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NEWS:
New Jersey Researchers Study Social Communication In Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury
Kessler Foundation researchers conducted a pilot study to determine ways to assess social communication difficulties in children with impaired social functioning caused by moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). The article, "The relationship between social communication and social functioning in pediatric TBI: A pilot study" (doi: 10.3389/fneur.2019.00850 ) was epublished on August 14, 2019 by Frontiers in Neurology. This article is open access: https://doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2019.00850
The authors are Helen Genova, PhD, Alison Haight, Joman Natsheh, MD, PhD, John DeLuca, PhD, and Jean Lengenfelder, PhD, of Kessler Foundation. Dr. Natsheh is a former Children's Specialized Hospital-Kessler Foundation fellow in neuroscience. This study was conducted during her fellowship training, with funding from the Research Center at Children's Specialized Hospital.
Social functioning compr
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Immersion In Virtual Reality Scenes Of The Arctic Helps To Ease People's Pain
Watching immersive 360 videos of icy Arctic scenes helps to relieve intense burning pain and could hold hope for treating chronic pain, a small study has found.
Scientists from Imperial College London have found that using virtual reality headsets could combat increased sensitivity to pain, by immersing people in scenes of icebergs, frigid oceans and sprawling icescapes.
In a small proof-of-concept study, published in Pain Reports, a team from Imperial used VR video to reduce peoples' scores of perceived ongoing pain as well their sensitivity to painful stimuli.
According to the researchers, the findings add to the growing evidence for the potential of VR technology to help patients with chronic pain.
Beyond the distracting effect, they think immersing patients in VR may actually trigger the body's own inbuilt pain-fighting systems - reducing their sensitivity to painful stimuli and
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Physicians Create Guide For Identifying, Treating Vaping Lung Illness
As lung injuries from vaping continue to rise across the United States, Rochester physicians and New York health leaders developed a new tool to assist in the diagnosis and treatment of e-cigarette, or vaping, product use associated lung injury (EVALI).
The diagnostic/treatment algorithm, published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, complements and expands upon early guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for managing the condition. It was created by pulmonary and toxicology experts at the University of Rochester and the New York State Department of Health.
"This illness has been vexing for physicians across the country and we continue to see people suffering from the dangerous effects of vaping," said Daniel Croft, M.D., M.P.H., pulmonologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center's Strong Memorial Hospital. "We expect the guide will help minimize missed
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Reversed Halo Signs Manifest In Septic Pulmonary Embolism Due To IV Drug Use
According to an article published ahead-of-print in the January 2020 issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR), the reversed halo sign was frequently observed on the chest CT scans of patients with IV substance use disorder-related septic pulmonary embolism (PE).
Of the 62 patients (54.8% women; 32.8 ± 8.3 [SD] years) who met Harvard Medical School radiologist Renata R. Almeida and colleagues' inclusion criteria--IV substance use disorder, findings of septic PE on chest CT scans, and confirmation of infection--59.7% (37/62) had reversed halo signs (κ = 0.837-0.958, p < 0.0001).
Moreover, the mean number of unique reversed halo signs per patient was 2.1 ± 1.7, with 46.7% of patients having more than one reversed halo sign.
Noting that the reversed halo sign was an early and reliable imaging finding observed in most cases of CT-based diagnosis of septic PE secondary to IV sub
