Samsung to introduce flexible displays in devices next year

This can well be game changer. Think about an ereader or your medical record a flexible display. Go one step further. With imprinted circuitry think about a iPad on a flexible display.
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Samsung to introduce flexible displays in devices next year
arstechnica.com | by Casey Johnston

Samsung’s 2012 lineup of gadgets will include ones with flexible screens, the company announced during an investor call today. The company’s smartphones will likely get them first, possibly in the first half of the year.

Samsung isn’t the first company to pursue flexible gadget parts, as Sony showed a flexible display in 2009 at the Consumer Electronics Show. But Samsung may be the first major device manufacturer to get them to market, and with its new dominant market position, flexible displays stand to get a wide release.

The company’s pursuit of flexing screens stems from its purchase of Liquivista, a company that uses electrowetting technology to make screens that flex, but are still bright and low power. During the call, Robert Yi, vice president of investor relations, said that the company plans to introduce the displays “sometime in 2012, hopefully the earlier part. The application will probably start from the handset side.” Tablets and other devices will get the technology later.

On the one hand, flexible displays mean that dropping your phone or tablet directly onto their screens may no longer be the disaster it currently is. However, Samsung has said little about how the quality of the displays will compare to the AMOLED screens the company usually favors in its higher-end devices, or even the oft-denigrated PenTile displays.The company also didn’t indicate whether the displays will only appear in all its devices, or only a subset.


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Study Points to Potential Treatment for Sickle Cell Disease

Study Points to Potential Treatment for Sickle Cell Disease

Scientists corrected sickle cell disease in adult laboratory mice by activating production of a special blood protein normally produced only before birth. The approach may lead to new treatments for people with the blood disorder.


Sickle cell disease is caused by an abnormality in hemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen throughout the body. About 100,000 Americans live with sickle cell disease. It is most prevalent in people of African, Hispanic, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern descent.

People with sickle cell disease have 2 copies of an altered hemoglobin gene. The defective protein that results changes shape after releasing its oxygen. This causes red blood cells to become stiff, misshapen and sticky. These sickle-shaped cells slow blood flow to tissues, resulting in organ damage.

There is no widely available cure for sickle cell disease. Bone marrow transplants have cured some patients. However, the treatment poses several risks, and most patients don’t have relatives who can donate compatible, healthy bone marrow.

Past studies have shown that an elevated level of a form of hemoglobin called fetal hemoglobin reduces the tendency of sickle hemoglobin to change the shape of red blood cells. Production of fetal hemoglobin normally predominates before birth but turns off as adult hemoglobin takes over. A drug called hydroxyurea can boost production of fetal hemoglobin and reduce the complications of sickle cell disease. However, not all patients respond well to this medication, and adverse side effects are a concern.

A research team led by Dr. Stuart Orkin set out to explore a more targeted approach to raising fetal hemoglobin by blocking production of a protein called BCL11A. The team—at Harvard Medical School, Children’s Hospital of Boston and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boston—had previously demonstrated that BCL11A suppresses the production of fetal hemoglobin soon after birth. Their work was funded by NIH’s National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), National Cancer Institute (NCI) and National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). The study appeared in the October 13, 2011, online edition of Science.

The scientists used a genetic technique to inactivate the gene for BCL11A in mice with sickle cell disease. Without BCL11A, the mice continued to produce fetal hemoglobin. Sickled cells were absent in the mice, as were their disease symptoms. Other aspects of blood production appeared to be unaffected.

“This study provides the first proof of principle that BCL11A might serve as a target for treating sickle cell disease and related blood disorders such as the thalassemias,” Orkin says. More research is needed, however, before such therapies can be tested in people.



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Location:Georgetown,United States

Antibody offers hope for multiple sclerosis treatment

Antibody offers hope for multiple sclerosis treatment : Nature News
nature.com

Promising phase III trial paves the way for alemtuzumab approval.

Duncan Graham-Rowe

ultiple sclerosis attacks the central nervous system, and there are few effective treatments.
The first drug to show signs of not just halting multiple sclerosis (MS), but actually reversing the nerve damage caused by the condition, has taken a significant step towards clinical approval.

The results of a phase III trial, presented on 22 October at the 5th Joint Triennial Congress of the European and Americas Committees for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis, in Amsterdam, found that 78% of patients treated with the monoclonal antibody alemtuzumab remained free from relapse after two years — and half the relapse rate of one of the standard therapies, interferon β-1a (marketed as Rebif, among other names).

However, alemtuzumab did not perform quite as well as it had in earlier trials. There was some evidence that it had reversed damage to nerves, but the result was not statistically significant, says Alasdair Coles, a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge, UK, and the UK chief investigator of the Comparison ofAlemtuzumab and Rebif Efficacy in Multiple Sclerosis (CARE-MS) I trial.

Coles told the meeting that magnetic resonance imaging showed that subjects taking alemtuzumab had also lost less brain volume than those taking Rebif, a proxy measure for overall tissue damage. “Alemtuzumab has eliminated the loss of brain tissue,” he says.

Just 8% of patients taking alemtuzumab experienced a worsening in disability according to standard measures, in comparison with 11% taking Rebif. There was no statistical difference between the two groups, but Coles puts this down to Rebif performing better than expected. “The patients recruited in this trial showed very little worsening of disability,” he says.

Significant promise?

Ludwig Kappos, chair of neurology at the University Hospital of Basel in Switzerland, who has been involved in several MS drug trials, says he is disappointed that there was no significant effect on disability progression. “This is in contrast to what the phase II study has shown,” he says. But he expects this effect to show up in another ongoing phase III trial: CARE-MS II, the preliminary results of which should be available later this year.

There is no cure for MS, a condition caused by the body’s own immune system attacking the myelin sheath that normally protects the nerves and speeds up neurological signals in the brain and spinal cord. At the moment, the only treatments are drugs such as interferon β-1a and glatiramer acetate (Copaxone), both of which merely slow the progression of the disease.

But alemtuzumab has the potential to reverse it: the drug tackles the mechanisms that cause damage to cells by effectively resetting the immune system. It targets the CD52 glycoproteins on the surface of mature immune cells, or lymphocytes, depleting levels of the aggressive T and B cells without affecting other lymphocytes. For reasons still not quite understood, when the lymphocytes repopulate, those involved in attacking the myelin sheath seem less likely to recover.

Immune response

Although the efficacy of alemtuzumab is impressive, performance was never really the issue, says Les Funtleyder, a health-care strategist at trading firm Miller Tabak + Co in New York. “With alemtuzumab the issue is safety,” he says.

The drug brings an increased risk of autoimmune diseases. In the trial, 18.1% of people taking alemtuzumab experienced thyroid-related autoimmune responses, and 0.8% developed the potentially life-threatening condition immune thrombocytopenia. But, says Coles, these findings mirror those from earlier trials, and it is possible to identify those patients most at risk by screening for certain biomarkers. “What’s reassuring with this trial is that there are no new safety issues,” he says.

Some patients and clinicians who have already got wind of the alemtuzumab’s efficacy seem unwilling to wait for clinical approval, says Coles. The drug is already approved in many countries as a treatment for some forms of leukaemia and lymphoma, under the name Campath. In some countries, including the United Kingdom, it is legal to prescribe any drug for off-label use, and so patients have already started using it to treat MS, he says.

But it is not just MS patients who have been holding their breath over this drug, says Funtleyder. Earlier this year, Genzyme, a drug company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that makes alemtuzumab and a range of other therapies, was acquired by Paris-based drug-maker Sanofi. The value of the deal for Genzyme’s shareholders is contingent on the success of alemtuzumab in treating MS; the first milestone is for the drug to gain approval from the US Food and Drug Administration before the end of March 2014.


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Location:Georgetown,United States

Yoga May Help Low Back Pain

Yoga May Help Low Back Pain, Mental Effects? Not So Much - WSJ.com
online.wsj.com
By JENNIFER CORBETT DOOREN


Low back pain sufferers benefitted from taking yoga or stretching classes, a new study found.

A study believed to be the largest of its kind suggests that the physical aspects of yoga are effective at relieving low back pain, but it didn’t find any evidence that yoga provided broader mental benefits.

The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, was published online Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine. It was lead by researchers at Seattle’s Group Health Research Institute.

Smaller studies in the past have suggested that yoga, which involves stretching exercises along with a mental component of deep breathing and other relaxation techniques, was moderately effective at easing symptoms of chronic lower back pain.

It was thought the combination of stretching and relaxation relieved back pain, according to previous studies.

But the current study found both yoga and stretching were equally as effective, suggesting the benefits of yoga are attributable to the physical benefits of stretching and not to its mental components, said the study’s lead author, Karen J. Sherman, senior investigator at Group Health Research Institute.

It involved 228 adults with chronic, low back pain that didn’t have a specific cause such as a spinal disc problem. They were divided into three groups to compare two types of classes with patients using a self-care book that provided instruction on exercises and stretches to help treat lower pain.

The people who took classes may have been more likely to complete the exercises. More than 80% of the participants in the self-care group reported reading some of the book and doing some exercises, but time spent on the exercises was typically less than the class groups. “They need that class format to get started,” Ms. Sherman said.

About 50% of patients in the yoga or stretching classes reported feeling much better or completely better in relation to their back pain and function compared to about 20% of patients in the self-care group, said Ms. Sherman.

Twice as many patients in the yoga and stretching groups reported decreased medication use during the study compared to the self-care group.

About 90 patients each were randomly assigned to attend 75-minute weekly yoga classes or weekly stretching classes for 12 weeks. The people who attended the classes were also instructed to practice for 20 minutes a day at home in between classes.

Another group involved 45 patients who were given a 200-page book with advice on exercising, lifestyle modifications and managing flare-ups.

The type of yoga used in the study was viniyoga, a style of hatha yoga, that adapts exercises for each person’s physical condition. The stretching classes involved 15 stretches targeting the lower back and legs were which held for a full minute repeated for a total of 52 minutes of stretching.

The study measured changes in back pain and functional status at the beginning of the study and at six weeks, 12 weeks and six months.

Write to Jennifer Corbett-Dooren at jennifer.corbett@dowjones.com


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Location:Klondike Dr,Georgetown,United States

Advance Directives Cut Unwanted Hospitalizations

Informed Patient: Advance Directives Cut Unwanted Hospitalizations - Health Blog - WSJ blogs.wsj.com

Informed Patient: Advance Directives Cut Unwanted Hospitalizations

By Laura Landro

Frail elderly patients who have advance directives through a program to communicate treatment preferences have fewer unwanted hospitalizations, according to a new study published online in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

The program uses a form known as POLST — Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment — which allows patients to document their preferences about certain treatments. Signed by both patient and doctor, the form spells out choices including whether a patient wants to be on a breathing machine or feeding tube.

The program launched in Oregon almost 20 years ago, but remains controversial to some groups that feel life-sustaining treatment should always be administered.

Efforts to expand use of the forms, currently in use in about 14 states, with about 20 programs in development, were the subject of an Informed Patient column earlier this year.

The new study was designed to assess whether treatments provided were consistent with what was documented on the POLST form. A review of the forms for 870 living and deceased patients found that orders about resuscitation were honored 98% of the time, and orders to limit medical interventions were honored 91.1% of the time.

When patients identify treatments they don’t want, the forms direct clinicians to focus on enhancing comfort if needed. Near the end of life, 24% of POLST orders were rewritten to reflect a change of preferences, primarily for comfort-focused care.

Susan Tolle, director of the Center for Ethics in Health Care at Oregon Health & Science University, and one of the study’s authors, tells the Health Blog that the study found that in cases where wishes were not respected, “there was a good reason most of the time.”

For example, patients were sent to the hospital if they fell and broke a hip because surgical procedures were required to control pain. “We of course would set a fracture or sew up a wound,” Tolle says. “The wonderful news is that there isn’t a sense of patients refusing care and so they are neglected,” she adds. “Instead they are getting appropriate comfort measures when that is what is indicated.”

Tolle says the next step is changing the culture of health care, where end-of-life decision making is still a fraught issue and interventions may be standard procedure even in the frail and elderly. “It’s one thing to change the law to make it possible to use POLST effectively and another to have it offered to every patient in a nursing home or hospice care,” she says.

The POLST study adds to the growing debate over end of life care. Another recent study published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine found that health-care transitions — such as a move from one nursing home to another — in the last months of life can be burdensome and potentially of limited benefit for patients with advanced cognitive and functional impairment.

The study of 474,829 nursing home residents identified close to 20% had at least one such transition, including multiple hospitalizations in the last 90 days of life. Blacks, Hispanics and those without advance directives were at increased risk.

Physicians should embrace patient engagement

Physicians should embrace patient engagement Kent Bottles, MD The doctor/patient relationship is certainly changing and evolving. A term I hear a lot today is: “patient engagement/activation.” Why is this concept so important and what does it mean? What can physician executives do to make it easier for our patients to become engaged and activated? Judith Hibbard has pioneered the study of patient engagement, and she noted that one needs knowledge, skills, and emotional support to actively engage in one’s health care. She identified four behaviors associated with engagement and activation: 1. Self management 2. Collaboration with provider 3. Maintaining function/preventing declines 4. Access to appropriate and high quality care She also developed a Patient Activation Measure (PAM) tool to place individual patients on a 4 level scale of engagement and activation. The Center for Advancing Health defines engagement as “actions individuals must take to obtain the greatest benefit from health care services available to them,” and they expanded Hibbard’s work by identifying 43 engagement behaviors that can be grouped into ten categories. Patients who do not successfully engage in these behaviors will not receive optimal health care and will not realize all the benefits of the many scientific breakthroughs of 21st century medicine. Because of the economic environment, the increasing complexity of medical care, and health care reform, it is becoming more important for patients to take an active and knowledgeable role in their health care. The ten categories of the Engagement Behavior Framework are: 1. Find safe, decent care. 2. Communicate with health care professionals 3. Organize health care 4. Pay for health care 5. Make good treatment decisions 6. Participate in treatment 7. Promote health 8. Get preventive health care 9. Plan for the end of life 10. Seek health knowledge Recently Klick Pharma invited 19 health care activists from a wide variety of disease states to participate in a conversation about an ePatient Bill of Rights that would support patient engagement and activation. After four hours of conversation, this group reached consensus on the following key messages of such a bill of rights: 1. Shared access to my data 2. Attitude of collaboration and overall respect 3. The patient is the largest stakeholder 4. Transparency and authenticity across all areas 5. Voice of the patient is a legitimate (clinical) source 6. The right to efficient communication with providers who utilize the technology we need It is not easy for any one patient to follow all of the above suggestions from the three different groups advocating patient engagement/activation. The Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey reported that only 30% of older Americans possess the motivation and skills to actively engage in their health care. Hibbard found that 23% of those surveyed had embraced such behaviors in their health care, but they worried they would falter during a medical crisis. In her survey, 12% wanted to remain unengaged and 29% reported they did not have the knowledge to understand their treatment regimens. Researchers who have studied patient engagement/activation have found a positive relationship to health status outcomes. Beatrice Golomb and colleagues found patients on statin drugs were far more likely than doctors to initiate discussions of symptoms possibly related to the drugs. Annette O’Connor’s systematic review of the effects of shared decision-making technologies found a 23 percent reduction in surgical interventions among patients using them, with better functional status and satisfaction. David Mosen and colleagues documented that patients with high PAM scores were significantly more likely to perform self-management behaviors, use self-management services, and report high medication adherence. They were also ten times more likely to have high patient satisfaction scores and five times more likely to have high quality of life scores. Jessie Gruman has had cancer four times and is the founder and president of the Center for Advancing Health. Addressing an audience of health care providers, she recently said: As a savvy and confident patient who is flummoxed by so much of what takes place in health care, I am regularly surprised by how little you know about how little we patients know. You are immersed in the health culture. But we don’t live in your world. So we have no idea what you are talking about much of the time. One way to help us feel competent in such unfamiliar environments is to give us some guidance about what this place is and how it works. What are the rules? Experts in patient activation/engagement suggest that hospitals and medical practices provide each patient with a short guide that explains how best to be a patient in that unique setting. Such a handbook could be printed, a smartphone app, an email, on a website, or a poster prominently displayed in the waiting room. It is important that patients understand how to get after-hours and emergency care, how to make appointments, what accommodations (physical navigation, translation services) are available, what insurance documents should be brought to the office visit, how to get prescription refills, and many other basic kinds of information that often frustrate even motivated individuals. Another tool that can be individualized for each clinical setting is a written contract or pact that clearly sets out the roles and expectations of all involved in the doctor/patient relationship. Components of such a document might include that patients should tell their provider about all other visits to physicians and alternative healers and that providers will ask about such care and be willing to share information. Another part of such a contract might require the patient to prepare for each visit by writing down a list of concerns and questions and the provider to respond to the patient’s questions and answer questions in a manner that the patient can readily understand. Another suggestion is that hospitals and medical practices become much more open to new technologies. Many patients find patient social networking sites such as PatientsLikeMe, DiabetesMine, Inspire, Disaboom, and IMedix valuable sources of practical information about living with chronic disease. CureTogether is exploring ways that patients can conduct observational research about their condition that is quite helpful to newly diagnosed patients. Patients are going to continue to google their symptoms and try to diagnose themselves before visiting the physician. Smartphone apps like CareCoach.com can help patients prepare for their visits by listening to actual patient/doctor conversations, recording their office visit so they can go back over instructions and physician advice, and sharing their audio health record of the visit with members of their care team who are unable to accompany the patient to the visit. By providing guides, compacts, and information about new technologies, physician executives can send a powerful, positive message to their patients. Gruman believes such support communicates that we want our patients to be comfortable, to receive the best possible care, and that we are accountable for our services because we clearly spell out our commitments. Physician executives should embrace patient engagement/activation because it will help our patients get better clinical outcomes and because it is the right thing to do.

Stem cells used in advanced heart disease

In a medical breakthrough a man’s heart was saved through the use of a breakthrough medical technology. The man, John Christy, is the first person in the United States to undergo this procedure. The new procedure utilizes stem cells in helping repair the arteries all throughout a person’s body. Christy was suffering from coronary artery disease at a very advanced stage. What was done to him was to insert his own specific stem cells into his body during a CABG surgery. The stem cells are used to grow new blood vessels in the heart. This is a revolutionary procedure that can save millions of lives when it is further developed and become widely available.