Here is your NEWS-Line for Home Care Providers eNewsletter. For the latest news, jobs, education and blogs, bookmark our news page and job board or to take us everywhere with you, save this link to your phone. Also, enjoy the latest issue of NEWS-Line for Healthcare Professionals magazine, always free.
NEWS:
ASHA Welcomes Final FDA Regulations for OTC Hearing Aids
With the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) final rule for over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids now available, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) is praising the agency for the landmark regulations intended to ensure the safety and effectiveness of this new class of direct-to-consumer medical devices.
“ASHA fully supports the creation of this new category of over-the-counter hearing devices, which will increase the availability and affordability of hearing aids for many Americans,” said Janice R. Trent, AuD, CCC-A, Vice President for Audiology Practice for ASHA’s Board of Directors. “It is important the public understands these devices are only for adults with perceived mild to moderate hearing loss, and to strongly consider getting a hearing assessment by a certified audiologist as a first step before they purchase anything.”
Hearing loss is a serious and c
Read Full Article
Sex Differences and AFib: New Study Flips Conventional Wisdom
Science has long shown that men are at greater risk for developing atrial fibrillation (AFib) than women; but it has never been fully understood why women would be protected from developing the condition. New research from the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai challenges this conventional wisdom by demonstrating that women--when height is accounted for--have a 50% higher risk of developing the abnormal heart rhythm disturbance when compared to men.
The novel findings, published in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Cardiology, suggest medical practitioners must remain vigilant in promoting AFib prevention--and early interventions--among both female and male patients.
"This is the first study to show an actual flip in the risk of atrial fibrillation," said Christine Albert, MD, MPH, chair of the Department of Cardiology in the Smidt Heart Institute and senior author of the JAMA Cardiol
Read Full Article
SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Levels Linked To Patient Outcomes
The amount of SARS-CoV-2 antigen measured in the blood of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 is associated with illness severity and other clinical outcomes, according to a new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Following the ACTIV-3 trial of COVID-19 therapeutics in people hospitalized with COVID-19, researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and their collaborators analyzed levels of SARS-COV-2 antigen in blood samples taken from study participants and assessed the association of those levels with disease progression. Higher levels of viral antigen in the blood, which could indicate ongoing SARS-CoV-2 replication, correlated with more severe disease. The authors suggest that SARS-CoV-2 antigen levels hold promise as a biomarker, or a measurable substance, to predict which patients hosp
Read Full Article
UCI Study Examines Distorted Time Perception During Pandemic
The passage of time was altered for many people during the COVID-19 pandemic, ranging from difficulty in keeping track of days of the week to feeling that the hours themselves rushed by or slowed down. In prior work, these distortions have been associated with persistent negative mental outcomes such as depression and anxiety following trauma, making them an important risk factor to target with early interventions, according to a study by University of California, Irvine researchers.
The study, recently published online in the journal Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, documents how pervasive the experience, known as “temporal disintegration” in psychiatric literature, was in the first six months of the pandemic. The team also found that pandemic-related secondary stresses such as daily COVID-19-related media exposure, school closures, lockdowns and financial
