Hearing loss: Is there a cure?
How do you protect your ears from abuse in our increasingly noisy world? And once the damage is done, can you fix it? Jeremy Laurance sounds out the facts
Deafness, unlike blindness, has always been a bit of a joke. The flesh-coloured box behind the ear emitting periodic whistling sounds is, like the mother-in-law often found wearing it, easily mocked. Embarrassment and denial are the first reactions of those losing their second most important sense. As a result, most people are ignorant about the causes of hearing loss - and the cures.
Last week, the Government published new guidance to the NHS advising it to set up one-stop shops to speed up the assessment and fitting of hearing aids and to use the private sector to help tackle demand. But there is little guidance for individuals on how to protect their hearing and, when protection fails, how to navigate a market in which hearing aids range in price from less than £300 to almost £3,000.
Middle-Aged Adults Most Likely to Use Complementary Medicine
Even though older adults generally have poorer health, middle-aged adults are most likely to turn to complementary and alternative medicine, a new study shows. The study also found that adults of different races or ethnic backgrounds use these self-care methods in similar proportions.
“You’d expect that older adults and ethnic minorities would be the greatest users of complementary and alternative medicine because they tend to have more illness and relatively less money and often hold different beliefs about medicine. But, in fact, they don’t,” said lead author and sociologist Joseph Grzywacz, Ph.D.
Many Parents Want Distance Between Own Kids and Those With Mental Illness
New research suggests that Americans are more likely to socially reject children with mental illness than they are those with physical illnesses such as asthma.
“Many respondents did not want their children to become friends with other kids identified as having mental illnesses or have them come over to spend an evening socializing,” said Jack Martin, Ph.D., lead study author.
Emergency Medicaid for Immigrants Goes to Childbirth
An analysis of state Emergency Medicaid spending contradicts assumptions about emergency care provided to recent immigrants, researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Carolinas Center for Medical Excellence have found.
The study appears in the March 15 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Dr. Annette DuBard, a research associate at UNC’s Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, will present the results Tuesday (March 13) at a JAMA media briefing on access to care at the National Press Club.
Stress and nerve cells survival in rats; finding may open widow for depression treatment
A single, socially stressful situation can kill off new nerve cells in the brain region that processes learning, memory, and emotion, and possibly contribute to depression, new animal research shows.
Researchers found that in young rats, the stress of encountering aggressive, older rats did not stop the generation of new nerve cells—the first step in the process of neurogenesis. But stress did prevent the cells, located in the hippocampus, from surviving, leaving fewer new neurons for processing feelings and emotions. The hippocampus is one of two regions of the brain that continues to develop new nerve cells throughout life, in both rats and humans. The reduction of neurogenesis could be one cause of depression, says senior author Daniel Peterson, PhD, of the Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, near Chicago. His team reports their findings in the March 14 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.
Heart attack patients with financial barriers have poorer recovery and quality of life
About one in five heart attack patients report having financial barriers to health care services, and these patients are more likely to have a lower quality of life and increased rate of rehospitalization, according to a study in the March 14 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on access to care.
Harlan M. Krumholz, M.D., S.M., of the Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn., presented the results of the study today at a JAMA media briefing on access to care at the National Press Club.
