The Cook Islands has launched the world's biggest marine conservation area, but the move is seen as largely symbolic as it is "impossible" to police.
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Health care buyout boom likely to help Nashville companies
Don’t look now, but mergers and acquisition activity in the health care space is booming. That’s likely to spell good news for Nashville-based companies looking to buy for expansion and other strategic purposes, or for smaller companies that have suddenly become juicy buyout targets.
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Low-cost health care program expands in Kansas City, KS
KANSAS CITY, KS (KCTV) -
Soon there will be more low-cost health care in Kansas City, KS, with a new space, new staff and a new approach.
The Swope Health Center located at located at North 12th Street and Central Avenue has been eight years in the making.
The partnership with the University of Kansas Hospital and KU School of Medicine is a project that will help both the Swope Health Center, the university and possibly even the future of affordable health care.
The health center sits smack in the middle of a neighborhood long on mom-and-pop shops but short on insurance. That means the only doctor many people see is in the emergency room.
"A lot of them have problems that have been undiagnosed or not dealt with for a long time," said Dr. Edward Ellerbeck, faculty of the KU Med Center Department of Preventative Medicine.
The Swope Health Center offers an alternative with a focus on prevention.
"We would much rather them come here then go to the emergency room ... high cost and no real follow-up, no real continuity of care. They can get that here," said Dr. Steven Stites, KU Med Center acting vice chancellor.
The cause for celebration in the freshly finished lobby is about more than mere numbers. The expansion will mean access to care for twice as many people, but it is not just staff and space they have added.
They have also incorporated a behavioral health component that recognizes the connection between body and mind.
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AHCA To Apply PointRight® OnPoint-30™ Rehospitalization Metric
WASHINGTON and LEXINGTON, Mass., Aug. 30, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Health Care Association (AHCA), together with PointRight Inc., the industry leader in predictive analytics in the healthcare and insurance industry, today announced that AHCA will incorporate PointRight's proprietary OnPoint-30 methodology of calculating case-mix adjusted hospitalization metric into its national Quality Initiative.
"The partnership with PointRight will help give our members access to the right information to make a difference in their performance," says Mark Parkinson, President and CEO of AHCA. "As we continue to strive to meet the goals of the AHCA Quality Initiative, PointRight's OnPoint-30 risk-adjusted hospital readmission measure is an important tool to help us build the foundation for a professional benchmark."
PointRight uses Minimum Data Set (MDS) data and unique analytics to calculate case-mix adjusted hospital readmission rates that help providers differentiate between areas of excellence and improvement opportunities.
"These analyses help skilled nursing centers focus on improving care for their residents. They also help centers demonstrate their value to hospitals, insurers and physician groups," said David Gifford, MD, MPH, Senior Vice President of Quality and Regulatory Affairs at AHCA. "Having timely, risk-adjusted information is key for our members, so they know how they are performing compared to others and how effective their efforts are in preventing hospital readmissions from occurring."
Launched earlier this year, the AHCA Quality Initiative is an effort that builds upon the existing work in the long term and post-acute care field by setting specific, measurable targets to further improve the quality of care in America's skilled nursing centers. AHCA members are encouraged to reach defined, concrete goals over the next three years in four core areas, including safely reducing hospital readmissions within 30 days during a skilled nursing facility stay by 15 percent by March 2015.
"Having access to the right information is the first step in making solid, quality improving decisions," said Steven Littlehale, Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer with PointRight. "The opportunity to bring OnPoint-30 to members of the American Health Care Association means facilities can now be more confident that they're using accurate rehospitalization rate information to guide quality-driven decisions. With case-mix adjusted metrics, you can see your strengths and your weaknesses. SNFs need this information to improve and market to hospitals," added Littlehale.
To learn more about OnPoint-30 rehospitalization, PointRight is hosting an introductory,onlinewebinar on September 12th at 1 PM EDT, Managing Rehospitalizations with OnPoint. Interested participants may register at no cost.
About American Health Care Association As the nation's largest association of long term and post-acute care providers, the American Health Care Association (AHCA) advocates for quality care and services for frail, elderly and disabled Americans. Compassionate and caring employees provide essential care to one million individuals in the Association's 11,000 not-for-profit and proprietary member facilities. For more information, visit http://www.ahcancal.org. To learn more about the AHCA Quality Initiative, please visit qualityinitiative.ahcancal.org.
About PointRight Inc.PointRight is the industry leader in providing data-driven analytics and Web-based tools that measure risk, quality of care, rehospitalization, compliance and reimbursement accuracy of the healthcare and insurance industries. Using some of the largest and best databases in the industry, our nationally recognized clinical staff, researchers, and technologists expertly translate disparate data into usable information and insight. For more information, visit http://www.pointright.com.
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AHCA To Apply PointRight® OnPoint-30™ Rehospitalization Metric
More Than 2,400 Children In Need Take the First Step 'Back to School' at Henry Schein
MELVILLE, N.Y., Aug. 30, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Henry Schein, Inc. (HSIC), the world's largest provider of health care products and services to office-based dental, medical and animal health practitioners, is helping more than 2,400 children in 21 U.S. and Canadian cities return to the classroom well-dressed and well-prepared as part of the Company's 15th annual "Back to School" program.
Each year Henry Schein's "Back to School" program is eagerly anticipated by the children who participate, the human service organizations that serve them, and the Team Schein Members who sponsor the children. The Program, which started modestly in 1998 by helping 150 children from Long Island, has now sponsored more than 18,000 children in need from communities across North America, providing the children with new school outfits and backpacks filled with school supplies.
The largest of the "Back to School" events is taking place today at the Company's world headquarters on Long Island, where 583 children identified by 10 local human service organizations in Nassau and Suffolk Counties will participate. At the "Back to School" distribution event, which features dinner, games, balloon animals, face painting and music, the children will receive their new outfits personally selected and paid for by Team Schein Members, and backpacks filled with school supplies, books and hygiene products. Additional 2012 Henry Schein "Back to School" events are taking place in Denver, PA; Sparks, NV; Jacksonville, FL; Bastian, VA; Indianapolis, IN; West Allis, WI; Grapevine, TX; American Fork and Sandy, UT; Greenville, SC; Carlsbad, CA; Pine Brook, NJ; Columbus and Boardman, OH; Mandeville, LA; Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON; Montreal, QC; Halifax, NS; Vancouver, BC; and Concord, ON.
"It is the smiles of the children that we remember long after the event is over, and we hope that they take that same happiness and enthusiasm into the classroom," said Gerry Benjamin, Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer for Henry Schein. "'Back to School' is an incredibly rewarding and special experience for Team Schein, as well as the supplier partners and local businesses that have donated products or provided other support to the program. This opportunity to directly give to people in need in our local communities and to know that we are helping to enhance the overall wellness of the participating children is a day that we look forward to all year."
The "Back to School" program is a flagship program of Henry Schein Cares, the Company's global social responsibility program, and is supported by the Henry Schein Cares Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization that works to foster, support, and promote dental, medical, and animal health by helping to increase access to care for communities around the world.
To help identify children to participate in the 2012 "Back to School" event at Henry Schein's headquarters, the Company partnered with Bethany House, Madonna Heights, McCoy Family Center, the Nassau County Department of Social Services, Family Service League in Yaphank, Bayshore and Huntington, MercyFirst, Yes Community Counseling Services, MPowering Kids, the Family and Children's Association, and the Hispanic Counseling Center.
"Everyone at the McCoy Center looks forward to Henry Schein's annual 'Back to School' event because it is wonderful way to partner with a Long Island business leader to serve the children in our local community," said William Pruitt, Executive Director of the McCoy Family Center. "Children and their families have so many challenges in this economic environment, and the essentials for returning to school may not be the highest priority for their limited resources. The clothing, supplies and party atmosphere that Henry Schein provides helps take this burden off of their shoulders and enables these children to start a new school year on a wonderfully positive note."
About Henry Schein Cares and the Henry Schein Cares Foundation
Henry Schein Cares, Henry Schein's global corporate social responsibility program, stands on four pillars: engaging Team Schein Members to reach their potential, ensuring accountability by extending ethical business practices to all levels within Henry Schein, promoting environmental sustainability, and expanding access to health care for underserved and at-risk communities around the world. Health care activities supported by Henry Schein Cares focus on three main areas: advancing wellness, building capacity in the delivery of health care services, and assisting in emergency preparedness and relief.
Firmly rooted in a deep commitment to social responsibility and the concept of enlightened self-interest championed by Benjamin Franklin, the philosophy behind Henry Schein Cares is a vision of "doing well by doing good." Through the work of Henry Schein Cares to enhance access to care for those in need, the Company believes that it is furthering its long-term success.
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More Than 2,400 Children In Need Take the First Step 'Back to School' at Henry Schein
RomneyCare II: Sequel gets a drastic rewrite
As Mitt Romney accepts his party’s nomination for president, health care looms as a nagging issue.
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Narconon Freedom Center in Michigan Holds Grand Opening of New Women’s Wing
Narconon Freedom Center, a drug rehab facility in Albion, Michigan, holds a Grand Opening for their new women’s wing August 24, 2012.Albion, MI (PRWEB) August 30, 2012 Narconon Freedom Center Michigan, a drug rehab and drug prevention education facility, held a Grand Opening and Ribbon Cutting for their new women’s wing August 24, 2012. Three hundred guests were on hand to celebrate the center’s ...
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Narconon Freedom Center in Michigan Holds Grand Opening of New Women’s Wing
Freedom Outslug CornBelters
August 30, 2012 - Frontier League (FL) Florence Freedom NORMAL, IL - The Florence Freedom bats stayed hot again Wednesday night on the road against the Normal Cornbelters, as the Freedom won 10-6.
John Malloy helped led a balanced Freedom offensive attack by going 2-4 with his 14th home run of the season. He was aided by a big offensive from designated hitter Peter Fatse who went 3-5 with two RBI.
A see-saw battle was finally put away with a three run fourth inning that included Fatse's double to score two and an RBI single by Freedom catcher Jim Jacquot.
Brent Choban (2-1) got the win for the Freedom in relief of starter Brandon Mathes who lasted just three innings. Choban tossed two innings for the Freedom and was aided by the offense in the fourth.
The Cornbelters never got within four of the Freedom after the fourth inning thanks to relief efforts by Mike Hanley, Jose Velazquez and Matt Kline.
The win moved the Freedom's record to 53-39, most every since the Freedom moved to Florence in 2003, and allowed them to keep pace with the Schaumburg Boomers for the Frontier League's final wild card spot.
The Freedom go for the sweep Thursday night in Normal. Game time 7:30 as Andres Caceres (7-3) takes the ball for Florence. Listen to the game live Thursday night on Real Talk 1160 AM with Freedom voice Steve Jarnicki. Pregame show starts at 7:15 pm.
Discuss this story on the Frontier League message board... Digg this story Add to Del.icio.us
The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.
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Freedom: The New Jazzy Freedom Power Chair by Pride Really Lives Up to its Name
The Jazzy Freedom Power Chair is a new electric wheelchair now being offered for $1,499; almost 75% off MSRP. Comparable models, like the Jazzy Elite 6, typically retail between $3500 and $3800.This makesthe Jazzy Freedom the most affordable top-quality electric wheelchairs in the industry to date.(PRWEB) August 30, 2012 The Jazzy Freedom Power Chair is a new electric wheelchair now being ...
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Freedom: The New Jazzy Freedom Power Chair by Pride Really Lives Up to its Name
'Cyborg' Tissue Created Using 'Nano-Wires'
TUESDAY, Aug. 28 (HealthDay News) -- U.S. scientists have created a type of "cyborg" tissue by embedding human tissue with a network of silicon "nano-wires" that can detect electrical signals generated by cells deep within the tissue.
This nano-network was also able to measure changes in those cellular signals that occurred in response to drugs that stimulate the heart or nervous system.
The researchers also created bio-engineered blood vessels with the embedded wires, which could detect pH changes that occur both inside and outside the vessels in response to inflammation, reduced blood flow and other influences.
"The current methods we have for monitoring or interacting with living systems are limited," team leader Charles Lieber, a professor of chemistry at Harvard University, said in a university news release.
"We can use electrodes to measure activity in cells or tissue, but that damages them. With this technology, for the first time, we can work at the same scale as the unit of biological system without interrupting it. Ultimately, this is about merging tissue with electronics in a way that it becomes difficult to determine where the tissue ends and the electronics begin," Lieber explained.
The study was published in the Aug. 26 issue of the journal Nature Materials.
There are a number of potential applications for this technology, but the most likely use in the near-term may be in the drug industry. The researchers said they could use the technology to assess how new drugs act in 3-D tissue, rather than in thin layers of cells.
The technology may also one day be used to monitor changes inside the body and provide appropriate responses, such as electrical stimulation or release of a drug, Lieber said.
-- Robert Preidt
Copyright 2012 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
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Watkins Mill and Lake of the Ozarks' Grand Glaize State Park Beaches Close
The beaches at two parks, Lewis and Clark State Park in Buchanan County and Trail of Tears State Park, Cape Girardeau County, remain closed for maintenance unrelated to water quality.
Results received showed continued water quality issues at Watkins Mill State Park beach. Staff at Lake of the Ozarks State Park closed Grand Glaize Beach when results showed that one of the two water samples taken at the beach failed to meet Missouri State Parks standards. Both beaches are scheduled to close for the recreational season after the Labor Day holiday weekend. Therefore, no additional water samples will be collected from the beaches and they will remain closed for the season. Public Beach #1 at Lake of the Ozarks State Park remains open until Sept. 4.
The water at all designated beaches in the state park system is sampled weekly during the recreational season by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to determine suitability for swimming. Water quality can be determined to be unsuitable for swimming based on either the single sample taken earlier in the week, or by the geometric mean, which is a mathematical value that takes into consideration results from the current week plus the results taken during the previous weeks. Both beaches closed this week had single samples in excess of the standard. The beach at Watkins Mill State Park also exceeds the geometric mean, which is a mathematical value that takes into consideration results from the current week plus the results taken during the previous weeks.
Higher bacteria levels are often associated with heavy rains that result in runoff from adjacent lands. However, there are a number of possibilities that can contribute to higher bacteria, and chances are no single source is the cause. The sample test results indicate a snap shot of the water quality taken at the beaches at a specific time; however, a single sample does not provide an overall sense of the water quality in the lake where the beach is located.
The beaches at two parks, Lewis and Clark State Park in Buchanan County and Trail of Tears State Park, Cape Girardeau County, remain closed for maintenance unrelated to water quality.
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Watkins Mill and Lake of the Ozarks' Grand Glaize State Park Beaches Close
Weekend Preview: Beaches' last hurrah, plus art, jazz and wine
Around Town
Bumbershoot: Seattle's end-of-summer arts binge takes over Seattle Center grounds Saturday through Monday. Get ready for a long weekend of entertainment with a live webcast featuring "bumperformers" Sera Cahoone and Deep Sea Divers, noon Friday at seattletimes.com. For a guide to the festival, pick up Friday's Weekend Plus in The Seattle Times; for tickets, http://www.bumbershoot.org.
Seattle beaches: Last weekend of the season for lifeguards at beaches, weather permitting, noon-7 p.m. Friday and Monday, 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, Matthews, Madison, Mount Baker, Seward and West Green Lake beaches, Seattle (www.seattle.gov/parks/beaches.asp).
Art, jazz and wine at the Chateau!: Wines sold by the glass, display of work by 25 artists, music, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday, Chateau Ste. Michelle, 14111 N.E. 145th St., Woodinville; free (425-415-3300 or http://www.ste-michelle.com).
At the movies
The annual 1 Reel Film Festival comes to the SIFF Cinema at the Film Center as part of Bumbershoot.
"Lawless" and "The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure"
Both the Depression-era gangster saga and the interactive film about characters similar to Barney or Teletubbies opened Wednesday at several theaters.
"The Awakening": This thriller set post-World War I London and starring Rebecca Hall opens Friday at the Meridian 16.
"Side by Side": A documentary about the histories of digital and photochemical film creation opens Friday at the Grand Illusion.
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Weekend Preview: Beaches' last hurrah, plus art, jazz and wine
Extreme Stargazing: The Biggest, Brightest and Best Night Sky Sights
This week we delve into some "extreme astronomy," for a number of skywatching superlatives are overhead now.
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Extreme Stargazing: The Biggest, Brightest and Best Night Sky Sights
Outside View: The Mars Landing and Artificial Intelligence
As the field of Artificial Intelligence continues to make progress, there is a question of what protocols should be developed to make sure such developments are accomplished in a responsible way.
NEW YORK, Aug. 30 (UPI) -- In the NASA video called "Seven Minutes of Terror," which famously went viral over the last month, Tom Rivellini, one of the engineers in charge of the landing, outlines its eye-popping difficulty.
As he says, the Mars lander had to go "from 13,000 miles per hour to zero, in perfect sequence, perfect choreography, [with] perfect timing, and the computer has to do it all by itself, with no help. ... If any one thing doesn't work just right, it's game over."
The idea of having a computer do it "all by itself," with just 500,000 lines of computer code to allow its artificial brain to work, is at the core of engineering agony.
After their years of hard work and emotional and monetary investment (to the tune of $2.5 billion), the humans in charge had to leave the most crucial part of the mission to an artificial proxy. And they were not exactly sure if this proxy would work the way they intended, because there was no way to test it completely.
This situation illustrated two pressing issues regarding the development of digital servants: our apparently perennial insecurities about using them and whether we are too hasty to rely on them.
The idea of creating artificially intelligent proxies to do what humans cannot -- because the job is too dirty, dangerous or dreary, is a surprisingly old one. It goes all the way back to the ancient Greeks and it reappears in every age in slightly different forms.
In his "Politics," Aristotle reminds his audience that the blacksmith-god Hephaestus made robot-like serving stands that could move around the banquet halls of the gods by themselves; and then he ponders the idea of making intelligent machines, such as weaving looms, that could "obey and anticipate" the will of their makers.
In the Middle Ages, stories appear about famous philosophers who make artificial servants. One such story is about Pope Sylvester II, who was also a very accomplished mathematician and inventor. Medieval contemporaries claim that Sylvester had made a talking brass head that could predict future events and could also outperform humans at mathematics.
In Shakespeare's time we have Robert Greene's play depicting the creation of a similarly precocious metal head. This lineage of artificial servants picks up again in the early 20th century most famously with Karel Capek's play of the 1920's "R.U.R.: Rossum's Universal Robots," in which the term "robot" -- a Czech word meaning "slave" or "worker" -- was first used. Rossum's world is one in which Earth's citizens have come to rely on intelligent robots for everything.
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Aerospace giant faces headwinds
The aerospace and building systems manufacturer United Technologies is running into turbulence.
(MONEY Magazine) -- The maker of Pratt & Whitney plane engines, Otis elevators, and Carrier air conditioners has outperformed the broad stock market for much of the past decade, thanks in part to its business and geographic diversification.
But United Technologies, which recently completed a deal to buy aircraft-component maker Goodrich, is running into a bit of turbulence.
Slowing sales in China and the possibility of defense cuts at home, for instance, threaten UTX's enviable profit growth.
Related: Defense cuts won't hurt that much
Is this just a bumpy stretch or the start of a gradual descent?
Troubles abroad
Nearly half of the company's sales come from slowing Europe and Asia.
United Technologies (UTX, Fortune 500) international reach 61% of its sales are generated overseas, with about a third of that coming from emerging markets like China and India has long been seen as a positive. Now that global growth has hit a speed bump, though, this plus has turned into a minus.
The European debt crisis is casting a cloud over foreign sales (Europe accounts for 26% of revenue), and the strengthening of the U.S. dollar has made American goods less competitive abroad.
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Yeasayer – Longevity – Video
28-08-2012 19:00 Music video by Yeasayer performing Longevity. (P) 2012 The copyright in this audiovisual recording is owned by Secretly Canadian under exclusive licence to Mute Artists Ltd
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Yeasayer - Longevity - Video
Low-calorie diet not linked with longevity in monkeys, study finds
In a long-awaited study, underfed monkeys didnt have longer life spans, raising doubts that severe calorie restriction could result in extended lives for most animals and possibly humans.
In research going back more than 75 years, a sharp reduction in caloric intake has been associated with increased longevity. The initial work was done with mice and rats but was later corroborated in other laboratory subjects such as fruit flies and worms, raising hopes that it would apply to humans.
But those hopes are being dimmed by the results published Wednesday online by the journal Nature. The National Institute on Aging study, begun in 1987, involved rhesus monkeys, which are much closer to humans, both genetically and in average longevity, than previous test subjects.
The scientists, led by Julie Mattison, were surprised to find that calorie restriction the treated monkeys ate 30percent fewer calories than those in the control group didnt affect life spans.
It did confer some health benefits, reducing the incidence of cancer and diabetes. It slightly raised the incidence of cardiovascular diseases.
The monkeys were started on their restricted diets either when the animals were young or in middle age. Now, more than two decades later, about half the monkeys that were underfed from a young age are still alive the same as in the control group. The scientists calculated, with a probability of 99.9percent, that the calorie-restricted animals will not survive longer than the animals in the control group. The monkeys that were already older when they were put on the diet have all died. The oldest died at 40, the same as for the corresponding control animals.
These results conflict with a 2009 study, conducted at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center. Although scientists there did not find that calorie restriction had a significant effect on life span, they did report a trend toward longer life and healthier aging for some of the treated monkeys.
Things were going well for the treated monkeys at the beginning of the National Institute on Aging study, but around the time the Wisconsin researchers published their work, we noticed that for our monkeys, things were not going so well, Mattison said. The treated animals started dying at the same rate as the controls.
Both Mattison and Ricki Colman, the researcher who was the lead author of the 2009 paper, stressed that their studies werent meant to compete with each other and that they had many differences, including diet composition, treatment of diseases and ages of the animals at the beginning of the experiments. Both studies will keep going until all the animals die.
But Mattison acknowledged that the primate research hadnt fulfilled the high expectations of the rodent research. In the rodent studies, you would reduce caloric intake by 10 or 20percent and increase life span by the same amount, she said. But in primates and probably humans, things seem to be much more complicated.
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Low-calorie diet not linked with longevity in monkeys, study finds
DNA project unlocks potter's field secrets
NEW YORK On a wind-swept island off New York City, the remains of 850,000 people rest in pine boxes in a grid of covered trenches but many are not resting in peace.
They are the unidentified or unclaimed dead who have been found around the nation's largest city often with little hope of a loved one ever knowing their fate. Now, with advances in DNA technology and anthropology and with new federal funding, the city medical examiner's office has exhumed dozens of the bodies in a new push to identify several decades' worth.
It's how Ben Maurer's family finally learned that the 17-year-old had jumped to his death from a Manhattan building on June 25, 2002.
His mother, Germaine, submitted his DNA to the medical examiner in 2009, when the first phase of the project began. The DNA was entered into a public database containing information on thousands of cases of missing and unidentified people and matched a John Doe buried in the potter's field on 101-acre Hart Island on Long Island Sound.
He was given a proper funeral near the family's home in Piscataway, N.J., shortly after his remains were returned to them in 2009.
"It meant everything," said Jared Maurer, Ben's 28-year-old brother. "It finally gave us closure to what had happened to Ben."
Jared Maurer said he frequently visits his brother's grave site. "I tell him I miss him, I tell him I love him," he said.
At any given time, there are 40,000 active missing and unidentified person cases in the United States. New York State accounts for 25 percent of those cases, most of them in New York City.
The identities of some of the bodies in the potter's field are known, but their families are too poor to have them buried elsewhere.
DNA samples weren't regularly taken from all bodies until about 2006, so the only way to identify many bodies is to exhume them, once DNA samples can be matched up with a description of a corpse, as in Maurer's case.
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DNA project unlocks potter's field secrets
Senior Focus: New imaging device helps detect brain changes
Brain imaging helps to understand how the brain works, aids in the diagnosis of neurological diseases and guides treatments. Positron emission tomography or PET is an imaging technique that uses trace amounts of radioactive drugs to visualize the function and biochemistry of the brain.
Imaging researchers now have developed new PET tracers to detect changes in the brain caused by Alzheimer's dementia and other neurodegenerative disease. These diseases damage and ultimately kill large numbers of brain cells (neurons) and thus lead to severe disability and death.
Neurodegenerative diseases cause specific patterns of injury and biochemical abnormalities in the brain. Until recently, these changes could only be measured after death by examining brain tissue using a microscope. One of the exciting developments in PET imaging is the availability of new agents that can detect beta-amyloid plaques, one of the key abnormalities in Alzheimer's disease, in the living human brain. Plaques may develop in the brain over a decade before Alzheimer's symptoms develop.
Neurologists and other dementia specialists currently rely primarily on information gathered from the patient and family, physical examination and cognitive tests to diagnose Alzheimer's dementia. In some cases, determining the cause of a patient's cognitive problems can be challenging, and now PET imaging can help doctors and patients be more confident in the diagnosis.
Two clinically used PET imaging tests for patients are being evaluated for dementia. A PET tracer called FDG measures the brain's use of glucose, a simple sugar that serves as the brain's major source of energy. In dementia due to Alzheimer's disease, decreased glucose metabolism in specific brain regions supports a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.
The other PET imaging test for patients with cognitive impairment uses a different PET tracer, florbetapir, which binds to beta-amyloid plaques that occur in Alzheimer's disease. This PET tracer was approved for clinical use by the Food and Drug Administration in April 2012. Amyloid PET imaging can show the presence or absence of abnormally increased plaques in the brain. Low plaque levels (a negative amyloid PET study) reduce the likelihood that a patient's cognitive problems are due to Alzheimer's disease. Higher plaque levels are present in Alzheimer's disease, but a positive amyloid PET scan can occur with other neurologic diseases and in older people without cognitive problems.
Both FDG and amyloid PET are only part of the evaluation of patients with dementia or other cognitive disorders. Neither of these tests alone can make specific diagnoses. PET imaging in patients with cognitive impairment should be ordered by physicians experienced in the diagnosis and treatment of patients of these conditions when the results will help in clinical decision making.
Dr. Jonathan McConathy is an assistant professor of radiology at Washington University who is board certified in diagnostic radiology and nuclear medicine. For information about brain PET studies at Washington University, call 314-362-4738.
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Senior Focus: New imaging device helps detect brain changes
[SENDEX 2012] Synthesis Welfare Contents Expo in preparation for aging society
SEOUL, South Korea, Aug. 30, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Synthesis Welfare Contents Expo in preparation for aging society,'Senior & People with Disabilities Expo (hereafter SENDEX)' is held from 30th Aug. to 1st Sept. at KINTEX, KOREA.
SENDEX aiming at Korea's largestSynthesis Welfare Contents Expo has to sectors. One is 'Smart Aging Expo', 120 companies exhibit varied old age related products including health,dwelling andfinance. The other is 'International Assistive Technology Fair' to exhibit Assistive Technology Devices.
After opening ceremony, Awards ceremony and Minister Prize were run by 'The Ministry of Knowledge and Economy' and 'The Ministry of Health and Welfare'.
In particular, visitors can take a view of medical industry and welfare industry at one spot since 'Anti-Aging of Medical field Exhibition' and 'Integrating Medicine Health Care' were held together.
Above this, 'The 6th InternationalAssistive TechnologySymposium' is held torevitalize R&D ofAssistive Technology. Figures of reputation includingJerry Weisman, a chair mam of RESNA(Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America) participate in this symposium to exchange varied information and advanced trend.
Also, there are various useful event including 'Assistive Technology Device Zone' to repair and clean visitors'Assistive Technology Device likewheelchair.
"SENDEX is held toinvigorateAssistive Technology Industry and Senior-friendly industry which are getting lots of attention as the elderly population increases" and "This Fair will be an opportunity which can experience and think concerning preparing healthy old age at one spot."
Go to 'SENDEX 2012' Special Page (tshow.aving.net/sendex)
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[SENDEX 2012] Synthesis Welfare Contents Expo in preparation for aging society