Bottom line, despite the economic downturn employees are still getting injured everyday and employers are still struggling to get them back to work successfully. When treating physicians issue light duty restrictions employers must have a Return to Work Plan that can be implemented immediately. The biggest challenge for employers is navigating the workers' compensation system, accessing the right information and creating proactive policies that link human resources with workers' compensation best practices. http://www.ReturntoWorkResources.com guides employers from ...

The August 2010 DePuy ASR recall affects over 90,000 hip implant patients - of which approximately 12,000 will likely have to undergo additional, painful and expensive hip replacement surgeries - not to mention medical monitoring for heavy metal toxicity issues due to metal debris entering the blood stream. DePuy ASR Hip Recall Announced After 13% Failure Rate Released The August 2010 DePuy ASR recall of the ASR XL Acetabular System and the ASR Hip Resurfacing System will affect over 90,000 hip implant patients around the world. DePuy only recalled these metal-on-metal ...

A recent article on the Men's Health website told a cautionary tale of a man named Tom Zehmisch. He died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 46. Only four months earlier, he had participated in a national swim meet and he died while participating in a triathlon. To look at Tom, you would not have thought him to be at risk of obstructive sleep apnea. The stereotypical obstructive sleep apnea patient is more like Don Dillard who, in 2007 had reached a staggering 401 pounds on the scale. He had been hospitalized four times for serious health problems including congestive ...

Madison Who's Who has officially launched the bulletin board feature on their website, www.madisonwhoswho.com. This impressive new feature is another added benefit to the members of Madison Who's Who business networking directory. The Madison Who's Who bulletin board feature is secure and easy to use with password entry and available exclusively to Madison Who's Who members only. It offers a powerful search facility along with multiple forums and categories. Madison Who's Who offers the best in business networking; this new feature is an extension of the Madison Who's ...

Noonan syndrome is a relatively common genetic disorder characterized by short stature, unique facial features, and heart defects. About 10%-15% of affected individuals have mutations in their SOS1 gene. A team of researchers, led by Raju Kucherlapati, at Harvard Medical School, Boston, has now generated mice expressing a Sos1 mutation associated with Noonan syndrome and used them to identify potential therapeutic targets for the treatment of individuals with Noonan syndrome. Specifically, the team found that the Ras/MAPK signaling pathway as well as the Rac and Stat3 proteins ...

EDITOR'S PICK: New potential drug combination for most common form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma Diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is the most common form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Although 60% of patients can be cured with a currently available combination therapy, this leaves a substantial number of patients without a cure. However, a team of researchers, led by Ari Melnick, at Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, has now identified a potential new combinatorial therapy for DLBCL. Specifically, the team found that combining an inhibitor of the protein BCL6 with either ...

Editor's note: Images to accompany this story are available at http://www.news.wisc.edu/newsphotos/carbon-cycle.html END ...

Reston, Va.— Results from a study published in the November issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine (JNM) show that powerful imaging techniques––positron emission tomography (PET) fused with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)––are helping researchers better understand the long-term functional and structural changes that take place after traumatic brain injury (TBI). "The results provide new insights into the progressive nature of the brain changes occurring following TBI, demonstrating that changes in brain structure and function after TBI are dynamic and continue to progress ...

ST. PAUL, Minn. – The American Academy of Neurology (AAN) is calling for any athlete who is suspected of having a concussion to be removed from play until the athlete is evaluated by a physician with training in the evaluation and management of sports concussion. The request is one of five recommendations from a new position statement approved by the AAN's Board of Directors that targets policymakers with authority over determining the policy procedures for when an athlete suffers from concussion while participating in a sporting activity. "While the majority of ...

SALT LAKE CITY—University of Utah (U of U) medical researchers have uncovered a wiring diagram that shows how the brain pays attention to visual, cognitive, sensory, and motor cues. The research provides a critical foundation for the study of abnormalities in attention that can be seen in many brain disorders such as autism, schizophrenia, and attention deficit disorder. The study appears Nov. 1, 2010, online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). "This study is the first of its kind to show how the brain switches attention from one feature to ...

In many areas of the world, including California's Mojave Desert, rain is a precious and rare resource. To encourage rainfall, scientists use "cloud seeding," a weather modification process designed to increase precipitation amounts by dispersing chemicals into the clouds. But research now reveals that the common practice of cloud seeding with materials such as silver iodide and frozen carbon dioxide may not be as effective as it had been hoped. In the most comprehensive reassessment of the effects of cloud seeding over the past fifty years, new findings from Prof. Pinhas ...

STANFORD, Calif. — A newly approved drug may be a cost-effective way to prevent stroke in patients with an irregular heart rhythm — and may also offer patients better health outcomes than the commonly prescribed, but potentially risky, blood thinner warfarin. That's according to a new analysis from researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System. "Dabigatran is the first new drug in 20 years to be approved for stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation, and we wanted to see if it could be cost-effective even ...

STANFORD, Calif. — An approach that attempted to prevent childhood obesity in African-American girls produced beneficial changes in cholesterol, diabetes risk and depressive symptoms but had little effect on youths' weight, in a trial conducted by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. Although researchers had hoped to see a change in body mass index across the entire study population from the program — culturally-tailored dance classes and screen time reduction for African-American girls in low-income neighborhoods ...

Most depressed teens who receive treatment appear to recover, but the condition recurs in almost half of adolescent patients and even more often among females, according to a report posted online today that will appear in the March 2011 print issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Major depressive disorder affects approximately 5.9 percent of teen females and 4.6 percent of teen males, according to background information in the article. "It is associated with functional impairment, risk of suicide and risk of adult depression," the ...

An Australian study suggests that children who are sexually abused, especially if it involves penetration, appear to be at higher risk for developing schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, according to a report in the November issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Previous studies have established that abused children are more likely to develop depression, anxiety, substance abuse, borderline personality disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder and suicidal behavior, according to background information in the article. "The possibility ...

Veterans diagnosed with any psychiatric illness appear to have an elevated risk of suicide, and men with bipolar disorder and women with substance abuse disorders may have a particularly high risk, according to a report in the November issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. An estimated 90 percent to 98 percent of individuals who die from suicide meet criteria for at least one psychiatric disorder, according to background information in the article. "Prior research has consistently found associations between psychiatric conditions ...

High-calorie beverages not allowed by national guidelines are still available in a majority of U.S. elementary schools, according to a report posted online today that will appear in the March 2011 print issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. "The U.S. Department of Agriculture National School Lunch Program has a broad reach, serving meals to more than 31 million students in 2008," the authors write as background information in the article. However, "different regulations address meals and competitive foods," such as those ...

Male worms plug females after copulation as a form of 'gift', rather than to prevent them from mating again, as had previously been thought. Researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access journal Frontiers in Zoology found that plugged females mated just as often and were just as attractive as those who were unplugged, and that plugging ultimately improved female fitness. Nadine Timmermeyer worked with a team of researchers from the University of Tuebingen, Germany, to investigate the effects of copulatory plugs in the nematode worm Caenorhabditis remanei. She said, ...

People who are physically fit and active have fewer and milder colds, indicates research published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. The US researchers base their findings on 1,000 adults up to the age of 85 whose respiratory health was tracked for 12 weeks during the autumn and winter of 2008. Six out of 10 participants were women, and four out of 10 were aged between 18 and 39; 40% were middle aged, and one in four were aged 60 and older. All the participants reported back on how frequently they took aerobic exercise and rated their fitness levels ...

Imposing statutory limits on the salt content of processed foods could be 20 times more effective than voluntary curbs by industry, finds research published online in the journal Heart. The Australian researchers assessed the public health benefits and cost effectiveness of different strategies for reducing dietary salt content - a factor known to have a key role in the increased risk of heart disease and stroke. They looked at the current Australian 'Tick' programme. This enables food manufacturers to buy an endorsed logo for use on product packaging to achieve higher ...

A tool, widely regarded as the "gold standard," but often deemed to be too expensive, cuts needless referrals for suspected glaucoma, indicates preliminary research published online in the British Journal of Ophthalmology. Since the publication of new guidance from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), new referrals for suspected glaucoma have increased substantially. And this is likely to go on rising as the population ages, warn the authors. If left untreated, glaucoma causes blindness. This sharp rise in referrals is putting a strain on ...

LAWRENCE, Kan. – A little self-awareness can help people struggling in the world of relationships, says Jeffrey Hall, assistant professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas. Hall recently completed a study into styles of flirting among dating adults, surveying more than 5,100 people regarding their methods of communicating romantic interest. "Knowing something about the way you communicate attraction says something about challenges you might have had in your past dating life," Hall said. "Hopefully, this awareness can help people avoid those mistakes ...

Rural teens appear more likely than their urban peers to use prescription drugs for non-medical purposes, according to a report posted online today that will appear in the March 2011 print issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. The non-medical use of prescription drugs is common among U.S. adolescents, with about one in eight reporting lifetime non-medical use of prescription opioids, according to background information in the article. "During adolescence, non-medical prescription drug use is particularly problematic ...

Poor, minority and special needs children are more likely to be affected by toothache, according to a report in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. "Toothache is a source of chronic and often severe pain that interferes with a child's ability to play, eat and pay attention in school," the authors write as background information in the study. The authors also note that "the most common cause of toothache is dental decay" and the "process of dental decay is one that optimally would be prevented or, at the ...

More than one-fourth of children hospitalized with 2009 novel influenza A(H1N1) in California required intensive care or died, according to a report in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. A second report assessing children in Israel found that those with underlying illnesses and infants born prematurely were at greater risk of severe complications following 2009 novel influenza A(H1N1) infection. "Following the detection of the first cases of 2009 novel influenza A(H1N1) in California in April 2009, the ...