Exercise, self-help improve knee arthritis
Exercise and education may give people with knee arthritis a small but important physical and emotional lift, a research review suggests.
In an analysis of 16 studies, researchers at San Diego State University found that both exercise therapy and self-management programs tended to lessen the overall burden of having knee osteoarthritis (OA).
Exercise generally improved arthritis patients’ physical functioning, whereas self-management programs—which teach people how to deal with the daily ups and downs of living with knee OA—tended to boost their psychological well-being.
Program helps disabled elderly stay independent
Working collaboratively with older people who are having difficulties with bathing, dressing themselves and other activities of daily living can help them to remain independent, a new study shows.
Dr. Laura N. Gitlin of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, the study’s lead author and her colleagues tested a six-month intervention in which people received four 90-minute visits with an occupational therapist, as well as one 20-minute telephone contact, and one 90-minute physical therapy visit.
Of 319 men and women 70 and older, half were assigned to the intervention, and half received no training.
US advisers back Parkinson’s dementia drug
Novartis Pharmaceuticals’ drug Exelon is safe for treating dementia in patients with Parkinson’s disease, a U.S. advisory panel recommended on Wednesday.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration panel of outside experts voted unanimously that the drug, already sold to treat Alzheimer’s disease, could also be used to treat Parkinson’s patients with dementia.
The FDA will make the final decision on whether to approve the additional use, but the agency usually follows its panelists’ advice.
Bone-building drug helpful in rheumatoid arthritis
Zoledronic acid, used to inhibit the breakdown of bone and ward off the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis, could also be helpful to people with rheumatoid arthritis, researchers report.
According to the results of a small proof-of-concept study, zoledronic acid—also known as zoledronate or Aclasta—increases the benefits seen when treating early rheumatoid arthritis with the standard drug, methotrexate.
As reported in the medical journal Arthritis and Rheumatism, Dr. Paul Emery, from Chapel Allerton Hospital in Leeds, UK, and colleagues used MRI scans to assess joint erosions in 39 patients with early rheumatoid arthritis who were assigned to receive placebo or zoledronic infusions in addition to methotrexate therapy.
Genetic testing can improve newborn screening tests for hearing defects
Researchers have identified several changes that could be made to existing newborn screening tests for hearing defects that could advance the standard of care in detecting deaf infants, according to an article in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Walter E. Nance, M.D., Ph.D., professor of human genetics in Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Medicine, and Cynthia C. Morton, Ph.D., a professor of human genetics at the Harvard Medical School, have summarized four important criteria to be considered for screening programs throughout the country for newborn hearing defects. These include the prompt confirmation of abnormal results from screening tests; adoption of an etiologic focus to determine the cause of the deafness; initiation of molecular genetic testing for all newborns; and better recognition of infants at risk for late-onset hearing loss occurring prior to speech and language development.
