Older adults who avoid surgery because they fear general anesthesia will cause thinking declines need not worry, researchers report. A study of more than 1,000 patients who had heart surgery at four hospitals in Canada found that the amount of anesthesia used did not affect the risk of delirium after surgery. Post-surgery delirium may contribute to cognitive decline. How much anesthesia to give requires striking a delicate balance between too much and little. About 1 in 1,000 people wake up during their surgery, unable to move or signal their pain or distress. This can cause lifelong emotional trauma. “The good news is that the distressing complication of intraoperative awareness can be more reliably prevented,” said senior study author Michael Avidan, head of anesthesiology at Washington University School of Medicine. “Anesthesia clinicians can now confidently administer a sufficient dose of general anesthesia, providing a margin of safety for unconsciousness, without being concerned that this will put their patients’ brains at risk.” The new study adds to other “compelling” evidence that higher doses are not toxic to the brain, he added in a university news release. Previous smaller studies have suggested that too much anesthesia could cause postoperative delirium, which affects about 25% of older patients after major surgery. Its hallmarks include confusion, altered attention, paranoia, memory loss, hallucinations and delusions.  Though it is usually short-lived, this…  read on >  read on >

When there’s pain, pressure and pounding in your head, you might think the worst: Is it a brain tumor? Probably not, a Penn State physician assures.  Headache in and of itself is not a common sign of a tumor, because the brain itself doesn’t feel pain, said Dr. John Messmer, medical director at Penn State Health Medical Group. Though a headache might develop if a tumor is causing spinal fluid to build up, most of the time a headache is a headache. But not all headaches are the same.  You might have a migraine, a tension headache or a cluster headache — and each responds to different treatment. Here’s how to recognize each type and how to cope: Migraines are severe, pulsating headaches that may happen regularly, sometimes several times a month. They can be preceded by an aura, in which people have blind spots, or see shimmering spots or flashes of light. Migraines usually affect one side of the head or behind the eye and may last for days. Routine physical activity makes them worse.  Some migraines are accompanied by stroke-like symptoms, including numbness on one side of the body. These tend to occur in older people who had migraines when they were younger. “If it’s properly diagnosed as a migraine, there are several levels of intervention,” Messmer said in a Penn State news…  read on >  read on >

If tropical lands like South America or Africa are your travel destinations, getting yourself protected against yellow fever before you go is imperative, an expert says. What is yellow fever? According to  Dr. Jill Weatherhead, an assistant professor of tropical medicine and infectious diseases at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, it’s a viral illness endemic to tropical zones that’s spread to humans through the bites of infected mosquitos. Most folks bitten and infected may not show any symptoms. But others will develop symptoms within a week of the bite. “These symptoms include fever, chills, headaches, back pain and myalgias [aches],” Weatherhead said in a Baylor news release. In some people, “the virus can progress to severe disease,” she added. “One in seven people will develop severe yellow fever, which includes high fever or jaundice, which is the yellowing of the skin that is associated with inflammation of the liver or hemorrhagic shock where bleeding can happen.”  For folks unfortunate to develop full-blown disease, there’s very little doctors can do since no known antiviral is effective against the illness. The best that can be done is what health care workers call “supportive care.” There are two key methods of preventing yellow fever before it starts, however: Vaccination and mosquito avoidance. “A yellow fever vaccine is available and recommended for all persons nine months and older traveling to…  read on >  read on >

Only about half of people with a sexually transmitted disease would tell a new partner about their infection before having sex, a new review finds. Fear prevents many people from revealing their STD to a new sex partner, according to the combined results of 32 previous studies. Other reasons include believing that condom use provides enough protection; the lack of obligation that comes with a one-night stand; or anxiety over losing the relationship. Some study participants even described “passing” as uninfected so they wouldn’t have to reveal their STD, results show. “Individuals diagnosed with STIs [sexually transmitted infections] may be in vulnerable positions and may face difficult decisions, the outcomes of which can be harmful to their identity and relationships. The process of disclosure is complex,” concluded the research team led by Kayley McMahan, a sexual health coordinator with the University of Tennessee. About 1 in 5 people in the United States have an STD at any one time, with more than 26 million incidents reported to health services, researchers said in background notes. Chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis have been at record levels and continue to rise, they added.  People who disclosed their illness to their partner did so out of love, a sense of moral obligation, or feelings of having a strong, close relationship, researchers found. “One of the key factors that determines whether…  read on >  read on >

If your child is among the youngest in their school grade, it’s more likely they’ll be mistakenly identified by teachers as having ADHD or autism, a new study confirms. “Adults involved in identifying or raising concerns over a child’s behavior — such as parents and teachers — may be inadvertently misattributing relative immaturity as symptoms of ADHD,” explained senior study author Kapil Sayal, a professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Nottingham, in England. “The child’s age in relation to their classmates [their ‘relative’ age] needs to considered when making this kind of diagnosis,” he said in a university news release. It’s a phenomenon that’s been picked up on in prior studies. This time, Sayal’s team conducted what’s known as a “meta-analysis,” combining the collected data on the issue from 32 studies conducted worldwide. They found that “children who are younger relative to their peers within the same school year are 38% more likely to receive an ADHD diagnosis and 28% more likely to be prescribed ADHD medications,” compared to older kids in the same class. When it came to autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), similar trends emerged. In two “high-quality” studies conducted in Taiwan, “children who were the youngest in their school year were more likely to be diagnosed with ASD than those who were the eldest,” Sayal and colleagues found. The…  read on >  read on >

Severe forms of autism could be linked to overgrowth of the brain’s outer layer that starts while a baby is in the womb, a new study finds. Toddlers with autism have cerebral cortexes — often referred to as “gray matter” — that are roughly 40% larger than those of children without the developmental disorder, researchers reported recently in the journal Molecular Autism. Further, the larger a toddler’s gray matter size, the more severe their social and language symptoms were later in life. “The bigger the brain, the better isn’t necessarily true,” said researcher Alysson Muotri, director of the stem cell program at the University of California, San Diego. Results show that in “toddlers with profound autism, there are more cells and sometimes more neurons — and that’s not always for the best,” Muotri noted in a university news release. One continuing mystery of autism is why some children with the disorder experience profound symptoms like developmental delay, social struggles and an inability to speak, while others have milder symptoms that improve with time. For this study, researchers used blood stem cells from 10 toddlers ages 1 through 4 to create brain cortical organoids — 3D models of the children’s cortexes, created though laboratory cell cultures. The gray matter of the cortex lines the outside of the brain, researchers said. It holds tens of billions of…  read on >  read on >