It’s cool, Man!
Evidence is scant on the cooling of comatose patients who have suffered cardiac arrest, stroke or traumatic brain injuries; nevertheless, new methods for cooling patients are continuously being developed.
Prevention
How to end gender discrimination
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), mental illness is associated with a significant burden of morbidity and disability.
Smokers with mental health issues cost UK nearly £2.5 billion a year
Smoking prevalence is 50% higher in this group; Researchers say that more effort is needed to help them quit.
Aggression in hospitals
A receptionist threatened with a butcher’s knife in Bourgoin-Jallieu (Isère); gunshots in an emergency unit in Delafontaine, at Saint-Denis, near Paris; a nurse wounded with a knife in a Marseille hospital – three separate incidents in just one week last August brought into sharpe focus what has become a worrying phenomenon.
Dirt, danger and germs are killers for allergies and asthma
Infants exposed to rodent and pet dander, roach allergens and a wide variety of household bacteria in the first year of life appear less likely to suffer from allergies, wheezing and asthma, according to results of a study conducted by scientists at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and other institutions.
Statistics: Where is there safety in numbers?
Doctors slam claims of 18,800 preventable hospital deaths in just one EU country.
'Women have a right to make informed decisions'
Breast cancer hurt her but after a long treatment, she is now 10 years past the day she heard "You have cancer."
Tackling MRSA
Decontaminating every patient in an intensive care unit is a far more effective approach to controlling infections in hospitals, according to a new study, Mark Nicholls reports.
Cardiac disease death rates fall in the EU
Death rates from cardiac disease have more than halved in many EU countries since the early 1980s, according to new research published in the European Heart Journal.
MERS-CoV: Global action needed?
The World Health Organisation (WHO) recently formed an international emergency committee to decide whether Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) should be ascribed Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) status, amid reports of a lack of information from the worst affected countries.
Violence in the hospital
Aggression and violence towards hospital staff by patients and their relatives and visitors alike is an under-reported and an under-discussed issue. A French webside wants to inform employees how they can prevent and react on aggressions.
Hygiene: Fighting infections
The motive was clear. Lowering Germany’s comparatively high nosocomial infection rate – the reason for an amendment to the Hygiene Act passed in 2011 – called for improved hygiene management within the hospitals.
A clever(t) fusion for prostate diagnosis
Statistically speaking every fourth older German man suffers from prostate cancer with the mortality rate being 60,000 patients annually
Investigating the HFN1 virus
Dutch virologist Ron Fouchier and his colleagues around the world stopped their research into the bird flu virus H5N1 for a whole year to allow an international debate surrounding the benefits and risks of their work.
Shunning the flu vaccine
Although receding since late March, the 2012-13 seasonal flu epidemic in metropolitan France, appears to be the longest in some 30 years, even if it did not strike the highest numbers, according to the monitoring network Sentinelles-Inserm.
Researchers pioneer treatment for viral infection
Researchers at Imperial College London have discovered a new way in which a very common childhood disease could be treated.
New price for hospital hygiene und infection prevention
In 2013, the Robert‐Koch‐Stiftung will for the first time award a prize for excellent scientific research and practical measures in the field of hospital hygiene und infection prevention. Healthcare institutions such as hospitals and rehabilitation facilities and research institutes as well as individuals are invited to apply for the prize which is endowed with 50,000 €.
Marriage reduces the risk of heart attack
A large population-based study from Finland has shown that being unmarried increases the risk of fatal and non-fatal heart attack in both men and women whatever their age.
MRSA, C Difficile, staphylococcus
A recent webinar, hosted by the American Association of Clinical Chemistry, featured doctors Duane Newton of the University of Michigan and Susan Novak-Weekly of Kaiser Permanente.
Surgical-site infections increase risk of blood clots
Despite receiving blood thinners and other clot prevention treatment, some patients still develop potentially lethal blood clots in the first month after their operations anyway, especially if they developed a surgical-site infection while in the hospital, according to results of a study at Johns Hopkins.
Measles and whooping cough cases are on the rise
When country doctor Edward Jenner inoculated 8-year-old James Phipps with pus from a cowpox lesion on a milkmaid’s hand, little did he know that he had started a long lasting revolution in preventive medicine.
Battling against hospital acquired infections
Hospital acquired infections (HAIs) are among the most common complications during a hospital and care home stay in the West (although they also occur in developing countries, with even an assumed higher incidence), causing enormous strain for those affected as well as high follow-on costs for healthcare systems.
A women's heart too often kills her
The biggest cause of death for most adult women in industrialised nations is coronary heart disease (CHD). Why the disease affects the genders differently is still not fully understood. European Hospital Editor Brigitte Dinkloh asked Professor Rafaelle Bugiardini MD FESC, from the Department of Internal Medicine Department, University of Bologna, whether he could explain the reasons and what…
W.A.R. against wound infections
Prevention is better than a fight against an infected wound – but, to avoid a battle you must know your enemy – and the wound’s infection risk level. Unfortunately, there are no generally accepted definitions for those risk levels. Now, the introduction of a new clinical assessment score – named W.A.R. (wound at risk) – which makes standardised classification of ‘risky’ wounds…