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Results from a national survey to determine the effect glaucoma has on patients and caregivers and assess their needs show that most struggle to control the disease, despite a rise in the availability of treatment and services. Responses of 1,548 adult patients and 60 personal caregivers, released by the Glaucoma Research Foundation, indicate that more than two-thirds believe the disease has an impact on their lives on a daily basis and more than three-fourths are very or extremely concerned about losing their vision.
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— Kate Jackson, editor |
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Glaucoma Takes a Toll
Glaucoma Research Foundation (GRF), a national nonprofit organization dedicated to finding a cure for glaucoma, announces results from a national survey designed to assess the impact of glaucoma on patients and caregivers, as well as to identify their information and support needs.
Survey findings reveal that glaucoma impacts patients and their caregivers on a daily basis, and that many patients struggle to effectively control their disease.
“The information, support services, and treatments available to glaucoma patients have increased markedly in the past several years, but we know anecdotally that patients and caregivers still have difficulty managing the disease, its practical implications, and their fears related to it,” says Andrew Iwach, MD, GRF board chair and executive director, Glaucoma Center of San Francisco. “This survey helped us quantify current patient and caregiver experiences so that we can continue finding new ways to reduce the burden of the disease for everyone and to improve patients’ outcomes.”
A total of 1,548 adult glaucoma patients and separately, 60 glaucoma-patient family and friends who serve as caregivers, completed GRF’s National Glaucoma Impact Survey. Overall, findings confirm that glaucoma has a daily impact on the majority of patients and caregivers—not only because of the practical issues caused by medication management and vision loss but also because it creates anxiety, fear, and even depression for many. (Patient survey results are generalizable to Americans with glaucoma who met the survey entry criteria. Caregiver results are directional only, ie, the sample size [n=60] is too small to be generalizable to all glaucoma-patient caregivers in the United States.)
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Geriatric Assessments for Older Adult Cancer Patients: What’s Their Value?
New guidelines from the American Society of Clinical Oncology recommend geriatric assessments for all adults before the development of treatment plans. Read more »
Heart Disease in Postmenopausal Women
Risk factors associated with menopause, such as obesity and sedentary lifestyles, increase women’s risk of cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in American women. Read more »
Ketamine — Hope for Patients With Treatment-Resistant Depression
New hope for patients with treatment-resistant depression may come from ketamine, an injectable dissociative anesthetic that has rapid and robust antidepressant properties. Read more » |
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Preventing Hip Fractures
Designed to help prevent hip fractures, the Tango Belt is a real-time fall protection wearable device. The technology, contained in a hip belt, is capable of deploying an airbag protection when sensors detect the potential for a fall. Caregivers are notified via Wi-Fi about a fall risk. Learn more »
Improving Vision
Designed by vision scientists from UC Berkeley and Stanford and Johns Hopkins Universities, IrisVision is a headset that combines mobile virtual reality hardware and a customized Samsung smartphone that allows low-vision individuals to see better and regain independence. It helps patients with a variety of conditions including macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, and glaucoma. Learn more » |
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Automated Digital Test Helps Detect Alzheimer’s Earlier
A pharmaceutical firm, Johnson & Johnson Innovation, and Medopad, a health care technology company, teamed to develop software that allows for remote testing of the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease. As soon as the technology is clinically validated, Forbes reports, its developers believe it can screen for Alzheimer’s at scale and allow clinicians to provide better care, resulting in better outcomes.
Why Are Some More Resistant to Alzheimer’s Disease?
Researchers are interested in why certain individuals with gene mutations associated with early-onset Alzheimer’s don’t develop symptoms until late in life, beyond the point at which they’d be expected to emerge. The Harvard Gazette reports that research published in Nature Medicine may lead to insights that can contribute to risk reduction for Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia.
The Next Voice You Hear
Emily Silverman, MD, writes in The New York Times about the move from an outdated electronic heath records system to the latest and greatest system soon to be widely implemented and muses on the foibles of the system.
New Study Suggests Women With Dense Breast Tissue May Benefit From Regular MRIs
A new study cautions that women with extremely dense breast tissue should get MRI screenings in addition to routine mammograms. Time reports on the study by Carla van Gils, PhD, a professor of clinical epidemiology of cancer at the University Medical Center of Utrecht, which studied more than 40,000 women with extremely dense breast tissue who were randomized into mammography alone and mammography and MRI groups and found that the former had twice the cancer rate of the latter. Adding MRI screenings led to earlier detection of tumors missed by mammograms. |
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