Health – Page 23 – Things Are Good

Abstinence Only Sex Education Loses Funding in the USA

President Obama has cut funding for abstinence only sex education in the 2017 federal budget. The lack of adequate sex education has led to health crises and too many unwanted pregnancies (which is made worse by places lacking proper rights for women) in the USA. It’s so bad in some of the states that documentaries have been made about the horrible state of sex education, like the 2005 film The Education of Shelby Knox.

Decades of ignorance have led to an increase in health problems in absiteince only sex education areas, so it’s really good to se that Obama is making it harder for those places to teach ignorance.

This is an excellent, evidence-based move towards protecting and educating our youth. Whether or not they are given an abstinence-only sex education, teens are going to have sex. About half of all high school-aged youth reported having engaged in sexual intercourse. Contrary to what conservatives would want you to believe, states where abstinence-only education is emphasized have a higher teen pregnancy rate.
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Abstinence-only education is a disservice to our youth. It encourages things such as â€œvirginity pledges,â€ which are laughably ineffective. Teens who make such a pledge are just as likely to engage in oral or anal sex and haveÂ similar STI rates. Virginity pledges donâ€™t work and actuallyÂ increase the likelihoodÂ of risky sexual behavior.

The Future of Hospitals Will be Robotic

We like to think that people who work at hospitals do everything they can to save patients – and they do. The problem is that humans make mistakes. In fact, mistakes are so common in hospitals that a simple checklist can increase the care a patient receives. Robots, and computers, on the other hand easily follow checklists.

As we build better robotic systems (like autonomous cars and planes) we are building machines that perform tasks better than humans. In the world of health care we’re seeing that now and the speed at which robotic systems out perform humans will only increase. It means that the care you receive at a hospital will be better and more robotic.

There are programs toÂ make diagnosesÂ based on a series of questions, and algorithms inform many treatments used now by doctors.

Surgeons are already usingÂ robots in the operating theatreÂ to assist with surgery. Currently, the surgeon remains in control with the machine being more of a slave than a master. As the machines improve, it will be possible for a trained technician to oversee the surgery and ultimately for the robot to be fully in charge.

Hospitals will be very different places in 20 years. Beds will be able toÂ move autonomouslyÂ transporting patients from the emergency room to the operating theatre, via X-ray if needed.

GyroGlove Helps Parkinson’s Patients with Hand Tremors

Parkinson’s is a neurological condition that interferes with a person’s ability to control fine muscle movements. This means that hand tremors, or other visible forms of shaking, cannot be finely controlled by someone with Parkinson’s. Student Faii Ong noticed this when he was helping a person with Parkinson’s trying to eat, and he decided to find a way to help.

Ong has designed a complex glove made of simple ideas that helps people with Parkinson’s control hand tremors. It all comes down to gyroscopes and cleverness.

Together with a number of other students from Imperial College London, Ong worked in the universityâ€™s prototyping laboratory to run numerous tests. An early prototype of a device, called GyroGlove, proved his instinct correct. Patients report that wearing the GyroGlove, which Ong believes to be the first wearable treatment solution for hand tremors, is like plunging your hand into thick syrup, where movement is free but simultaneously slowed. In benchtop tests, the team found the glove reduces tremors by up to 90 percent.

GyroGloveâ€™s design is simple. It uses a miniature, dynamically adjustable gyroscope, which sits on the back of the hand, within a plastic casing attached to the gloveâ€™s material. When the device is switched on, the battery-powered gyroscope whirs to life. Its orientation is adjusted by a precession hinge and turntable, both controlled by a small circuit board, thereby pushing back against the wearerâ€™s movements as the gyroscope tries to right itself.

Taxing Sugary Water Works

Beverages infused with copies amounts of sugar like Pepsi or Coke aren’t good for you health. When an entire nation consumes too much then public health suffers greatly. This has many governments looking into how they can stymie this overconsumption of unhealthy drinks. One solution is taxing soda sales.

in 2014 the Mexican government started such a tax and consumption has dropped. To prove its effectiveness researchers looked into how much of an impact the tax had on people drinking pop.

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A study published Wednesday in theÂ British Medical JournalÂ suggests the tax is working: After one year, sales of sugar-sweetened drinks in Mexico dropped by 12 percent. And among poor households, which have the highest levels of obesity and untreated diabetes, sales fell by 17 percent.

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These results are not surprising, but their empirical confirmation is of the greatest importance for governments that have opted to use taxes on sugar sweetened beverages as part of public health strategies, and those considering to do it,” wrote Franco Sassi, head of the public health program of the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation.

Thanks to Delaney!

Pets Can Improve Patient Care

Having pets around is already a pretty fun idea, and now it can also be healthy idea! It’s known that pets can help kids by lowering the chances of them developing allergies, particularly if the pets are allowed outdoors (be careful with letting cats outside though since they kill millions of birds needlessly). Now research is pointing out that patient care can improve when patients happen to have a pet.

A dog or a cat is always there and no matter how big a jerk you’ve been during the day, your dog or cat will always love you when you come home,” he said, adding pets often alleviate loneliness and offer companionship, especially for elderly people.
Monavvari said knowing more about that bond opens up all kinds of possibilities for human health professionals.
“For some people, their pet is the most important family member for them and we were missing that piece altogether. We didn’t know what to ask or if it is appropriate to ask and what information that provides,” he told CBC News.
Patients love to talk about their pets, said Monavvari, and often that can be the most important bond in their lives. He said patients will sometimes put their pet’s health ahead of their own.