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Language in Facebook posts may help identify diabetes and mental health conditions

Language in Facebook posts may help identify conditions such as diabetes, anxiety, depression and psychosis in patients, according to a study from Penn Medicine and Stony Brook University researchers.

18 Jun 2019

Common traits keep many patients with knee cartilage issues from participating in clinical trials

Some of the most common traits among patients with cartilage issues in the knee are excluding them from participating in clinical trials because the trial outcomes might not yield the optimum results for new methods of cartilage regeneration, according to a Penn Medicine study published in Regenerative Medicine.

16 Jun 2019

New case study about cannabis hyperemesis syndrome in palliative care

The medical use of cannabis is growing. Medical marijuana may improve symptoms including pain and anorexia. While it may improve nausea and vomiting, it can rarely cause a hyperemesis syndrome with chronic use.

11 Jun 2019

Mini-biographies help clinicians connect with patients

Bob Hall was recovering from yet another surgery in March 2014 when a volunteer walked into his hospital room. It had been a rocky recovery since his lung transplant three months earlier at the William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital in Madison, Wis.

10 Jun 2019

Early plans can improve quality of life for hospice patients

Careful documentation of a hospice patient's end-of-life wishes - and prominently noting that information in health records early - could prevent unwanted hospitalizations and medical interventions, a new study suggests.

6 Jun 2019

Analysis: Why Alexa’s bedside manner is bad for health care

Amazon has opened a new health care frontier: Now Alexa can be used to transmit patient data. Using this new feature — which Amazon labeled as a "skill" — a company named Livongo will allow diabetes patients — which it calls "members" — to use the device to "query their last blood sugar reading, blood sugar measurement trends, and receive insights and Health Nudges that are personalized to them."

4 Jun 2019

Childhood adversity can impact brain development and behavior

Growing up in poverty and experiencing traumatic events like a bad accident or sexual assault can impact brain development and behavior in children and young adults.

31 May 2019

Seeing disfigured faces evokes negative behavioral and brain reactions

People with attractive faces are often seen as more trustworthy, socially competent, better adjusted, and more capable in school and work.

30 May 2019

Researchers find new molecular targets for fighting autoimmunity

BRCA--the family of DNA-repair proteins associated with breast, ovarian prostate, and pancreatic cancers--interacts with a multipart, molecular complex that is also responsible for regulating the immune system.

30 May 2019

A final comfort: ‘Palliative transport’ brings dying children home

Anne Brescia sat beside her only child, Anthony, as he lay unconscious in a hospital bed at age 16. Just a few months before, he was competing in a swim meet; now cancer was destroying his brain. Brescia couldn’t save her son. But she was determined to bring him home.

28 May 2019

Newly approved gene therapy for SMA is based on delivery vehicle discovered by Penn expert

James Wilson, MD, PhD, recalls being struck by the devastating toll of rare diseases as a young physician in the 1980s. He set out on a path to correct the genes that cause these conditions, including spinal muscle atrophy (SMA), the most common inherited fatal disease in infants.

25 May 2019

New pain management program sends 92% cancer surgery patients home with no opioids

A specialized pain management program for patients who underwent robotic surgery for urologic cancers resulted in just eight percent going home with narcotics after discharge, compared to 100 percent who would have received them without this enhanced recovery protocol.

23 May 2019

Opioid prescriptions drop sharply among state workers

The agency that manages health care for California's massive state workforce is reporting a major reduction in opioid prescriptions, reflecting a national trend of physicians cutting back on the addictive drugs.

21 May 2019

Penn Medicine launches free, 'self-service' AI tool for data analytics

The Penn Medicine Institute for Biomedical Informatics has launched a free, open-source automated machine learning system for data analysis that is designed for anyone to use, from a high school student looking to gain insight on their baseball team's statistics, to trained researchers looking for associations between cancer and environmental factors.

16 May 2019

‘Living their values’: Palliative care power couple faces cancer at home

In the 18 years that Kathy Brandt and Kim Acquaviva have been together, death has been a constant companion.

15 May 2019

Sales of sugary drinks drop by 38% after beverage tax in Philadelphia

One year after Philadelphia passed its beverage tax, sales of sugary and artificially sweetened beverages dropped by 38 percent in chain food retailers, according to Penn Medicine researchers who conducted one of the largest studies examining the impacts of a beverage tax.

14 May 2019