Medicare to test paying for elderly home day care
Medicare will test the possibility of paying for day-care services for disabled elderly people, the agency said on Thursday.
“This demonstration will permit Medicare to assess whether providing medical adult day-care services through the home health benefit will improve patient outcomes and provide the opportunity for some respite for beneficiaries’ caregivers,” Dr. Mark McClellan, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said in a statement.
Millions in US suffer migraines needlessly
The results of a new survey suggest that more than 11 million Americans could benefit from treatment to prevent migraines, yet only 1.4 million actually take these medications.
Based on findings from the American Migraine Prevalence and Prevention study, which involved a survey of 162,576 US residents, researchers estimate that about 28 million Americans experience migraine headaches. Of these individuals, 11.5 million are considered candidates for preventative medications, because they experience at least one migraine per week.
High-tech fertility treatment growing
A high tech treatment for infertility has become the most common therapy in Europe to help couples have children, according to figures released on Wednesday.
Scientists are not sure why ever more fertility clinics are carrying out ICSI, or intracytoplasmic sperm injection, but it could be due to rising infertility in men.
The technique involves injecting a single sperm - selected for its quality - directly into an egg. In regular IVF treatment, thousands of sperm are mixed with the egg in the laboratory but still have to get through the egg wall.
South Asia heat wave kills at least 375
At least 375 people have died from sunstroke and dehydration in a month-long heat wave sweeping India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh, as South Asia endures one of its hottest summers on record, authorities said.
Temperatures hit 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) in some parts of South Asia this week, parching fields, emptying dams and drying riverbeds ahead of the annual monsoon.
Freak weather extended as far as northern China, where the heat set off explosives at a chemical plant in Shanxi province that injured hundreds. In central Chongqing city, authorities opened old bomb shelters so people can cool off.
US docs’ group wants package fixes for herbal meds
The American Medical Association says packaging of some herbal remedies is confusing and gives the impression that the supplements are pharmaceutical products. The group wants it stopped.
On Tuesday the AMA approved a resolution urging that supplement manufacturers be required to clearly name and label products in a way that would clearly differentiate the products from pharmaceuticals. For example, the AMA is suggesting that the word “herbal” be included in product names.
Cardiac arrest response slow for hospital visitors
You might think that, if it’s going to happen, the best time for your heart to stop might be while you’re in a hospital, visiting. That isn’t necessarily so, according to a new study.
“As a public citizen, you’re better off suffering a cardiac arrest in a casino or airport terminal than in a hospital lobby,” Dr. Bruce D. Adams, from Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, told Reuters Health. “The time to defibrillation in hospital lobbies appears to be much worse than what has been reported for casinos and airports.”
Cellphones take up driver attention
Using a cellphone - even with a hands-free device - may distract drivers because the brain cannot handle both tasks, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.
Imaging tests show the brain directs its resources to either visual input or auditory input, but cannot fully activate both at the same time, the team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore found.
“Our research helps explain why talking on a cell phone can impair driving performance, even when the driver is using a hands-free device,” said Steven Yantis, a professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences who led the study.
Cost seen limiting use of flu drug on birds in China
High costs will limit the use of an anti-viral drug to treat Chinese poultry infected with deadly bird flu, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Wednesday.
The World Health Organisation gave tacit confirmation on Tuesday that amantadine, an anti-viral drug meant for humans, had been used on birds at Chinese farms, a practice that threatens to make the medication useless for fighting human influenza.
Antibiotics usually not needed for pink eye
For most kids with pink eye, also known as acute infective conjunctivitis, the condition will usually resolve on its own, without antibiotic treatment, results of a UK study suggest.
Pink eye often results from a bacterial infection and standard clinical practice is the prescription of antibiotic eyedrops or ointments, Dr. Peter Rose of the University of Oxford and colleagues explain in The Lancet. Previous studies showing that antibiotics were the best treatment for pink eye largely involved patients with severe forms of the disease.
