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Being rushed into hospital care can be an emotional experience. So, what a surgeon says to trauma or emergency surgery patients plays a role in how satisfied they are after their operations, a new study finds. Researchers analyzed data from nearly 187,000 patients discharged from 168 HCA Healthcare hospitals in the United States in 2018 and 2019. HCA Healthcare is a publicly traded company based in Nashville, Tenn. The goal was to determine how several factors — including interactions with nurses and doctors — contributed to satisfaction ratings in five patient categories: trauma; elective surgery; emergency surgery; emergency medical; and elective medical. “Nurses uniformly come out as the most highly ranked, and that’s because they provide wonderful bedside care and have so much contact with the patients,” said study author Dr. Samir Fakhry, vice president of HCA Healthcare’s Center for Trauma and Acute Care Surgery Research. “But in the case of the trauma patients, and to a lesser degree the emergency surgical patients, physician communication ranked as the number two factor,” Fakhry added. Among trauma and emergency surgery patients, physician communication had a significant impact on overall satisfaction after nursing factors were accounted for, representing a 12% increase in the former and an 8.6% increase in the latter group, the researchers found. Among elective surgery and medical admission patients, physician communication didn’t even rank as… read on > read on >

Combining drugs with driving is a potentially deadly but all too common combination in the United States, according to a new report. University of Cincinnati (UC) researchers found that almost 9% of adults reported driving under the influence of alcohol. Marijuana use among drivers was more than 4%, while many adults also use both pot and other drugs in combination with alcohol. The most commonly reported drugs used while driving were marijuana and opioids, the study found. “We need to focus our efforts on drugged driving, in addition to drunk driving, because drugged driving causes such a high level of fatalities,” said study lead author Andrew Yockey. He’s a doctoral student in UC’s College of Education, Criminal Justice and Human Services. With lawful marijuana use rising in the United States, there are concerns about road safety, the researchers said in a university news release. Keith King, director of the UC Center for Prevention Science, said, “There is serious concern as to how legalization will affect driving behaviors among adults.” King called for more research to evaluate the impact of legalization. The team also emphasized education at an early age and identifying culturally relevant prevention strategies. For the study, the researchers used sample data from the 2016 to 2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The investigators found that men were significantly more likely than… read on > read on >

Stress levels are on the rise as Americans grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic and bitter political divisions, a new American Psychological Association (APA) survey shows. On a 10-point scale where 1 means little to no stress and 10 means a great amount, adults’ average stress level clocked in at 5.6, according to the Stress in America: January 2021 Stress Snapshot. That’s higher than levels reported in APA surveys since April. Eighty-four percent of respondents in the latest survey reported feeling at least one emotion associated with prolonged stress in the prior two weeks. The most common were anxiety (47%), sadness (44%) and anger (39%). And two-thirds said they feel overwhelmed by the number of issues facing the nation. Significant sources of reported stress included the future of the United States (81%); the coronavirus pandemic (80%); and political unrest (74%). Two-thirds said the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was a significant source of stress. Among other key findings: 84% of respondents say the nation has serious societal issues that need to be addressed and 9 in 10 hope that there will be a move toward unity. “Nearly a year into the pandemic, prolonged stress persists at elevated levels for many Americans. As we work to address stressors as a nation, from unemployment to education, we can’t ignore the mental health consequences of this global… read on > read on >

Dr. Lisa Iezzoni is all too familiar with the discrimination that patients who have a disability can face: Having lived with multiple sclerosis for more than four decades and now in a wheelchair, she has also studied health care experiences and outcomes for people with disabilities for more than 20 years. But her new survey on doctors’ attitudes towards disabled patients still surprised her — not for the attitudes the survey uncovered, but how widespread those attitudes were. “I did expect that there would be a lot of physicians who viewed quality of life of people with disabilities worse than that of other people,” said Iezzoni, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston. “I just didn’t expect it to be over 80%. That’s most physicians. That was a bit surprising.” In her study, she surveyed 714 doctors with practices in many different specialties across the United States. A majority of physicians surveyed (82.4%) believed that people with significant disabilities had worse quality of life than people without disabilities. Just under 41% of physicians felt very confident in their ability to provide the same quality of care to patients with disabilities as they did for other patients. “You would think that if they’re caring for these patients, that they would feel confident in their ability to care for them equitably,” Iezzoni said. About… read on > read on >

College football players suffer more concussions and head hits in practice than they do actually playing the game, a new study suggests. Across five seasons of football, 72% of concussions and 67% of head impacts incurred by players on six National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I teams happened during practice rather than on game day, researchers found. The incidence of concussion and head impacts also were disproportionately higher in the preseason than the regular season, said lead researcher Michael McCrea, director of the Brain Injury Research Program at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. “Our data suggest modifying preseason training activities and football practice throughout the season could lead to a substantial reduction in overall concussion incidence and head impact exposure,” McCrea said. The findings were published Feb. 1 in the journal JAMA Neurology. While these specific findings are new, experts and coaches have known for years that practice is at least as dangerous as actual play when it comes to head trauma, said Dr. Robert Cantu, medical director and director of clinical research at the Cantu Concussion Center at Emerson Hospital in Concord, Mass. That’s why the National Football League agreed in 2015 to dramatically reduce full-contact practices in its collective bargaining agreement with the NFL Players Association, said Cantu, who wrote an editorial accompanying the new study. The NFL now has… read on > read on >

The great outdoors can soothe the soul, but new research suggests that working outside might also guard against breast cancer. The study wasn’t designed to say how working outside affects chances of developing breast cancer, but vitamin D exposure may be the driving force, the researchers suggested. “The main hypothesis is that sun exposure through vitamin D production may decrease the risk of breast cancer after age 50,” said study author Julie Elbaek Pedersen, of the Danish Cancer Society Research Center in Copenhagen. Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to a host of diseases and conditions including breast cancer. Vitamin D is often called the “sunshine vitamin” because your body produces it when exposed to the sun’s ultraviolet B rays. The body mainly makes vitamin D in the middle of the working day so outdoor workers are exposed to considerably higher levels than those who work indoors, Pedersen said. “Women who work outdoors may regularly be exposed to sunlight and thereby have more sufficient long-term levels of vitamin D compared with women working indoors,” she said. You don’t need much sun exposure to make adequate amounts of D. “Maximum daily vitamin D levels are secured after only minutes in the sun in the summertime, and more time will not increase the levels further,” Pedersen said. In recent years, the push to wear sunscreen and avoid… read on > read on >

Living in a noisy neighborhood with less green space negatively affects teens’ sleep, which may lead to poorer memory and thinking skills, according to a pair of studies. In a study on residential environment, researchers found that as noise levels steadily increased, so too did the time needed for teens to fall asleep. They also didn’t sleep as long as kids in quieter, greener neighborhoods. But as the average number of trees rose, teens dozed off sooner and slept longer. “For adolescents, the harms of insufficient sleep are wide-ranging and include impaired cognition [thinking skills] and engagement in antisocial behavior,” said study author Stephanie Mayne. She’s assistant professor of pediatrics at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. As such, it critical to identify ways to prevent and treat the problem, Mayne said in a news release from the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. “Our findings suggest that neighborhood noise and green space may be important targets for interventions,” Mayne said. In Mayne’s study, 110 teens wore watches that measured their rest and activity for 14 days each in both eighth and ninth grades. The researchers mapped their home addresses to determine sound levels, tree cover, housing and population density. The second study showed how sleep loss associated with reduced time in bed affected the brain waves of… read on > read on >

WEDNESDAY, Feb.3, 2021A majority of dermatology patients are happy with telehealth appointments in place of in-person office visits, a new study finds. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many medical specialties to move from in-person to online appointments, but dermatology had already seen increased use of telehealth visits over the last decade, according to the George Washington (GW) University researchers. “Teledermatology boasts a number of benefits, including increased access to care, cost savings for patients, convenience, and, with the current pandemic, avoids physical contact,” study co-author Samuel Yeroushalmi said in a university news release. He’s a third-year medical student at the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences in Washington, D.C. However, virtual appointments do have potential issues, including privacy concerns, appropriate image acquisition and adequate health care provider training, the study authors noted. To assess patient satisfaction with teledermatology appointments, the researchers distributed an online survey to dermatology patients at the GW Medical Faculty Associates. Nearly half (47%) of the respondents said they’d had a previous appointment canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and almost 18% were new patients with no previous in-office appointment. Patients said they liked that telehealth visits were time-efficient, didn’t require transportation and maintained social distancing. Reasons they didn’t like virtual appointments included lack of physical touch and feeling they received an inadequate assessment. When asked if they would recommend telehealth… read on > read on >

If pandemic-related stress has you grinding your teeth, you’re not alone. Dentists say tooth-grinding and jaw-clenching are on the rise due to the many challenges stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’ve been seeing an increase in the number of patients looking for appointments to replace broken mouth guards” that have been cracked or chewed through, said Dr. Leopoldo Correa, director of the Craniofacial Pain Center at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine, in Boston. Grinding and clenching (“bruxism”) can cause cracked teeth, fillings and crowns; migraines and other headaches; face, neck and jaw pain. “You may resolve a stressful situation in the short term, or it may continue and develop into chronic stress,” which can result in symptoms such as fatigue, increased muscle tension, depression, an inability to fall or stay asleep, and bruxism, Correa said. “According to some data, the amount of force we create when clenching the jaw is around 300 pounds,” he said in a school news release. Five to 10 minutes of jaw and face exercise each day can help you cope, Correa suggested. Here’s what to do: Keep your teeth apart, bend your fingers and place your knuckles on each side of your face. Give yourself a self-massage, pushing down. If possible, briefly apply heat or an ice pack to the side of the face before doing the stretching exercise.… read on > read on >

It only takes a second. Experts are warning that unsecured televisions, bedroom dressers and other heavy furniture can crush, maim and even kill curious children, and the issue may only worsen during stay-at-home lockdowns. According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), between 2000 and 2019, 451 kids aged 17 years and younger died in tip-over accidents, the CPSC said. And an average 11,100 per year were treated in hospital emergency rooms for tip-over-related injuries from 2017 through 2019. “Tip-over injuries and deaths are among the most tragic we see,” Robert Adler, the agency’s acting chairman, said in a CPSC news release. “Parents and caregivers don’t suspect that the bookcase or dresser in their child’s room can be hazardous — it’s a truly hidden hazard. And these tip-overs happen so fast; it’s literally in the blink of an eye, often with a parent close by.” About eight in 10 tip-over deaths involved kids under age 6, and 75% of fatalities for children involved a TV, according to the new report. With millions of Americans preparing to watch the Super Bowl on Feb. 7, now is the time to anchor all TVs in your home, the agency said. This short CPSC video shows how quickly these tragedies can occur: A CPSC survey last year found that many parents and caregivers considered anchoring furniture and TVs… read on > read on >

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Bedside Manner Even More Important for Hospital Patients Admitted Via the ER

Drugged Driving a Growing Threat on America’s Roads

Poll Finds Americans Highly Stressed by Politics, Pandemic

Too Many U.S. Doctors Biased Against Patients With Disabilities: Study

Concussions More Likely in Practice Than Play for College Football Players

Could Working Outside Help Prevent Breast Cancer?

How Your Neighborhood Can Hamper Your Teen’s Sleep

Most Dermatology Patients Like ‘Telehealth’ Visits: Survey

Tense Times Mean More Tooth-Grinding, Dentists Warn

Anchor It! Toppling TVs, Furniture Can Injure and Kill Kids