Monthly Archives: February 2014

Health-Care Tips Every Boomer Needs to Know

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With 11,000 baby boomers becoming eligible for Medicare every day, according to government projections, the number of people who can afford to access doctors and hospitals is rising significantly, adding more pressure to an already-strained health-care system.

For some 65 year olds, Medicare is their only insurance source; for others it will improve and supplement their access and coverage.

Patient advocate Ruth Fenner Barash says new and improved health care coverage is always a good thing, but warns that the U.S. health-care system is not always the benevolent safety net many people believe it to be, especially for people dealing with problems associated with aging.

"Patients and their loved ones cannot blindly turn themselves over to this massive, technology based system and trust that it will care or take care of them," says Barash, who wrote For Better or Worse: Lurching from Crisis to Crisis in Americas Medical Morass (http://forbetterorworsebook.com).

Her book chronicles the long medical journey her husband, Philip, endured with her as his advocate. On the tail, she discovered mismanagement and excess, useless interventions and a sometimes complete disregard for pain even when there was no hope of healing.

"I learned a great deal from our experience, and I want others to benefit from what Ive learned," she says.

Barash offers the following tips for boomers and their loved ones, to deal with medical problems:

Tip No.1: Avoid the Emergency Room if You Can

Barash says her experience proved emergency rooms were developed with the idea that few people would use them; most people would see their physician. But as health-care costs rose, ERs became a primary-care facility for the uninsured or those looking to pay for services out of pocket.

She points out that ERs were not created for patients to spend a lot of time in, presumably, they would be seen quickly and be either admitted to the hospital or treated and released.

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Health-Care Tips Every Boomer Needs to Know

Study: New health program shows promise

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A health care effort focused on preventive medicine and a team approach to treatment is showing promise improving care and reducing costs, state officials say.

The Health Care Homes initiative has increased patient access to clinics, particularly for people of color, while improving quality and coordination of care, according to a state study released Thursday.

Health Care Homes is not home health care. The idea is to change the way clinics provide care from a traditional, illness-based model, to one that strives to improve the health of patients with chronic conditions and disabilities.

Clinics can receive extra payments for their efforts. At the same time, the program is intended to reduce health care spending enough to cover its own costs.

In the first three years of the program, Minnesota has certified 322 primary care clinics as health care homes. That's about 43 percent of eligible family practice clinics in the state.

Besides lowering costs, Health Care Homes clinics outpaced other clinics on quality metrics such as asthma care and colorectal cancer screening, officials said.

"What you're seeing here is that the care is better for those individuals who are enrolled in a health care home," said Doug Wholey, who led the University of Minnesota team that evaluated Health Care Homes for the Legislature.

"Health Care Homes had higher overall quality of care for diabetes care, vascular care, asthma care and colorectal cancer screening," Wholey told reporters. Clinics that were certified as Health Care Homes scored better than non-certified clinics on a number of quality measures, he added.

The rate of appropriate asthma care was approximately 20 percent higher among Health Care Homes clinics than it was for uncertified clinics. Screening for colorectal cancer was 8 percent higher in Health Care Homes. And blood vessel care scored 4 to 8 percent higher. The results were all statistically significant.

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Study: New health program shows promise

Self Regional Healthcare, Clemson, Genetic Center create national genetics research hub

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

21-Feb-2014

Contact: Peter Hull phull@clemson.edu 843-209-8341 Clemson University

GREENWOOD, S.C. A new partnership will establish formal collaboration among genetic researchers and Clemson University faculty at the Greenwood Genetic Center and Self Regional Healthcare, expanding an already successful working relationship.

Self Regional Healthcare will support the Clemson University Center for Human Genetics with a gift of $5.6 million over three years. The gift consists of an initial contribution of $2 million for the center's facilities and a subsequent contribution of $3.6 million to support research in genetics and human diagnostics at the facility located on the Greenwood Genetic Center campus.

"Today's announcement will create a new pipeline for genetic research," said John Pillman, chairman of the Self Regional board of trustees. "The collaboration of these three partners will ultimately connect genetic therapeutics research to patients."

Jim Pfeiffer, president and chief executive officer of Self Regional, said the partnership will accelerate the rate of innovation in genetic medicine. "This is what I like to call a win-win-win scenario," said Pfeiffer.

Steve Skinner, director of the Greenwood Genetic Center, said such collaborations are crucial to turning research advances into clinically available therapies for patients, not only in Greenwood and across South Carolina, but globally.

"This collaboration is a major step forward for patients as we combine the resources and strengths of each institution: Self's commitment to patient care, Clemson's expertise in basic scientific research and our experience with genetic disorders and treatment," Skinner said.

Self Regional and the Genetic Center have had an affiliation agreement since 1975 with the Genetic Center's clinical faculty serving as the Department of Medical Genetics for Self Regional.

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Self Regional Healthcare, Clemson, Genetic Center create national genetics research hub

3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

21-Feb-2014

Contact: Sophie Mohin smohin@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 x2254 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, February 20, 2014A new era of manufacturing is upon us. Recent developments in 3D printing and additive manufacturing technologies are set to usher in the next generation of industrial competitiveness. To address the rapid advances and potential of this groundbreaking new technology, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers has released an exclusive preview issue of our new peer-reviewed journal 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing (3DP).

Editor-in-Chief Dr. Hod Lipson, Director of Cornell University's Creative Machines Lab at the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and his expert Editorial Board invite you to view this exclusive preview issue. The Journal will explore emerging challenges and opportunities in additive manufacturing, ranging from new developments of processes and materials, to novel applications in new areas, such as health, medicine, and bio-printing.

To maximize the global impact of this important forum, the articles will be translated into Mandarin Chinese and appear alongside the English version.

"This powerful new journal provides a much-needed multidisciplinary forum on the rapidly evolving technologies of 3D printing engineering and additive manufacturing on a global scale," says Dr. Lipson. "3DP provides a much-needed professional forum for professionals interested in 3D printing across diverse fields, to work towards establishing the next industrial revolution. This journal provides biologists, engineers, materials specialists, and computer scientists a common meeting place."

3DP also addresses the important questions surrounding this powerful and growing field, including issues in policy and law, intellectual property, data standards, safety and liability, environmental impact, social, economic, and humanitarian implications, and emerging business models at the industrial and consumer scales.

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Contact: Sophie Mohin, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., (914) 740-2100, smohin@liebertpub.com

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3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing

Researcher Finds Gene Therapy a Promising Tool for Cardiac Regeneration

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Newswise WASHINGTON (Feb. 20, 2014) After a heart attack, there is often permanent damage to a portion of the heart. This happens, in part, because cardiac muscle cells are terminally differentiated and cannot proliferate after blood flow is blocked off to the heart. This partial healing can be attributed to heart disease being one of the leading causes of death. What if the cells could be stimulated to divide and the heart could be induced to repair itself? This was the question posed by George Washington University (GW) researcher Scott Shapiro, M.D., Ph.D., and his co-authors, who found that cardiac regeneration may be a possibility with gene therapy.

The research, published yesterday in Science Translational Medicine, found that gene therapy can elicit a regenerative response in pig hearts. Shapiro and his research team first looked to small animals such as the zebrafish, which are able to regenerate heart tissue after a heart attack. This animal has a key protein at play, Cyclin A2 (Ccna2).

After seeing the effects of CCna2 in small animals, we began looking at the effects of the gene in larger animals, such as pigs, said Shapiro, assistant professor of medicine at the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences. We delivered Ccna2 directly into the heart and found that pigs not only had improved cardiac function, but also found evidence of cellular regeneration.

Ccna2 is a prenatal gene normally turned off in humans after birth. Shapiro believes using gene therapy as a tool for cardiac regeneration, optimized for humans, could lead to a viable treatment option for patients who suffer from myocardial infarction, or heart attack.

The study, titled Cyclin A2 Induces Cardiac Regeneration After Myocardial Infarction Through Cytokinesis of Adult Cardiomyocytes, is available at http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/6/224/224ra27.short.

Additional authors of the study include researchers from the Cardiovascular Institute at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares at the Hospital Universitario La Paz, and the Division of Cardiology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Media: To interview Dr. Shapiro about this study, please contact Lisa Anderson at lisama2@gwu.edu or 202-994-3121.

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Researcher Finds Gene Therapy a Promising Tool for Cardiac Regeneration

GW researcher finds gene therapy a promising tool for cardiac regeneration

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

20-Feb-2014

Contact: Lisa Anderson lisama2@gwu.edu 202-994-3121 George Washington University

WASHINGTON (Feb. 20, 2014) After a heart attack, there is often permanent damage to a portion of the heart. This happens, in part, because cardiac muscle cells are terminally differentiated and cannot proliferate after blood flow is blocked off to the heart. This partial healing can be attributed to heart disease being one of the leading causes of death. What if the cells could be stimulated to divide and the heart could be induced to repair itself? This was the question posed by George Washington University (GW) researcher Scott Shapiro, M.D., Ph.D., and his co-authors, who found that cardiac regeneration may be a possibility with gene therapy.

The research, published yesterday in Science Translational Medicine, found that gene therapy can elicit a regenerative response in pig hearts. Shapiro and his research team first looked to small animals such as the zebrafish, which are able to regenerate heart tissue after a heart attack. This animal has a key protein at play, Cyclin A2 (Ccna2).

"After seeing the effects of CCna2 in small animals, we began looking at the effects of the gene in larger animals, such as pigs," said Shapiro, assistant professor of medicine at the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences. "We delivered Ccna2 directly into the heart and found that pigs not only had improved cardiac function, but also found evidence of cellular regeneration."

Ccna2 is a prenatal gene normally turned off in humans after birth. Shapiro believes using gene therapy as a tool for cardiac regeneration, optimized for humans, could lead to a viable treatment option for patients who suffer from myocardial infarction, or heart attack.

###

The study, titled "Cyclin A2 Induces Cardiac Regeneration After Myocardial Infarction Through Cytokinesis of Adult Cardiomyocytes," is available at http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/6/224/224ra27.short.

Additional authors of the study include researchers from the Cardiovascular Institute at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares at the Hospital Universitario La Paz, and the Division of Cardiology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

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GW researcher finds gene therapy a promising tool for cardiac regeneration

Art With A Stigma: Italian Futurism in NYC

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"We intend to destroy museums, libraries, academies of every sort, and to fight against moralism, feminism..."

That is part of the legendary Italian Futurism manifesto, published in 1909 by Italian poetFilippo Tommaso Marinettion the French newspaper Le Figaro. Even though the movement wanted to destroy museums, its work is now at a major one in New York, theGuggenheim, for its first comprehensive retrospective in the United States.

Although the movement ended in 1944, a retrospective is happening only now because Futurism had a stigma attached to it. WNYC's art critic Deborah Solomon says Marinetti denounced museums, women, film, institutions, and even pasta.

"It comes packaged with the silliest ideas in the history of art," she said. "The futurists sometimes can sound like a group of high school punks."

Solomon adds some of the art is better than the ideas, especially the early works.

Still, the Guggenheim show ends with what is considered the biggest criticism against Futurism: some of the art was propaganda for Italian dictatorBenito Mussolini.

"That explains why Futurism never went anywhere and why the Italians kind of felt out of the story of modern art in the latter 20th century," said Solomon.

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Art With A Stigma: Italian Futurism in NYC

TLC's 'Fanmail' Turns 15: Backtracking

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Backtracking is our recurring look back at the pop music that shaped our lives. Our friends may come and go, but well be spinning our favorite albums forever.

1999 was undoubtedly the year of the bubblegum pop takeover, headed by Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys and a shipload of European imports. But it was also the year TLC sliced through it all with their third album, FanMail, which turns 15 on February 23. The LPs electronic-meets-urban production was ingrained in futurism, and it embodied the impending Y2K era of digitization.

Its almost genius how the albums concept was so ahead of its time, and still resonates with the modern world we live in. From the Tumblr-obsessed teenagers to self-proclaimed addicts of Twitter and Facebook, and corporate workers frantically checking their email accounts as a mini-escape, the Internet has become embedded in our daily lives. Fifteen years prior, TLC predicted this digital domination and created a sonic experience complete with dial-up connections, missed voicemails and pre-Her computerized assistants.

FanMail was marketed as a tribute to TLC fans who sent fan mail during the groups five-year hiatus which was tainted by rising tensions between the girls, Chilli having a child with the albums future executive producer Dallas Austin, an exploited bankruptcy case and Left Eye infamously setting her boyfriends house on fire. These issues, along with the reduction of Left Eyes presence to sporadic eight-bar features, create an uncomfortable void that envelops the entire album. Save for songs like Unpretty and I Miss You So Much, FanMail feels tense, cold and distant which is all reflected in the vocals, the production and the introduction of the female android Vic-E. But dont get it confused, this almost palpable emotion is what makes this album so powerful. Today, as part of its 15th anniversary, we take a look back at an album that shattered the sonic expectations of its era.

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TLC's 'Fanmail' Turns 15: Backtracking

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black FlagAdwal Gameplay – Freedom Cry Level 6 ENG – Video

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Assassin #39;s Creed IV: Black FlagAdwal Gameplay - Freedom Cry Level 6 ENG
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Assassin's Creed IV: Black FlagAdwal Gameplay - Freedom Cry Level 6 ENG - Video