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Too much screen time can lead to developmental delays in babies, researchers say. When 1-year-olds viewed screens for more than four hours a day, they had delays in communication and problem-solving skills when assessed at ages 2 and 4, according to a new study published Aug. 21 in JAMA Pediatrics. They also had delays in fine motor and social skills at age 2, though that gap was gone by age 4, researchers. It may not be the screens, but what they replace, a Yale expert said. Face-to-face interaction between a parent and child gives babies information about language and meaning through facial expressions, words, tone of voice and physical feedback, said David Lewkowicz, a developmental psychologist at the Yale Child Study Center in New Haven, Conn. “It doesn’t happen when you’re watching the screen,” Lewkowicz told the New York Times. For the study, Japanese researchers led by Ippei Takahashi of Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, asked nearly 7,100 parents of young children to answer questions about development and screen time. More screen time meant greater likelihood of seeing delays. About 4% of the babies in the study had four or more hours of daily screen time, while 18% had two to four. Most had less than two hours. Mothers of babies with high levels of screen time were more likely to be younger, first-time moms,… read on > read on >

When U.S. parents express their concerns about their school-aged children, social media use and the internet are at the top of the list. Mental health issues are another top worry, according to the University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health. “Parents still view problems directly impacting physical health, including unhealthy eating and obesity, as important children’s health issues, said pediatrician Dr. Susan Woolford, co-director of the poll. “But these have been overtaken by concerns about mental health, social media and screen time,” Woolford said in a Michigan Medicine news release. Two-thirds of parents surveyed reported that they are worried about children’s increased time on devices, including overall screen time and use of social media. Those were the No.1 and No.2 concerns on the list this year. “Children are using digital devices and social media at younger ages, and parents may struggle with how to appropriately monitor use to prevent negative impacts on safety, self-esteem, social connections and habits that may interfere with sleep and other areas of health,” Woolford said. Screen time became a growing concern for parents during the pandemic, previous reports have suggested. Woolford encourages parents to regularly evaluate their kids’ use of technology. Certain social media and device settings can also help protect kids. Mental and emotional health were among the other top concerns. The majority… read on > read on >

It seems obvious that texting and walking can be a dangerous duo, but now a new Australian study offers solid evidence of the dangers. Emergency room doctors Dr. Michael Levine and Dr. Matthew Harris, who were not involved in the study, weren’t surprised by the findings. “I think we’ve had, this summer, several people who either have been distracted while walking and have been hit by a car or been hit by a bicycle,” said Harris, from Northwell Health in New Hyde Park, N.Y. “I’ve definitely seen people stepping off curbs when they were not supposed to, not seeing cars come… because they were too busy looking at their phone when they should have realized where the sidewalk ended,” added Levine, from UCLA Health. “So, I’ve seen all different permutations of people getting injured from texting and walking across the street.” For the study, Australian researchers recruited 50 students from the University of New South Wales and had them go through four exercises. One was to text while sitting, another was to walk without texting, another was to have them walk and text, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,” and the last one was to have students walk and text the same message while going through a walkway specifically designed by one of the scientists to have tiles slip out of place.… read on > read on >

An investigation into a high number of cancers at a Montana nuclear missile base has led to the discovery of unsafe levels of a likely carcinogen. The hundreds of cancer cases appear to be connected to underground launch control centers at Malmstrom Air Force Base. Levels of PCBs, an oily or waxy substance that is considered a likely carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), were higher than the agency’s recommended threshold. The finding “is the first from an extensive sampling of active U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile bases to address specific cancer concerns raised by missile community members,” Air Force Global Strike Command said Monday in a news release. Gen. Thomas Bussiere, commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, has directed “immediate measures to begin the cleanup process for the affected facilities and mitigate exposure by our airmen and Guardians to potentially hazardous conditions.” At least nine current or former missileers at Malmstrom have been diagnosed with a rare blood cancer that uses the body’s lymph system to spread, according to a military briefing obtained by the Associated Press. A grassroots group of former missile launch officers and their surviving family members, the Torchlight Initiative, has said there are at least 268 people who served at the nuclear missile sites or their family members who have been diagnosed with cancer, blood diseases or other… read on > read on >

For years, older adults took a baby aspirin a day to help ward off a first-time heart attack or stroke. Now yet another study is showing the risks are not worth it for most. Specifically, researchers found the risk of brain bleeding while using low-dose aspirin outweighed any potential benefit against stroke for relatively healthy older adults — that is, those with no history of heart disease or stroke. In fact, among more than 19,000 older adults in the study, those who took daily low-dose aspirin for several years showed no reduction in their risk of an ischemic stroke (the kind caused by a blood clot). They did, however, have a 38% higher risk of bleeding in the brain, compared to study patients given placebo pills for comparison. Experts said the findings align with the latest recommendations on low-dose aspirin: Most people with no history of cardiovascular disease, including heart attack or stroke, should skip it. “What’s becoming clearer and clearer is that aspirin, for primary prevention, is not indicated for most people,” said Dr. Anum Saeed, a cardiologist who was not involved in the study. “Primary prevention” refers to prevention of first-time strokes or heart attacks. The new findings do not apply to people who have been prescribed aspirin because they already have a history of those conditions, said Saeed, an assistant professor at… read on > read on >

Many parents in the United States aren’t installing child car seats correctly, a new study finds. Errors in car seat installation are common, even for seats that have a 5-star rating for features like ease of use, researchers found. The study found that fewer errors were detected when parents installed seats that had higher ratings, but researchers recommend that parents seek out safety technicians to learn the proper techniques for seat installation. Child restraint systems cut the risk of crash injuries by 50% to 85%, but only if properly used, the researchers noted. “New parents often receive training on car seat installation before the baby is born,” said researcher Dr. Michelle Macy, an emergency medicine physician at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. “However, it would be beneficial for them to take advantage of the available resources after the child’s birth as well, especially during the transition from infant carrier to a rear-facing car seat, and then again when switching the seat to face forward,” she said in a hospital news release. For the study, Macy and her colleagues analyzed data from Safe Kids Illinois seat check records from 2015 through 2019. The most common errors were for seats installed with seat belts (70%) and the least common for recline angle (37%). One of the more common errors that were found around… read on > read on >

Getting older adults who are failing mentally to relinquish their car keys can be challenging. But those conversations are necessary, said researchers who found a majority of adults with cognitive impairment still get behind the wheel. Michigan Medicine researchers studied this issue in a South Texas community. They found that more than 600 adults over age 65 in Nueces County had cognitive assessment scores — scores of thinking and memory — that indicated a likelihood of impairment. Among them, more than 61% were current drivers. About one-third of their caregivers had concerns about the drivers’ abilities to safely navigate the roads. “It is likely appropriate that some with mild cognitive impairment are still driving, but for some it may not be,” said senior author Dr. Lewis Morgenstern, professor of neurology, neurosurgery and emergency medicine at University of Michigan Medical School. “Patients and caregivers should discuss these issues with their health care providers and consider on-the-road driving evaluations to ensure safety,” Morgenstern said in a school news release. About 1 in 9 Americans ages 65 and up lives with Alzheimer’s disease. That’s 6.7 million people. Millions more have related dementias. These conditions can affect neuropsychological and visual skills that reduce the ability to drive safely, the researchers pointed out. Dementia had medium to large effects on driving impairment, according to a 2017 review of motor vehicle… read on > read on >

ChatGPT may have some of the reasoning skills doctors need to diagnose and treat health problems, a pair of studies suggests — though no one is predicting that chatbots will replace humans in lab coats. In one study, researchers found that — with the right prompting — ChatGPT was on par with medical residents in writing up a patient history. That’s a summary of the course of a patient’s current health issue, from the initial symptoms or injury to the ongoing problems. Doctors use it in making diagnoses and coming up with a treatment plan. Recording a good history is more complicated than simply transcribing an interview with a patient. It requires an ability to synthesize information, extract the pertinent points and put it all together into a narrative, explained Dr. Ashwin Nayak, the lead researcher on the study. “It takes medical students and residents years to learn,” said Nayak, a clinical assistant professor of medicine at Stanford University, in California. Yet, his team found that ChatGPT was able to do it about as well as a group of medical residents (doctors in training). The catch was, the prompt had to be good enough: The chatbot’s performance was decidedly subpar when the prompt was short on detail. ChatGPT is driven by artificial intelligence (AI) technology that allows it to have human-like conversations — instantly generating… read on > read on >

Low doses of the eyedrops ophthalmologists use to dilate your pupils during an eye exam are not able to slow the progression of nearsightedness (myopia) in children, a new clinical trial has found. Atropine eyedrops at a concentration of 0.01% did not outperform placebo drops in slowing either myopia progression or elongation of the eye among children after two years of treatment, the study results show. The results contradict findings from other recent trials that showed a benefit from using low-dose atropine drops to arrest myopia, the researchers said. Stronger concentrations of atropine — 0.5% to 1% — have long been used by pediatric eye doctors to slow the progression of nearsightedness, the study authors said in background notes. However, such doses cause light sensitivity and blurry near vision when kids receive the drops nightly, the researchers said. Lower concentrations have fewer side effects, and so it was hoped that low-dose atropine would be effective. By 2030, it’s predicted that 39 million people in the United States will have myopia. By 2050, that number is expected to grow to 44 million in the United States and to 50% of the global population. The study enrolled 187 U.S. children between 5 to 12 years of age with low or moderate myopia. Low-dose atropine was randomly prescribed to 125 of the children, while 62 received placebo drops.… read on > read on >

Scientists have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) tool capable of deciphering a brain tumor’s genetic code in real time, during surgery — an advance they say could speed diagnosis and personalize patients’ treatment. The researchers trained the AI tool to recognize the different genetic features of gliomas, a group of tumors that constitute the most common form of brain cancer among adults. Not all gliomas are the same, however. Most people are diagnosed with one of three subtypes that each have different genetic features — and, critically, different degrees of aggressiveness and treatment options. Right now, doctors called pathologists can analyze gliomas for those genetic markers, in what’s known as molecular diagnosis. But the process takes days to weeks, said Dr. Kun-Hsing Yu, the senior researcher on the new study. In contrast, the AI tool his team is developing can enable molecular diagnosis in 10 to 15 minutes. That means it could be done during surgery, according to Yu, an assistant professor of biomedical informatics at Harvard Medical School, in Boston. The technology, called CHARM, also appears high on the accuracy scale. When Yu’s team put it to the test with glioma samples it had never “seen” before, the AI tool was 93% accurate in distinguishing the three different molecular subtypes. Being able to make such distinctions in the operating room is critical, Yu and… read on > read on >