10 Huge Reasons You Should Use Your Blender Daily

Chances are excellent you have a blender sitting on the corner of a countertop. It’s lonely and forgotten, like an old boyfriend or a Backstreet Boys CD.

Well dust that baby off, because it’s got a pile of health benefits that should make it your most-used kitchen implement.

1. Avoid Cancer

You probably know hot dogs are full of nitrates that put them in the same cancer-causing category as cigarettes. But did you know most veggies are just as bad?

That’s right. Most vegetables are grown in nitrate-heavy fertilizers. When we cook them, they produce cancer causing compounds that we then ingest. Eating veggies raw, in healthy smoothies, keeps the nitrates from metamorphosing into the Mr. Hyde of foods. Get that blender whirring.

2. Have a Better Sex Life

Who doesn’t want a better sex life? Better all-around nutrition helps, but several smoothie ingredients can ramp up the amour. The short list of natural aphrodisiac blender buddies includes:

• Almonds


• Blueberries


• Coconut water


• Spinach

Mix them all at once in this recipe, then stand back. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

3. Lose Weight

When you make a smoothie, you’ll tend to add more high-fiber foods like kale or spinach. Those provide a lot of hunger-curbing bulk without amping up the calories.

Use your blender to feel full without the fat-gain. Need some ideas to get you going? Try this post on ten weight loss smoothie ideas to get the creative juices flowing.

4. Get More Healthy Veggies

It’s not easy eating green. We all know we ought to eat more veggies but it takes a lot of time between the shopping and the food prep.

Using a blender is a great way to pack more healthy veggies into your day. Just drop the healthy foods like broccoli, spinach, kale and zucchini in the hopper with a little fruit and milk and bang.

5. Get More Nutrients

Anyone can get all the nutrients they need by popping a multivitamin, right? Wrong.

Researchers uncover more beneficial compounds in plants almost every day. Their best advice so far is: “Eat the rainbow,” because you never know what unique nutrient hides in a cranberry or kiwi fruit.

Using a blender every day is a great way to work in more exotic fruits and veggies. That way we get the benefit of things science doesn’t even know about yet.

6. They’re Fun

Kids love smoothies. You love smoothies. Everyone loves smoothies. There you are, sitting on your couch and you don’t even notice you’re doing something healthy.

You hardly miss the time it takes to make a healthy smoothie. You have so much fun drinking that yummy, richly colored shake it almost feels like cheating.

A blender is a great way to add a little joy into a dull routine.

7. They’re Fast

You come home from work, your husband’s acting like he just got trampled by a bison, your kids are swinging off the chandelier, and you don’t even own a chandelier. Who the heck has time to cook a five course meal with seven vegetables?

On the flip side, everyone’s got time to make a smoothie. Reheat last night’s grilled chicken, bang the blender on, and boom, you’re eating healthy in ten minutes.

8. Get Better Quality Veggies

Broccoli is easy, right? Just chop it up and toss it in to blanch. Frozen peas, zucchini, carrots and a couple other run-of-the mill veggies aren’t too hard to cook.

Getting in a rut with vegetables is a real problem though. The best plan is to eat a ton of different veggies. But who can actually choke down the really healthy ones like kale?

This is where a blender comes to the rescue like a nutrition-focused superman. Veggies we don’t traditionally like go in, they blend, they’re yummy. Now we’ve got a lot more nutrients and fiber and it wasn’t even hard to do.

9. Fight Colds & Flu

No matter which side of the flu vaccine debate you stand on, nobody likes getting sick. Why not use your blender to give your immune system a real shot in the arm?

Colds and flu are caused by viruses. Your immune system can fight those ten times better when you’re eating lots of foods like turmeric, dark, leafy greens and deeply colored fruits and veggies.

In the winter months, stack the deck in your favor with your blender and a healthy daily smoothie.

10. Make All Kinds of Healthy, Yummy Foods

Think blenders are just for smoothies? Think again. A blender is a great way to make healthy, yummy nut butters, grind your own flours from nutrient-packed grains, and even make hot soups.

There are even some blenders that heat the soups up for you while they blend.

What are you waiting for? Pull that blender out of its corner and get it in your corner again. For these and lots of other reasons, you’ll be really glad you did.

References:

1. https://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/pr/2015/pdfs/pr240_E.pdf


2. http://www.aicr.org/reduce-your-cancer-risk/diet/elements_phytochemicals.html


3. https://www.nutritionmagic.com/foods/heres-hot-dogs-killing-speak/


4. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/vegetables-and-fruits/

Dennis Ahlgren is one of the writers on the Nutrition Magic Blog, a site that shares the best in health and wellness on the web. Dennis is a father and a longtime fitness nut. He’s passionate about nutrition and healthy living. “To me living is about really living. Being as active as possible for as long as possible.”

10 Huge Reasons You Should Use Your Blender Daily

NHS accused of covering up huge data loss that put thousands at risk

Thousands of patients are feared to have been harmed after the NHS lost more than half a million pieces of confidential medical correspondence, including test results and treatment plans.

In one of the biggest losses of sensitive clinical information in the NHS’s 69-year history, more than 500,000 pieces of patient data sent between GPs and hospitals went undelivered over the five years from 2011 to 2016.

The mislaid documents, which range from screening results to blood tests to diagnoses, failed to reach their intended recipients because the company meant to ensure their delivery mistakenly stored them in a warehouse.

NHS England has quietly launched an inquiry to discover how many patients have been affected. So far 2,500 cases that require further investigation to discover potential for harm have been identified. The NHS is spending millions of pounds paying doctors to assess the scale of the medical impact.

It is also undertaking a clinical review of patients who have died since the loss of documents was discovered in March 2016 to examine whether delays in material reaching GPs played any part in any patient’s death.

The correspondence included the results of blood and urine tests, and of biopsies and screening tests for diseases including cancer. It also included letters containing details of patients’ visits to hospital, including to oncology clinics and information about what they had been diagnosed with after visiting A&E. Other paperwork that went astray included summaries of the care patients had received while in hospital. Some involved material related to cases of child protection.

In total, 708,000 pieces of correspondence were undelivered. However, 200,000 of these were not clinically relevant as they were temporary change of address forms.

NHS England secretly assembled a 50-strong team of administrators, based in Leeds, to clear up the mess created by NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS), who mislaid the documents. The private company, co-owned by the Department of Health and the French firm Sopra Steria, was working as a kind of internal postal service within the NHS in England until March last year.

The clear-up team is being led by Jill Matthews, the managing director of the primary-care support services arm of NHS England.

Documents detailing the team’s work, seen by the Guardian, reveal it has finally returned the lost material to 7,700 GP surgeries, and assessed how many potential incidents of harm may have occurred at each practice. They show that GP surgeries up and down England have been affected, with some facing a few dozen cases of potential harm arose from missing correspondence.

GPs have so far been paid £2.2m to examine returned correspondence and cross-check it with other material in patients’ medical records, although the internal documents show that some have said that they are too busy to do so and others have asked surgery administrators to do it.

The British Medical Association warned that some patients might have taken extra drugs unnecessarily or had the diagnosis of their illness delayed because of the blunder.

“This is a very serious incident, it should never have happened and it’s an example of what happens when the NHS tries to cut costs by inviting private companies to do work which they don’t do properly, the private company in this case being NHS Shared Business Services,” said Richard Vautrey, chair of the BMA’s GPs committee and a family doctor in Yorkshire.

He added: “Undoubtedly, there will be cases where patients have been seen by their home GP without [the GP having] the information from previous consultations or tests being their file – so they may not know whether antibiotics have been prescribed to a patient or whether tests and investigations have been done.

Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, is being pushed to reveal what he knew of the paperwork, including items relating to child safety, that went astray. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

“That might mean repeat prescriptions, which would be unnecessary, as they have been taken before. And it might mean delay in diagnosis. If that happened it’s at best an inconvenience to the patient, and at worst there’s a risk of patient harm.”

Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, said: “This is an absolute scandal. For a company partly owned by the Department of Health and a private company to fail to deliver half a million NHS letters, many of which contain information critical to patient care, is astonishing.

“Patient safety will have been put seriously at risk as a result of this staggering incompetence. The news is heartbreaking for the families involved and it will be scarcely believable for these hospitals and GPs who are doing their best to deliver services despite the neglect of the government.”

He said that Hunt’s statement to MPs last July was “perfunctory, complacent and evasive, failing to reveal any of the catastrophic detail of how 500,000 pieces of correspondence including test and screening results and pathways following hospital treatment, had failed to be delivered and were in fact languishing unopened in a warehouse”.

Ashworth added: “Instead, Mr Hunt gliby told parliament that ‘some correspondence in the mail redirection service has not reached the intended recipients’. For a secretary of state who supposedly has transparency as his watchword this looks like he has tried to hide the scandal from patients and the public. It’s totally unacceptable.”

Tim Farron, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, said: “This looks, to me, like a cover-up. Jeremy Hunt has serious questions to answer, especially his deliberately evasive statement to parliament. Jeremy Hunt often talks about an NHS more open about patient safety failings since the Mid Staffs scandal. His deeds don’t match his words.

“This is a staggering loss of personal and private data, this colossal loss of vital material that may have been absolutely crucial to a patient’s treatment. I worry that while all this correspondence, including test results, has gathered dust, patients had been put at risk. People could have died as a result of this.”

An NHS England spokeswoman said: “Some correspondence forwarded to SBS between 2011-2016 was not redirected or forwarded by them to GP surgeries or linked to the medical record when the sender sent correspondence to the wrong GP or the patient changed practice.

“A team including clinical experts has reviewed that old correspondence and it has now all been delivered wherever possible to the correct practice. SBS have expressed regret for this situation.”

The Department of Health refused to comment.

NHS accused of covering up huge data loss that put thousands at risk

Hiring a carer for my mother was a huge learning curve, but help is available

It’s hard to pinpoint the moment we knew we needed to find carers to come and help my mother. That’s the nature of a progressive condition. Symptoms creep up on you, bringing new care needs just when you thought everything was working well.

After struggling with her balance for some time and suffering a series of falls, our mother, Jenny, was initially diagnosed with Parkinson’s around eight years ago in her mid-60s. As new symptoms presented themselves, the diagnosis was changed to progressive supranuclear palsy, which results in difficulty with balance, movement, vision, speech and swallowing.

Since then, my mother – already widowed at the time – my brother and I have tried to navigate the ins and outs of converting her home in Warwickshire and hiring home carers. Everyone’s circumstances are different and I realise we were very lucky in several respects: Jenny had savings and her teacher’s pension to cover some costs and her home was big enough to convert.

With that in mind, here is some of what we have learned along the way.

My mother is in the late stages of this awful condition and living at home with carers coming in from early morning until late at night. We employ four.

The first thing to do is seek advice from those with more experience. We’ve had help from specialist nurses, GPs and charities – specifically the PSP Association. Age UK was also a source of support for converting the house. My mother’s GP was able to point us to what help was available in terms of occupational therapists (for help with grab rails and the right bed), physiotherapists, speech therapists and nutritionists.

When it came to hiring carers, we initially employed some ladies via Age UK to come and do small jobs around the house that were a struggle for Jenny, such as ironing and cooking. When her dogs were still alive, the brilliant Cinnamon Trust set up a roster of volunteer dog-walkers.

As her condition worsened we looked to hire what are generally called “personal assistants”, or PAs – carers that come to your home.

Here again, it is worth looking for outside advice. Social services recommended we get help from a Warwickshire-based group called the Rowan Organisation, which also covers other counties. It has helped, for small fees, with recruiting PAs and with our payroll services. When advertising the roles, it advised us on what you can legally say in a job advert and at interview – for example, you can’t specify someone must be a non-smoker. We used its site and the Gumtree website to post job adverts. The payroll service provides payslips and calculates our tax and national insurance bill.

When directly employing carers, you need employers’ liability insurance to cover you if one of your employees gets ill or injured because of their work. You will need written contracts with each PA, you must adhere to national living wage rules and you may need to put them into a pension scheme under auto-enrolment rules.

When it comes to making a decision about who to hire, remember you will probably need weekend care as well as on weekdays. Carers, like all employees, are entitled to annual leave. Care hours can be unsocial, so you may want more than one carer and to share out the late shifts and weekends. Use the interviews to talk about this.

Carers may need keys to the house and will be alone with your vulnerable relative. So do the right checks and call their referees.

Finally, the costs of care at home are likely to rise with time, and while state support is available in some cases, in the form of continuing care, you cannot be sure you will qualify for it.

In short, there is quite a lot to consider – home care is not the cheapest option and it can all feel very overwhelming at times, leaving little emotional capacity to deal with the illness itself. But help is out there. My biggest takeaway from the whole process? Reach out to experts sooner rather than later.

Hiring a carer for my mother was a huge learning curve, but help is available

Huge rise in hospital beds in England taken up by people with malnutrition

The number of hospital beds in England taken up by patients being treated for malnutrition has almost trebled over the last ten years, official figures reveal, in what charities say shows the “genuinely shocking” extent of hunger and poor diet.

Beds in hospitals were occupied a total of 180,528 times last year – a huge rise on the 65,048 seen in 2006-07. The sharp increase is adding to the pressures on hospitals, which are already struggling with record levels of overcrowding.

Critics have said the upward trend is a result of rising poverty, deep cutbacks in recent years to meals on wheels services for the elderly and inadequate social care support, especially for older people.

Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, unearthed the figures in a response to a recent parliamentary question submitted to health minister Nicola Blackwood.

“These figures paint a grim picture of Britain under the Conservatives,” he said. “Real poverty is causing vulnerable people, particularly the elderly, to go hungry and undernourished, so much so that they end up in hospital.

“Our research reveals a shocking picture of levels of malnutrition in 21st-century England and the impact it has on our NHS. This is unacceptable in modern Britain.”

The Department of Health figures showed that the number of bed days accounted for by someone with a primary or secondary diagnosis of malnutrition rose from 128,361 in 2010-11, the year the coalition came to power, to 184,528 last year – a 61% rise over five years.

Such patients only account for one in 256 of all hospital bed days, or 0.4% of the 47.3m total. However, the financial cost is considerable as each bed costs the NHS on average £400 a day to staff and each spell in hospital because of the condition lasts on average 22 to 23 days.

Graphic

Simon Bottery, director of policy at the charity Independent Age, said: “These new figures on malnutrition are genuinely shocking. As a society there is no excuse for us failing to ensure that older people are able to eat enough food, of the right quality, to stay healthy.

“Yet we have been cutting back the meals on wheels services and lunch clubs on which so many vulnerable elderly people relied and reducing the numbers who receive home care visits.”

Freedom of information requests submitted by local councils in England early last year by the then shadow care minister Liz Kendall found that 220,000 fewer people were receiving meals on wheels in late 2014 than in 2010 – a fall of 63%.

Research by the National Association of Care Catering found that only 48% of local councils still provided meals on wheels, compared to 66% in 2014. Only 17% of councils in the north-west of England still do, for example, and 91% of providers expect the provision to fall further in the next year.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence classes someone as being malnourished if they have a Body Mass Index of less than 18.5, or have suffered the unintentional loss of more than 10% of their weight over the last three to six months or if they have a BMI of under 20 and have unintentionally seen their weight drop by more than 5% over the previous three to six months.

The decision by the chancellor, Philip Hammond, not to give the NHS or social care any more money in his autumn statement last week would only worsen the situation, Ashworth said. “The reality is the government have failed this week to both give the NHS and social care the extra investment it needs while also failing to invest in prevention initiatives to foster healthier lifestyles. The cuts to public health budgets along with an emaciated obesity strategy are both utterly misguided,” he added.

Figures are not available for exactly how many patients accounted for the 184,528 bed days last year. But information supplied to Ashworth by the House of Commons library shows that 57% of the patients involved were women and that 42% occurred among over-65s.

Worryingly, four out of five people who needed inpatient hospital care because of malnutrition were admitted as an emergency, which suggests their health had deteriorated significantly in the days before they were taken in. Too many health and social care professionals do not have the time or knowledge to correctly identify malnutrition, said Bottery.

Dianne Jeffrey, the chair of the Malnutrition Task Force and Age UK, said: “If malnutrition is left untreated older people can become much more susceptible to illness and injury, are more likely to end up in hospital and on average take much longer to recover if they do become unwell.

“It is shocking that in modern times over a million older people across the UK are malnourished or at risk of malnutrition.”

A Department of Health spokesperson said: “The NHS is getting much better at spotting malnutrition and giving early treatment, and we are improving our data collection, all of which helps explain what might otherwise appear a significant rise in cases. But importantly, to prevent cases in the future, we have given £500,000 to Age UK to help reduce malnutrition among older people and will continue to train staff so early action can be taken.”

Stephen Dalton, chief executive for the NHS Confederation, which represents hospitals, said: “Our members take malnutrition seriously. Good nutrition is a fundamental human right our citizens can expect, and vulnerable, particularly older, people are most at risk of serious consequences if denied basic compassionate care. At a time of unprecedented demand on health and social care we need to be alert and will take seriously any reliable evidence of basic care not being delivered.”

Huge rise in hospital beds in England taken up by people with malnutrition

Sea Hero Quest is of huge benefit to medical researchers. So what’s the catch? | Emily Reynolds

In tech circles, alongside words such as “scaleable” and “the gig economy”, you often hear the phrase “tech for good” bandied around. Sometimes it’s a fairly innocuous but ultimately toothless concept, essentially denoting the idea that technology has the potential to be a driver for positive social change but not doing very much about it. Other times it can take on a more creepily utopian tone, suggesting that should the world more closely represent the shiny libertarian enclaves of Silicon Valley, the world’s problems would be solved. And sometimes – just sometimes – it does what it says on the tin.

A new game, designed to test spatial navigation, appears at first glance to do just that. Sea Hero Quest, which involves navigating a boat through choppy waters, contains a diagnostic test for the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease. The game has now been played by more than 2.4 million people – which the team behind the game say makes it the largest dementia study in history.

It’s now set to be adapted for use in a clinical setting – data could be fed back to clinicians, allowing for earlier diagnosis, better understanding of how medication is working for a particular patient and a more accurate and precise measurement of a patient’s decline. It could even be incorporated into NHS programmes.

This, it goes without saying, is initially incredibly attractive. Understanding and managing an illness or being alerted when you’re at risk simply through the daily use of an app sounds simple, easy and most of all useful. Could this not be a genuine use of tech for good, rather than the banal and empty proclamations often heard from CEOs and founders?

In theory, yes. In practice: maybe not.

More than 2.4 million people have downloaded Sea Hero Quest to their phones. Photograph: The Sea Hero Quest/PA

As with any health data-driven project, it comes with stipulations. A recent study in Lancet Psychiatry suggested that data gathered on Facebook could provide a “wealth of information” about mental health, with a series of language analysis and facial emotion recognition algorithms providing “insights into offline behaviours”. This, too, sounds great. Having your health monitored and managed through the passive use of technology you probably already use – what more could you want?

But there are a number of concerns here: primarily, the safety of private health data. The addition of a private company in the latter study may make it feel different: a towering behemoth such as Facebook obviously feels more threatening than something set up for and run by clinicians. But to not have the same reservations just because the data was being sent to scientists would be incredibly naive.

Science, much like technology, is often presented as objective, reasonable fact, without mentioning the very obvious caveat that it is conducted by human beings, who are often neither reasonable nor objective. Multiple studies about statistical analysis are useful to recall here – the results of such analyses may seem completely objective, but often reflect the preconceived biases of those conducting them. That’s not to say that would be the case with Sea Hero Quest, of course: just that the results of such research can be fallible.

And it’s also important to remember that, should the Conservative party have its way, the NHS may be in the hands of several, separately operated and privately owned companies before too long. This adds further complications: who would have access to our health data? How would they use it? How would data be efficiently and safely communicated across different companies? Would their data protection processes be cohesive? Would they be meticulous enough to protect our most private, personal data? The idea of having your phone feed data to a central NHS database sounds great in principle, but these questions would need to be answered before that could safely become a reality.

In an ideal world, tech would be utilised to help us to diagnose and treat illnesses: anything that can efficiently and effectively help people manage long-term or life-threatening conditions can only be a good thing. Similarly, the idea of a National Health Service that is genuinely innovative, that uses new ways to help people and that has a strong grasp on data security while it does so is incredibly appealing. Unfortunately, as with most utopian ideas, you’re left wondering whether it might just be too good to be true.

Sea Hero Quest is of huge benefit to medical researchers. So what’s the catch? | Emily Reynolds

Huge Trauma Vs. Little Trauma: What’s the Distinction?

Traumatic experiences have been typically thought to be only those that had a achievable near-death result. Factors like vehicle accidents, fires and forced sexual acts are all major occurrences that leave an influence on people’s lives. While these may be bigger experiences, small acts of trauma can be just as devastating to people’s minds.

Massive Trauma Vs. Little Trauma

TalkSpace discusses how little trauma results people each day. Although large trauma refers to hazardous occasions that outcome in a close to-death encounter, little trauma refers to every day events that can damage a person’s psyche. Obtaining left behind at a retailer as a little one, possessing a parent leave unexpectedly, and possessing a key battle in a relationship are all tiny trauma occasions that can continue to be in people’s minds permanently.

Trauma and Relationships

Remarkably, individuals who have skilled traumatic events are truly much better suited for relationships. This is simply because they frequently have more compassion for what other folks are going by way of or have gone by means of. They tend to be far more understanding as properly. This is not to say there aren’t also issues. An individual who has experienced traumatic occasions in a past connection may have that in thoughts in the course of a new one. A basic misunderstanding or minor argument can lead to recollections of previous traumatic events that occurred.

Recovering from Trauma

Even when a significant traumatic occasion takes place, people are capable of overcoming it. David Brooks explains how people are significantly far more resilient than they want to feel. When it came to the 9/11 attacks, a report came out stating that initial responders were a big percentage of the individuals who suffered. It has considering that been found that only 13% of total men and women who saw the attacks first-hand really experienced PTSD signs over the up coming numerous months. Encountering such a scene can be devastating and hard to conquer, but recovery is attainable. 75% of folks who experience traumatic occasions really knowledge no PTSD signs and symptoms at all. Individuals who skilled a nurturing, risk-free childhood, or who are effectively loved now, are a lot a lot more very likely to recover from trauma more quickly.

Trauma Therapy

Making use of treatment can be an efficient way to help men and women recover from traumatic experiences. StillPoint explains how trauma shouldn’t be a word used to describe an event in the past, but rather a feeling inside of becoming overwhelmed simply because of a situation. It is the body’s response to the situation, not the circumstance itself. Via this insight, victims can discover how to express these emotions that have been built up and talk about the circumstance that occurred, no matter how long in the past it was.

Trauma treatment is an important portion of recovery for many. IT can support individuals to see that other folks also have experienced the exact same or a equivalent occasion. It also assists folks see the distinction between huge trauma and a tiny trauma, especially for individuals who think a little trauma is going to largely impact their lives. With understanding of what trauma actually is and how it impacts us, individuals can get through it less difficult and recover quickly.

Huge Trauma Vs. Little Trauma: What’s the Distinction?

Revd Rosie Harper: Carey"s feedback "huge game changer"

Lord Carey’s remarks drew assistance from Church of England Basic Synod member the Rev Canon Rosie Harper, vicar of Excellent Missenden, Bucks, who backs the Falconer Bill.

“I feel it is a game changer.”

Beneath the 1961 Suicide Act, it stays a criminal offence carrying up to 14 many years in jail to help get someone’s existence.

The Director of Public Prosecutions issued tips four many years ago that created clear that anyone who assisted a loved a single to die even though “acting out of compassion” would be unlikely to be charged.

The Bill drawn up by Lord Falconer is modelled on the method in the US state of Oregon and would suggest individuals would be ready to administer a fatal dose of medicines to themselves, but would not be able to obtain assist if they could not lift or swallow it.

The approach would have to be signed off by two doctors.

Source: ITN / PA

Revd Rosie Harper: Carey"s feedback "huge game changer"

Coalition faces huge strike as biggest unions ballot council workers

Unison leader Dave Prentis said the action could be greater than the 1926 common strike if employees voted for it. Photograph: Paul Faith/PA Wire/Press Association Pictures

The government is this week dealing with up to the prospect of the greatest strike because the coalition came to workplace amid developing anger over spend restraint in the public sector.

The UK’s most significant trade unions are balloting hundreds of 1000′s of council employees in England and Wales in protest at an provide worth one% for most staff.

Unison will announce the outcome of its ballot on Monday, followed by GMB and Unite above the subsequent week.

The Public and Business Companies union is also balloting its members for a strike in a lengthy-running dispute above cuts in the civil support, with the result due by the end of the month.

If workers vote yes, there will be a 1-day strike on ten July, which the Unison leader, Dave Prentis, has predicted could be greater than the 1926 basic strike.

Members of the National Union of Teachers will also take industrial action on 10 July, while firefighters in England and Wales have staged a series of walkouts in excess of pensions in the previous yr and have not ruled out even more stoppages.

Midwives in England could also quickly be balloted for industrial action in protest at the government’s choice not to accept a advisable 1% across-the-board pay rise for NHS employees.

Thousands of midwives and maternity support staff are getting consulted on whether they want a formal ballot for action.

Jon Skewes of the Royal School of Midwives explained: “Midwives are really angry that the government said to them they’d get a 1% pay out rise but now only employees at the top of their pay out scales will get that rise, and it truly is not consolidated into their pay out.

“Jeremy Hunt has picked out wellness workers for harsher treatment method on spend than anybody else in the public sector.

“This is the time for midwives to get a stand since the government is intent on assaulting their shell out and conditions.”

Other well being unions are warning of ballots for industrial action, which could lead to a second wave of public-sector strikes in the autumn.

At the opening of the annual conference of the transport union RMT in Bristol, the acting standard secretary, Mick Income, reinforced calls for co-ordinated action towards cuts and the threat to jobs and operating problems.

He said: “This is the very first RMT AGM given that the death of our standard secretary, Bob Crow, but the fighting, militant organisation that was constructed underneath Bob’s leadership remains in area, as we have proven in a wave of latest disputes from London Underground to Heathrow Express and in ongoing campaigns to defend our members’ jobs, spend and functioning circumstances.

“RMT has lengthy argued for a policy of co-ordinated and generalised strike action that unites every single group of staff threatened with the cosh of austerity and it is encouraging to see that that position is gaining traction the length and breadth of the trade union motion.”

Coalition faces huge strike as biggest unions ballot council workers

What Huge Pharma Could Understand From A Craft Beer Brewer

Even though U.S. businesses like Pfizer Pfizer (PFE), Walgreens (WAG) and Medtronic Medtronic (MDT) make noise and grab political consideration by searching at overseas domiciles to reduce tax prices, along comes Tony Magee, brewer of the common Lagunitas IPA from a various college of thought.

He’s headed to Chicago, the greatest city in the pension-dogged state of Illinois with its unions, higher taxes and multi-billion-dollar debts.

Whilst neither Magee’s tax bill, nor revenue nevertheless rival that of a international health-related device maker like Medtronic or a pharmaceutical behemoth like Pfizer, he says he’s asking for nothing at all in his expansion from northern California to Chicago. And that’s not something most organizations – massive or small – can say when they look to increase, relocate or create jobs.

Magee advised the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board earlier this week that he didn’t want any of the economic incentives provided by Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Chicago City Hall.

That’s in sharp contrast to the Internal Revenue Services escapes attempted by Pfizer, which attempted to flee U.S. taxes with a British domicile, and Medtronic which this month announced strategies to purchase Dublin, Ireland’s Covidien Covidien for virtually $ 43 billion.

Walgreen Walgreen, also, has been urged by some traders to relocate its headquarters to London exactly where it has a relationship with European pharmacy chain Alliance Boots. And drug maker Abbvie (ABBV), which last year spun off from Abbott Laboratories (ABT), was rebuffed in its try to buy Shire in what many observers say was the latest attempt by a U.S. company to take benefit of a loophole that enables them to keep away from larger corporate taxes here.

But Magee, who is searching to broaden from his base in Northern California to Chicago, would have “none” of the economic incentives offered by the city of Chicago, in accordance to the Sun-Instances report.

“I was like, I really do not want any of it,” Magee advised the Chicago Sun-Instances editorial board.

Magee informed the paper that he’d desire to see the city spend tax income on other things. Magee also seemed to get a shot at other firms that inquire for governmental largess when they do organization, bring in jobs and scout for expansion areas.

“You start realizing you make the globe about you by the decisions you make as you move by means of it and if I really don’t really feel like the government need to be looted [or] whored out for companies … we do not need it … so why request for it?” Magee told the Sun-Times. “I’d rather they have far more midnight basketball and fill potholes. Do not give it to me.”

Magee, who is initially from the northwest Chicago suburbs, sees Chicago as a city with cachet and also likes its geographic spot as a shipping hub to get his brand about the world.  In northern California, Lagunitas has been paying $ 150,000 a month in shipping expenses, Sun-Instances reported.

He told the paper: “If I’m going to sell beer from this brewery in Sweden and the Uk as we do appropriate now … they all know exactly where Chicago is.”

 Wondering how  Big Pharma and the well being business will be impacted by Obamacare? The Forbes eBook Within Obamacare: The Repair For America’s Ailing Well being Care Program answers that question and a lot more. Obtainable now at Amazon and Apple.

Beer (Photo credit: mrwynd)

What Huge Pharma Could Understand From A Craft Beer Brewer

How to rebuild America"s mental well being program, in 5 huge actions | Paul S Appelbaum

No genuine technique of psychological well being care exists in the United States. This country’s diagnosis and treatment of psychological health difficulties are fragmented across a range of companies and payers – and they are all too often unaffordable. If you consider about it, the checklist of problems is practically countless:

• Families of loved ones with psychological sickness recount horror stories, as a number of have in the Guardian’s interactive series this week.


• Individuals transitioning from inpatient to outpatient treatment often fall amongst the cracks.


• Mental well being and standard healthcare therapy are rarely coordinated.


• Substance abuse remedy generally requires location in an entirely distinct method altogether, with tiny coordination.


• Auxiliary interventions that are so crucial to so several men and women with severe psychological illnesses – supported housing, employment coaching, social skills instruction – are supplied via a distinct set of companies altogether … if they are offered at all.

Our mental wellness method is a non-program – and a dysfunctional non-system at that.

The evidence is everywhere that items have been obtaining worse – far more and more Americans with mental illness are stranded in emergency rooms, for instance, and simply for want of hospital beds. And that is in no tiny component simply because no one has experimented with, in far more than 50 many years, to layout a comprehensive psychological wellness technique for all Americans.

It truly is time to consider again.

Mental wellness clinics in 1955 supplied a vision for attentive care that has not been replicated considering that. Photograph: 3 Lions / Getty Images

The final significant rethinking of the system’s flaws started, in 1955, with an act of Congress that resulted in the appointment of something called the Joint Commission on Psychological Illness and Well being. The commission’s report, Action for Psychological Health, provided a vision of local community-based mental well being remedy: a new clinic would be designed for each 50,000 persons – for prevention and early intervention providers. People who once had to wait for their symptoms to become undesirable adequate to go to the hospital just before anything at all could be completed? They would obtain prompt care in their own communities and return swiftly to daily life as normal – back at function, residing with their households, seeing their buddies.

Soon came the downsizing of big state hospitals and, in 1963, the passage of the Neighborhood Mental Well being Act. That legislation envisioned the creation of a network of mental well being centers spanning the country, so that each citizen would have a single stage of entry. A particular person experiencing early signs of mental disorder could receive emergency, inpatient, partial hospitalization and outpatient care – all in the exact same location – whilst her loved ones was educated about her disorder and how very best they could assist.

Regrettably, fewer than half of the centers have been ever developed, and adequate assistance for their operation was never ever presented. As federal funding ceased, many of the current centers shifted away from caring for the most critically ill … to serving having to pay buyers. The guarantee of an successful neighborhood-based mostly technique of care stays unfulfilled.

Nevertheless we are, half a century later on, in a various globe for which a diverse vision may be required – a vision of complete care aimed at helping people with psychological sickness carry on to be working members of society. But the vital notion of obtaining an integrated method of healthcare – a technique that recognizes the spectrum of needs linked with psychological problems, from household treatment to medication to supported housing – is also crucial to relinquish.

President Obama can kick-begin planning for a real technique of mental health care, by establishing a presidential commission to suggest realistic, re-inventive actions forward.

It could be a landmark minute, appropriate now, these days.

Here is what it may well get:

Illustration by Chloe Cushman for the Guardian

• No one struggling with depression or trying to locate assist for a troubled little one ought to have to spend weeks figuring out whom to contact. In each spot of the nation, a single stage of speak to should be designed to reply to concerns and triage people in require of help to acceptable services. Today, considerably of this details can be provided online – believe of the dwell chat boxes on many business and banking websites, or even the pop-up video for client assistance on Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet.
  
  

Illustration by Chloe Cushman for the Guardian

• Today people are too frequently left to their own devices when it comes to assembling and monitoring the package deal of providers they require. Also usually men and women cannot find what they’re looking for. These solutions can assortment from medication to loved ones therapy to rehabilitation providers. Care coordinators must be available to shoulder those burdens – not patients and families.
  
  

Illustration by Chloe Cushman for the Guardian

• People with psychological ailments want much more than just a pill – but that’s often all that’s available to them. Psychotherapy can assist them understand and deal with the troubles they face. Substance abuse commonly accompanies mental disorders – and need to be addressed equally seriously. Several folks with serious psychological illnesses require assistance with occupation education and housing as essential elements of their recovery.
  
  

Illustration by Chloe Cushman for the Guardian

• Most psychological well being troubles can be dealt with inside a community, but when emergencies arise it becomes essential to have access to crisis providers, short-phrase respite beds and inpatient care. Reduced payments from insurers for psychological health treatment have led to the closure of many inpatient units, resulting in a backlog of folks in crisis getting held in emergency rooms – often for days or weeks.
  
  

Illustration by Chloe Cushman for the Guardian

• These days, paying out for mental well being care is nobody’s obligation. Insurers spend as small as attainable, frequently denying claims on flimsy grounds. States have reduce far more than $ 4bn from their psychological wellness budgets in the last 6 years. The federal government immediately contributes only a small volume to supporting mental wellness treatment method past the coverage it supplies via Medicare and Medicaid. A joint federal-state dedication is essential to funding the infrastructure of a care technique, even though insurers’ feet are held to fire to make specified they dwell up their obligations beneath the Mental Wellness Parity Act.
  
  

In the 21st century, with our instantaneous electronic communications, it could be significantly less essential to property these types of services in a single website – but it really is no less critical to insure that they are all accessible.

A half-century of patchwork efforts to improve a single or an additional element of the mental wellness technique has resulted in abject failure. Except if we get a thorough approach, and mend the security net that protects us all, we will fail again.

Let’s get to operate.

Paul S Appelbaum is the Dollard Professor of Psychiatry, Medicine and Law at Columbia University, and a former president of the American Psychiatric Association.

How to rebuild America"s mental well being program, in 5 huge actions | Paul S Appelbaum

A patient"s property is a huge determinant of well being and wellbeing

A number of well being troubles are brought on or exacerbated by poor living conditions, writes Faisal Majeed. Photograph: Getty Images/SuperStock RM

A single of my most significant frustrations as a GP isn’t going to relate to these troubles that constantly grab the headlines this kind of as falling funding levels or increasing workloads. It is one thing far a lot more fundamental. A patient’s house, the problem of their house, is a issue usually neglected by clinicians however it really is a huge determinant of health and wellbeing.

At my GP practice, based in a deprived region of Liverpool, a lot of patients who come via the door have housing-related well being issues. Respiratory conditions, arthritis, depression, insomnia, fractures – all are induced or exacerbated by bad living conditions.

How considerably time and cash could be saved if we invested much more assets in preventing well being problems from escalating to a point the place individuals require a lot more intensive care? Straightforward measures to tackle cold and damp properties or to give the adaptations that permit individuals to reside independently could make a large big difference.

Sub-standard housing is broadly recognised to be a main contributory element to bad overall health and we see its detrimental results every day. And nevertheless the response on the ground doesn’t appear to be modifying quick enough.

The Better Care Fund (BCF) provides a possibility to do issues in a different way, to weave collectively wellness, social care and housing assistance in a way that indicates far fewer people have to make the trip to hospital. But when regional BCF plans were submitted in April, how a lot of reflected the relevance of housing? My suspicion is relatively number of will have explicitly referenced housing assistance and nevertheless most will include strategies that can not be attained with out addressing the property setting.

In a lot of GP practices and hospitals there is tiny awareness of residence-based help and exactly where there is, referral processes are time-consuming and complicated. I function with my nearby house-improvement company by creating letters of assistance to support sufferers entry grants for adaptations. It could be as straightforward as some thing like a grab rail or perhaps assistive technologies to help a particular person with bad vision to navigate their home. But the last point I want is the burden of writing letters and producing cellphone calls to different agencies to arrive at a remedy for each patient. We need a simplified technique which allows individuals to be prescribed housing support swiftly.

I would like to see GP surgeries turn out to be hubs for accessing housing help, enabling information about the property setting and related support to be entered on to a person’s medical information so GPs can appear at the whole picture. Even though they are at their GP practice, sufferers should be ready to get information about neighborhood useful-individuals, community telecare provision, housing possibilities guidance and other relevant solutions and be in a position to guide appointments there and then.

The rewards of acquiring this sort of support frequently go way past the preliminary repair. A home improvement agency can modify a door phase and at the identical time flag up other problems this kind of as journey hazards, loneliness, bad heating or even the early indicators of dementia. By bringing this kind of provision into surgeries it joins up the dots, assisting physicians to really comprehend a person’s situation. It also frees up GPs’ time and allows us to perform with sufferers to stop troubles further down the line.

If surgeries are to perform this hub role there wants to be a shift in clinical commissioning group (CCG) perspectives. As well typically the hyperlink amongst great housing and very good health is taken as a given. This requirements to adjust. Housing support won’t get the funding precedence it deserves unless it is exclusively, not just implicitly, referenced in BCF arranging. We need to proceed to existing a robust situation for investment.

Dr Faisal Majeed is a GP at Dunstan Village Group Practice based in an inner city region of Liverpool

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A patient"s property is a huge determinant of well being and wellbeing

The genuine explanation medicines cost so considerably and why huge pharmaceuticals are so rich | Molly Scott Cato

A laboratory at GlaxoSmithKline: Revenue are ‘the reward to the organization for investing in analysis … without this kind of an incentive new medication would not be invented’. Photograph: Sipa Press/Rex

This morning we heard of the row amongst the drug company Roche and the government’s drug adviser, the National Institute for Wellness and Care Excellence (Good), apparently negotiating more than the last six months of the lives of women suffering from breast cancer. At situation was the £90,000 per patient that Roche is charging for the drug Kadcyla, which is not a remedy but can lengthen lifestyle. Protected by what are recognized as intellectual property rights, the firm has a legally sanctioned monopoly and is free to set its cost. This approach is a game of chicken amongst the business and the government, which is subject to lobbying by desperate families but also restrained by a constrained budget.

Pharmaceutical organizations can extract massive revenue by controlling understanding about how to make their medicines. Economic theory about industry competition would recommend that, on seeing the massive income being made, other producers would enter the market and produce the drug a lot more cheaply. This is precisely what manufacturing organizations have been carrying out in current many years, especially in India, offering generic medication to individuals in the world’s poorer nations. But this has been challenged by large pharmaceutical companies, which use their intellectual property rights to constrain the operation of market forces to their benefit, and to the disadvantage of the world’s bad.

The 1st test case of the rights of companies to revenue v the rights of the world’s folks to lifestyle was fought in South Africa in the late 1990s. At that time as numerous as a quarter of its individuals of working age were HIV good, and the government determined to disregard global law and import generic Aids medication from India. The value variation remains staggering – $ 350 for a year’s provide compared with $ ten,000 for the branded medicines – so a bad nation like South Africa had little choice.

South Africa was able to justify its actions under clauses in the trade-related intellectual house rights (Journeys) agreement exempting nations that encounter public well being disasters, but its actions have been challenged by the US trade representative and action was taken against the South African government by the Pharmaceutical Makers Association of South Africa. The government’s courage was rewarded and the situation was ultimately withdrawn in 2001, with the agreement of a deal on sensible pricing and availability of Aids medicines.

The lack of a free marketplace in pharmaceuticals puts pressure on health systems in richer economies as well, due to the fact the price variations are large: the British Generic Companies Association says: “The average price to the NHS of a generic medicine is £3.79, while the regular value of a branded medication is £19.73.” The distinction of £16 is the reward to the organization for investing in analysis and improvement. The argument for this suspension of normal marketplace forces is that with out this kind of an incentive new medication would not be invented.

The row between the United kingdom government and Roche implies that this argument is beginning to unravel, but it also factors towards the underlying dilemma: the lack of true competition. Whilst the rhetoric of totally free markets is much more widespread than ever, the actuality has been an rising degree of consolidation in recent years. The alliance in between Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline is the latest instance, followed swiftly by the AstraZeneca bid for Pfizer.

And the difficulty of market place consolidation and corporate electrical power is not constrained to the pharmaceutical sector. Just last week, the German publisher Axel Springer accused Google of in search of to set up a “digital superstate” and there was also speculation about a merger between the beer giants SABMiller and AB InBev. February, meanwhile, saw the merger of banana giants Fyffes and Chiquita.

The trade talks taking place amongst the EU and US might additional diminish the electrical power of national governments to control consolidation: the draft Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is explained to threaten governments with damages if they introduce legislation that may undermine the returns corporations count on to obtain from their investments within national territories. Enforcement of industry competition and anti-believe in action may possibly be liable to legal action.

Health commentators appear to have been distracted by the debate about privatisation from looking too closely at the industry power of huge pharmaceuticals. Individuals who care about wellness and freedom – dammit, even these who care about a working capitalist economic system and fair competitors – ought to be raising a lot more questions about the way our medication are produced and how the expertise over existence and death is owned and managed.

The genuine explanation medicines cost so considerably and why huge pharmaceuticals are so rich | Molly Scott Cato

Employing Huge Data And Game Perform To Improve Mental Fitness

By Bonnie Feldman

This article was written together with Ellen M. Martin and Melinda Speckmann.

Video games have been element of human culture for millennia. It is no surprise that factors of perform can be strong digital equipment to grab our focus and keep us on a path to taking care of ourselves and other individuals.

Huge data is previously behind brain games. The use of huge data is getting to be increasingly mainstream in wellness play applications. When we are drawn in, game play (with huge information beneath the hood) can help us to:

1. Remain sharp,


2. Stay properly, and


3. Conquer illness.

Staying Sharp

Digital tools aim to make brain fitness exciting by taking part in with the mental states our brains expertise and venture. Brain fitness video games exercise diverse functions: short and prolonged-phrase memory as nicely as accuracy and efficiency for processing information and solving difficulties.

Lumosity entered the consumer industry with engaging consumer interfaces and now gives much more than 40 video games that challenge and train memory, flexibility, processing, velocity, and issue solving. Two examples include Pace Match, which exams speed of visual processing, and Memory Matrix, which difficulties the brain’s ability to bear in mind spatial places. Preliminary scientific studies propose that these games have advantageous lengthy-phrase effects.

Employing machine-learning algorithms, the games keep you interested by employing suggestions to supply personalized queries for your engagement and by locating your studying sweet spot not as well effortless but not too hard.

With above 50 million consumers and one billion game plays, Lumosity’s Human Cognition Project has launched 43 ongoing scientific studies, exploring topics such as age-connected cognitive decline, interventions for PTSD, and the connection amongst bodily workout and Lumosity brain training.

Brain Resource aims to increase brain health, especially to better diagnose and deal with diseases of the thoughts such as depression and ADHD. The organization started by creating integrated, standardized information sets from screening questionnaires, cognitive assessments, genetic profiles, and MRI or fMRI scans. By standardizing measurement and procedures, the firm can evaluate neural activity within a variety of regions of the brain to better understand brain circuitry and interconnectedness.

The BRAINnet Database, (a.k.a. the Brain Resource Global Database or BRID), offered to global academic and study partners, has grown to 50,000 datasets. It contains 5,000 wholesome controls from ages 6 to 100, plus a lot more than one,000 topics with diagnoses this kind of as depression, schizophrenia, and mild cognitive Impairment. Its standardization feature, unique amongst this kind of databases, permits the comparison of brain function across illness states.

The insights derived from the BRAINnet Database have been commercialized into a brain evaluation and coaching platform identified as MyBrainSolutions. The brain training plan is utilized by corporate wellness programs to market brain overall health and resilience amongst personnel. The web site attributes 24 brain education exercise routines or video games to improve cognitive and emotional functioning. In addition, MyCalmBeat facilitates handle of anxiety, anxiety, and panic by offering feedback on heart rate.

Outcomes associated MyBrainSolutions contain enhanced thinking and memory processes as well as emotional balance.

They are also amongst the first to complete clinical trials in the arena of ADHD and depression. Two global research below the rubric International Studies to Predict Optimized Treatment Response (iSPOT) aim to determine biomarkers and produce companion diagnostics for these two locations.

CogniFit gives scientific assessments and brain education applications straight to shoppers as well as to specialists in the spot of cognition.

The two markets are nevertheless in their infancy. CogniFit is available in more than 13 languages and delivers much more than 50 different assessments and coaching tasks to measure and train this big variety of cognitive capabilities.

CogniFit dynamically personalizes the education plans it offers to its users on much more than 25 important cognitive skills, such as working memory, eye-hand coordination, concentration, and response time.

With much more than 150 cognitive variables monitoring each training session and hundreds of thousands of information points for variables this kind of as demographics, countries, expertise and education packages, CogniFit is constructing a reliable and exhaustive cognitive database that is being utilised to develop new training regimens to even more examine the effect of psychological wellness diseases on cognition and enhance the growth of preventive options for brain health.

Akili Interactive is tackling each game play and huge information to construct the initial therapeutic mobile video video games, using technology licensed from neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley at UCSF. A Nature publication displays how gaming can improve cognitive expertise.

In the most current edition of NeuroRacer, a 3D video game, players choose avatars that travel down a waterway. The game’s back finish makes use of an adaptive algorithm primarily based upon true-time efficiency metrics to develop a actual-time learning encounter optimized for every single player. Engaging person finding out styles and utilizing large data to customize the studying experience, could enhance engagement and exercise individual multi-tasking capabilities.

Digital tools can help close the suggestions loop for people as properly for populations, as proven in Figure 1.

Figure one. Optimistic suggestions loop for overall health.

Staying Satisfied

New digital resources are helping us to keep happier by creating it effortless and enjoyable to track feelings, mood, sleep, and states of mind.

HeartMath gives a instrument to help customers keep calm. It reveals Heart Charge Variability (HRV), a measurement of the heart rhythm’s naturally happening beat-to-beat changes. In the course of constructive emotional states, the heart rhythms display a stable and ordered pattern, which facilitates cognitive function. Making use of a fully different algorithm than MyCalmBeat (discussed earlier), but also supplying heart rhythm suggestions, HeartMath aids users understand to control their very own emotional states.

HeartMath clinical scientific studies have demonstrated a essential website link in between emotions, heart function and cognitive efficiency.

Lark is employing aspects of game mechanics and automated good coaching to make rest monitoring far more fun. It also makes use of the world’s largest sleep database to make its customized coaching algorithms far more accurate. Lark aims to aid consumers understand their very own sleep patterns and pathology in order to sleep much more successfully and wake up far more refreshed. It is a wrist alarm clock, also!

Headspace is making use of a game-like technique to make meditation easy and basic to include into daily lifestyle. On the Web or mobile device, daily deliveries of “bite-sized” equipment, beginning tiny (ten minutes a day for ten days), lead the user to a standard meditation habit.

Overcoming Sickness

Game play and big data are less far along in managing persistent condition, but there are some early signs of progress.

Mango Health is a medicine adherence app with a game style. Mango’s app, which sends text reminders and enables customers to take photographs of their medication bottles, grants points for medicine compliance. Like regular flyer miles, points can be redeemed at major merchants such as Target or by creating charity donations. It is noteworthy that this app provides medication data and feasible interactions for the two mainstream and herbal medications. It also delivers the capability to track medicine historical past more than time.

OneHealth and Ginger.io are two firms functioning on creating true time behavioral well being information. At the front end, OneHealth is combines gaming aspects, this kind of as a recovery clock, badges for telling stories and attending meetings, and a assortment of on the internet patient support networks that can be customized primarily based on person wants, with lively data assortment. Personalized patient data is actively collected from five sources:

• Programs


• Utilization


• Emotional index


• Connection


• Community

Feedback loops are utilized to develop dashboards that can help patients see their progress and also be utilised by population managers.

In contrast, Ginger.io uses the passive assortment of information that already exists on the user’s mobile phone. The consumer installs the app, which then sends data on calling, texting, spot and accelerometer information to create the user’s normal patterns. Deviations from normal patterns can be used to predict early indications of ailment. For illustration, Ginger.io has produced algorithms checking modifications in communication and motion information, known as a “behavior signature,” to predict early signs of depression.

It now seems feasible for the combined forces of game perform and large information to open new vistas for personalized brain instruction. In other arenas, combining new digital equipment with massive information can move end users towards a far more personalized healthcare experience across the condition spectrum from wellness and wellness to persistent disease.

Ellen M. Martin is Managing Director, Life Sciences at Haddon Hill Group Inc. She has more than twenty years’ experience in communications for life sciences organizations. Prior corporate communications positions consist of at XOMA, one particular of the authentic antibody biopharmaceuticals developers, DNA Plant Engineering, a single of the 1st (and last) publicly traded agbiotech firms, and the Bay Region Bioscience Center (forerunner to BayBio) as effectively as consulting with Kureczka | Martin Associates. Ellen holds an MBA in advertising and marketing and finance from Northwestern University’s Graduate School of Management (now Kellogg). She has a BS in bodily anthropology from the University of Illinois (Champaign-Urbana), with graduate work in archeology, population genetics, and osteology

Melinda Speckmann not too long ago graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a BS in Biophysics and a minor in French. She currently operates at the eHealth software organization, Orion Well being. Although functioning as a research analyst for DrBonnie360, she crystalized her dream to tackle and solve complex healthcare troubles making use of information science.

This submit initially appeared on O’Reilly Data (“Using Huge Information and Game Perform to Improve Psychological Fitness”). It’s republished with permission.

Employing Huge Data And Game Perform To Improve Mental Fitness

ElectroCore--Digital Health"s Huge Secret

Digital overall health moves to digital treatment

We all know about them. We all put on them. The trackers and recorders that, in several approaches, define digital health.  And beyond that, the scanners–from ECGs to ultrasounds–add another dimension to this essential and evolving movement.  But there is an additional intriguing element to digital health that will take us from observer status directly to a therapeutic intervention.  It’s a business known as electroCore  and their new gadget may possibly be an essential phase forward for both medication and digital well being. ElectroCore has produced a device that externally stimulates the vagus nerve in the neck. The vagus nerve is the 10th cranial nerve, or the wandering nerve (vagus is Latin for wandering) extending from the brain stem all the way to the viscera with a number of branching nerves to the heart, lungs, voice box, abdomen, and ears, amid other organs. It is made up of motor and sensory fibers and, since it passes by means of the neck and thorax to the abdomen, has the widest distribution in the entire body. Simply because it is so important, it is typically referred to as the neural superhighway. And it is exactly for this reason that stimulation of the vagus nerve may possibly have far-reaching clinical implications. Preliminary data suggest that this intervention can be useful in a variety of circumstances from migraine to asthma. Currently, electroCore’s lead indication is for the treatment method of primary headache disorders like migraine and cluster headaches.

Even though vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) is not a new remedy modality, it nevertheless lives in the shadows. And this might be a lot more a function of complicated delivery, not the information. Currently accepted stimulators are internally implanted and carry all the baggage connected with these variety of “internal” gadgets.  The crucial differentiator for electorCore is its simplified external stimulator that is about the dimension of a smart phone and extremely basic to use.  Additionally, the company’s ambitious clinical advancement prepare appears to increase the position of  VNS to a broad assortment of circumstances, such as anxiousness, epilepsy, and depression as nicely as for the immune/inflammatory situations of gastroparesis, COPD, and asthma.

A simple, hand-held gadget

GammaCore is a transportable handheld device that transmits electrical impulses to the vagus nerve with no direct contact but via the skin on the correct or left side of the patient’s neck.The gadget is created to be simple to use – it is turned on and off with a basic switch – and allows the patient to control the intensity of the stimulation themselves. One particular “dose” of VNS therapy delivered by GammaCore is equivalent to around 90 seconds of stimulation, with each and every device “preloaded” with 50, 150, or 300 doses. For prophylactic use against cluster headache, sufferers are advisable to administer two doses in the morning and two doses in the evening. Primarily based on this prophylactic protocol alone, each and every GammaCore device would final about two-3 months. To deal with acute episodes, sufferers could deliver 1 to three additional doses of VNS therapy in succession at the onset of soreness. Each and every dose is only 90 seconds but the results of the treatment have been discovered to last 5-8 hrs.

The gammaCore®: a non-invasive vagus nerve stimulator

Existing vagus nerve stimulation has been located to be a secure and powerful treatment.  However,  it’s been restricted to only a little group of patients with epilepsy. To date, it’s normally reserved for only the most refractory patients due to the hight expense of the device and implantation and employed only as a final resort due to the necessity of  invasive neurosurgery. It also has considerable limitations related to the existing inability to pre-recognize who will be a responder to therapy. Simply put, no one–doctor or patient–wants an implanted gadget without having a sensible expectation of good results.

The brave new world of digital medicine

GammaCore may possibly be a revolution in the brave new world of electronic medicine that some have labeled “electroceuticals.” It places an established treatment squarely in the hands of the patient, who, with a doctor’s authorization and no much more than a number of minutes of coaching, can self-administer VNS doses as essential, acutely, or on a fixed every day routine. The price level, according to electroCore, will be very approachable and they think a huge percentage of the indicated population must be in a position to trial the therapy for a month to 6 weeks before ever needing to commit to prolonged-term treatment method. Others could chose to use the device only acutely. Importantly, if advantage is not recognized inside of four-six weeks, it is unlikely to be efficient. Moreover, electroCore is doing work to create a screening device that will tell if a patient is likely to reply with a meaningful degree of accuracy that will more minimize the threat of non-responders currently being positioned on treatment.  It’s fair to say that electrical power is the air at electroCore.  And there is no bigger advocate than CEO J.P. Errico, who expresses this optimism with a voice of each knowledge and pleasure.

The breadth of this therapy’s potential applicability is basically incredible. Mapping the starling neural pathways that connect depression and headaches, widespread ache to irritable bowels, nervousness and insomnia to asthma, microdialyzing neurotransmitters from deep with the brain, and the rewriting of diagnostic principles across a multitude of healthcare fields, being accomplished by the group at electroCore threatens to turn the pharmaceutical and healthcare globe on its ear. Our data are even exhibiting how concussions and migraine susceptibility may possibly lead to stroke and Alzheimer’s. And it is not just pointing out the troubles, we are poised to show how VNS coming out of a hand-held device the dimension of a cell-telephone can fix these problems and much more. The largest secret in digital health? Offered the financial influence of these healthcare problems, VNS might just be element of the equation to bail out the western globe from the crushing fat of healthcare cost. While it may well not function out, our information lead us to think the contrary and we count on that the secret will quickly be out!

The gammaCore is CE marked for cluster headache, migraine and medication overuse headache. The company has previously initiated commercialization in many nations through a hybrid direct/indirect revenue model. The gammaCore has acquired the CE-Mark in the EU for use in a number of indications, including epilepsy, headache, nervousness and depression, as properly as gastric motility disorders like IBS. The gammaCore was granted a Healthcare Gadget Licence by HealthCanada for use in the treatment of cluster headache and migraines in adults. The gammaCore is also accepted for sale in Australia for the treatment of major headaches (migraine, cluster headache, and hemicrania continua) and medicine overuse headache in adults. The merchandise is not yet available for human use in the United States even so, electroCore, LLC has begun the method required to obtain FDA approval or clearance to marketplace the gammaCore.

Today, we’re seeing the movement of digital fitness to digital well being to digital medicine. Technology is altering the way to recognize and treat various health-related situations.  electroCore is another excellent example of possibly important advances that boost medicine, empower individuals and might consequence in an improved high quality of life. I really don’t anticipate that it will be a secret for prolonged.

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ElectroCore--Digital Health"s Huge Secret

The brave physician taking on Huge Brother

While the HSCIC stresses the alleged benefits of the data collection for epidemiological research, it plays down the commercial implications, yet I suspect it is this that is fuelling the determination to quash rebellion. Researchers have, for decades, found ways of collecting data on population health – information approved by ethics boards and scrutinised to ensure it does not violate confidentiality. Given that researchers have managed until now does suggest that having yet more data is not essential in identifying trends and patterns of illness, and the HSCIC has failed to make a convincing case for it.

Initially, the Government had intended the scheme to be compulsory, as medical records technically belong to the Health Secretary rather than patients. However, ministers have backed down and people are now able to opt out, but only if they state they wish to do so. The Government is clearly hoping most won’t bother because they believe that the new scheme will be anonymous.

I share some of Dr Gancz’s concerns about confidentiality, but I resent also the underhand way that the Government is going about this and the degree to which the public is being hoodwinked.

There are safeguards in place to protect individuals but they are not fail-safe. Given the speed of technological advancement, those safeguards will be breached in time. Maybe this doesn’t matter and, on balance, the benefits of access to such a rich seam of health data outweigh the risks. But if it is really so vital, then why not make the case and allow us to choose? If it’s simply that ministers have identified a novel source of much-needed revenue, then put the economic argument to us and, again, let us decide.

In trying to quash Dr Gancz’s act of rebellion, NHS bosses have made him a cause célèbre for those who feel the Government is becoming Big Brother-ish and dismissive of people’s concerns about confidentiality and privacy. We owe a debt to Dr Gancz, because in taking a lone, principled stand, he has ensured the issue is given the prominence it deserves and that those in power wanted to avoid.

—–

A ‘cancer envy’ campaign won’t help survival rates

_{Patrick Swayze is one of several celebrities to have died from pancreatic cancer}

To raise awareness of their cause, charities jostle for space in an increasingly crowded market place and some have resorted to shocking and attention-grabbing tactics to get heard.

But the latest campaign from the UK charity, Pancreatic Cancer Action, has gone too far. In print messages and an online film, real patients reveal the stark facts about pancreatic cancer – that, despite it being the fifth most common cancer, survival statistics remain shockingly low at just 3 per cent. Then the patients who feature go one step farther, revealing that ”I’d rather have breast cancer’’.

Of course, I understand the sentiment behind this. It is a chilling fact that pancreatic cancer survival rates remain so low and have barely improved despite decades of research, in sharp contrast to other common cancers.

Regardless of wealth or status, pancreatic cancer is a near-death sentence. Sir James Goldsmith, Luciano Pavarotti, Patrick Swayze and the journalist Simon Hoggart are among those who have succumbed to the disease.

But is ”cancer envy’’ really the way to get this message across? I recently went to a talk arranged by the charity Breast Cancer Care to highlight the plight of those with terminal breast cancer. Around 48,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK each year and nearly a third of those will go on to develop the advanced form of the disease, which is terminal. Whilst early breast cancer receives substantial media interest, advanced breast cancer gets little attention, leaving sufferers feeling isolated and forgotten.

Imagine how those women, facing death, feel when they see or hear this campaign. The fact is that all cancer is awful. It disrupts lives, causes pain, suffering and death. Surely we don’t need to descend into a ”my cancer is worse than your cancer’’ competition in order to get a message across.

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Why don’t hospitals train health-care assistants?

One year on from the Francis report, which was sparked by the Mid-Staffordshire scandal, and what, if anything, has changed?

An investigation by the Nuffield Trust has found that more than 80 per cent of NHS hospitals have brought in reforms since the report’s publication last February. The health service is recruiting more nurses to improve care on wards, and there is a noticeable shift in the culture around honesty and openness when it comes to mistakes.

But why, then, according to a report by the Health Services Journal, are a quarter of all hospitals not giving health-care assistants any training before they begin work on the wards?

These assistants have one of the most important jobs in a hospital. They are the people who directly interact with patients – and do so more and more now that so much of nurses’ time is taken up with administration. They are the individuals who will often be delivering the actual care.

You can’t even get a job cleaning pens in an animal shelter without undergoing training. How on earth can hospitals think it is safe and proper to allow health-care assistants to start work without proper training?

Have lessons really been learnt?

Max Pemberton’s latest book, ‘The Doctor Will See You Now’ is published by Hodder. To order a copy, call Telegraph Books on 0844 871 1515

The brave physician taking on Huge Brother