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NEWS:
Hypnosis Through Virtual Reality AIDS In Medical Recovery
Anesthesiologists at UT Southwestern Medical Center are helping to explore the use of hypnosis through virtual reality to lessen postoperative pain and anxiety in children.
The European-based pilot study involved 21 young patients and found that virtual reality hypnosis (VRH) reduced anxiety, total postoperative opioid consumption, and vomiting in children after scoliosis surgery. Ten children received VRH support after surgery in addition to usual postoperative pain management, which included patient-controlled analgesics with opioids, while 11 children did not receive VRH.
VRH participation involved one session per day for 20 minutes during the first 72 hours after surgery. The group wore helmets and goggles linked to software developed in France that uses virtual reality hypnosis technology to decrease stress and anxiety. The children got to choose a scenario like a beach, an underw
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New Tool For Documenting Injuries May Provide Better Evidence For Elder Abuse Cases
An estimated 10 percent of older adults experience some form of abuse each year. However, the link between injuries and possible elder abuse may take months or years to establish and is often difficult to investigate due to poor documentation during prior medical visits.
Geriatric experts now hope to standardize the process of documenting physical injuries on older adult patients and make the medical record more thorough with the creation of the Geriatric Injury Documentation Tool (Geri-IDT). The tool emerged from a new study led by Laura Mosqueda, MD, dean of the Keck School of Medicine of USC and professor of family medicine. The study confirms the need for improved documentation, detailing what experts believe are the most effective factors to achieve it.
Results of the study were presented today in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. The study was informed by interviews with
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Stimulating The Vagus Nerve In The Neck Might Help Ease Pain Associated With PTSD
Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is a mental condition caused by a traumatic event. People with PTSD may experience intrusive memories, negative thoughts, anxiety and chronic pain. The condition is typically treated with a combination of psychotherapy, anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications.
It’s this connection between mental health and pain that interests Imanuel Lerman, MD, associate professor at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, Jacobs School of Engineering and Qualcomm Institute, and a pain management specialist at UC San Diego Health and Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System.
Lerman especially wants to know how the emotional pain experience may be influenced by the vagus nerve, which runs down both sides of our necks from the brainstem to the abdomen. The vagus nerve also plays a critical role in maintaining heart rate, breathing rate,
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Even As Hospitals Cut Risky Antibiotic Use In-House, Patients Often Go Home with Them
Even as hospitals try to cut back on prescribing powerful but risky antibiotics for their patients, a new study shows that many of those patients still head home with prescriptions for those same drugs -- increasing their risk of everything from “superbug” infections to torn tendons.
In fact, the hospitals that said they are actively trying to reduce use of a group of antibiotics known as fluoroquinolones were twice as likely to discharge patients with a new prescription for one of the drugs in that risky group.
In all, one-third of the patients studied received a fluoroquinolone prescription at the end of their hospital stay, despite the fact that current guidelines call for restricted use due to side effects.
And across all 48 Michigan hospitals in the study, discharge-related prescriptions accounted for two-thirds of the entire fluoroquinolone supply prescribed to the nearly 12,000
