target.
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Rx for HEMS: Faster and lower
Mark Huber Medical & Allied HealthcareHow low can you go? (And live.) That has been the perpetual question as the FAA continues to work with the helicopter EMS industry to develop low-altitude infrastructure in the national airspace system, including better weather-reporting tools, low-altitude routes and point-in-space (Pins) instrument approaches.
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Identifying symptoms of acute depression
Dr. Abimbola Farinde Mental HealthcareDepression can develop in any individual regardless of age or gender. It is a common mental disorder, and the incidence of depression increases each day. In order to improve the changes of a positive outcome, the symptoms should be identified almost immediately upon onset, but there are cases where it can sometimes take years to identify.
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Blue Button gets boost from AHIMA
Pamela Lewis Dolan Healthcare AdministrationDuring its annual meeting Oct. 28 in Atlanta, the American Health Information Management Association launched an initiative aimed at expanding use of Blue Button technology. Blue Button was launched in 2010 by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs as a way of making health information more accessible to veterans. Soon after, the concept was embraced by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Department of Defense and quickly became the gold standard in patient engagement.
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Food for thought: Continuous career development
Karen Childress Medical & Allied HealthcareWatching medical dramas unfold on television, one might conclude that doctors are never bored. How could they be when they're constantly solving rare and complex medical mysteries, sharing their wealth of knowledge with eager medical students and residents, and duking it out with administration as they advocate for patients in need?
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PFPS: High-intensity exercises shown most effective in rehab
Heidi Dawson Sports & FitnessThe latest recommendations from new research regarding the rehabilitation of patellofemoral pain syndrome concur with the long-accepted form of treatment for this condition. The difference with this research is that the results suggest that exercise intensity is key to success.
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Stalling organ rejection with atorvastatin
Sharee Ann Narciso Medical & Allied HealthcareA recent research paper in The Journal of Experimental Medicine discussed the framework of hypotheses being developed on the possible effects of statins on genes, leading to organ rejection after transplantation. This placed the spotlight on one of the most prescribed drugs in the world — atorvastatin, more commonly known as Lipitor. The drug resulted in longer survival for mice who had undergone transplantation compared to mice who did not receive treatment.
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Cutting edge: What’s new in pharmaceutical R&D
Rosemary Sparacio PharmaceuticalIt is clear that pharmaceutical companies are tackling serious diseases in therapeutic areas that heretofore were more challenging. But new technology has changed that landscape forever. And patients with diseases like cystic fibrosis, cancer, celiac disease and Crohn’s disease — just to name a few — now have a wide variety of drugs to look forward to in the near future.
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Employee wellness programs boost employee satisfaction and productivity
Joy Burgess Civil & GovernmentMany companies have been turning to employee wellness programs to help reduce employee healthcare costs. In fact, statistics from the American Institute for Preventive Medicine show that 91 percent of organizations now offer some type of wellness program, a percentage that has risen substantially in the last decade.
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