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NEWS:
Digital Autism Screening Tool Shows Promise In NIH-Funded Study
A tablet-based screening application for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may improve early detection, suggests a study funded by the National Institutes of Health. Early detection is critical for access to early interventions that can have major long-term positive effects on symptoms and later skills. The app showed 87.8% sensitivity for detecting ASD, meaning it correctly identified most children with the condition. Its specificity—the percentage of children without ASD who screened negative—was 80.8%. By accurately identifying toddlers who warrant further investigation for ASD, the app may help healthcare providers ensure that children and families receive the support they need.
Healthcare providers typically screen toddlers for ASD using a parent questionnaire. However, studies have found that the accuracy of such questionnaires tends to be lower in primary care settings compared to r
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Attention Deficit Disorder May Increase Dementia Risk
Adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, are nearly three times more likely than their peers without attention problems to develop dementia in old age, according to a new report. But adults with ADHD who are taking psychostimulant medications to treat their attention deficits are not at increased risk of dementia, the study found.
The findings raise intriguing questions about the connections between ADHD and the risk of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, and whether drugs or lifestyle modifications to treat attention problems can affect the risk of developing dementia.
For the study, published in JAMA Network Open, researchers looked at 109,218 older men and women living in Israel. They were in their 50s or 60s at the start of the study period, in 2003. None had Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia when the study began.
The researchers followe
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Immunotherapy Side Effects: What to know
If you’ve researched cancer treatment options, you’ve probably heard of immunotherapy, which trains the immune system to attack cancer, rather than attacking the cancer directly. You also might've heard that immunotherapy causes fewer side effects than traditional chemotherapy.
But that’s not always the case.
More than 60% of patients who receive some form of immunotherapy will also develop side effects. Some of those will be severe enough to interrupt or halt their cancer treatments.
Fortunately, doctors continue to learn how to recognize and better manage these side effects, so that more patients can benefit from this highly effective form of therapy. Here’s what patients need to know.
Fatigue, inflammation top common side effects
Examples of immune checkpoint drugs include:
pembrolizumab (Keytruda)
nivolumab (Opdivo)
atezolizumab (Tecentriq)
ipilimumab (Yervoy)
avelumab (Baven
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Workplace Ostracism Is Clearly Associated With Healthcare Workers’ Job Satisfaction, Stress, And Perceived Health
Workplace ostracism refers to someone being excluded from social interaction in the workplace without any explanation. Published in Journal of Advanced Nursing, a recent study by the University of Eastern Finland shows that workplace ostracism weakened healthcare workers’ job satisfaction and perceived health, and increased stress. The study also explored the mediating effects of loneliness and self-esteem on the aforementioned factors. A key observation was that loneliness did not weaken job satisfaction as much as ostracism alone did.
“This finding speaks volumes of the crushing effects of workplace ostracism. Experienced loneliness weakens job satisfaction as such but, according to our study, ostracism is far worse,” says the lead author, Doctoral Researcher Sirpa Manninen of the University of Eastern Finland.
Previous studies on workplace ostracism in the healthcare sector have not
