Millions of people spend hours looking at screens every day, straining their eyes. An ophthalmologist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston offers some tips for easing both eye strain and headaches. “We focus on one object, especially an object that’s up close, like a computer screen or phone, for prolonged periods of time, and we don’t give our eye muscles time to rest,” said Dr. Masih Ahmed, an assistant professor of ophthalmology at Baylor. “If you don’t give your muscles enough time to rest, that can cause some tension of those muscles,” Ahmed explained. Dry eye can also cause eye strain, as you subconsciously blink less when reading, watching TV or working on the computer. Follow the 20-20-20 rule when working in front of a screen, Ahmed suggested. Take a 20-second break every 20 minutes to focus on something 20 feet away to give your eyes a rest. And use artificial tears if you have dry eyes. Prolonged eyestrain can give you a headache. If you wear corrective lenses, make sure you have the proper prescription, he advised. If you have an astigmatism, you won’t see as sharply. This might require more focus and energy, leading to eye strain. “You might squint more trying to get that pinhole effect for things to look clearer. Astigmatism can also make things look distorted in shape if…  read on >  read on >

You might be talking to a real person while on Zoom, but it’s just not the same to your brain as a face-to-face conversation. New research using sophisticated imaging tools found that the brain activity of people engaged in conversation looks different from that of two people conversing on Zoom. “In this study we find that the social systems of the human brain are more active during real live in-person encounters than on Zoom,” said senior author Joy Hirsch. She is a professor of psychiatry, comparative medicine and neuroscience at Yale University in New Haven, Conn. “Zoom appears to be an impoverished social communication system relative to in-person conditions,” she explained in a Yale news release. Zoom, of course, is a popular videoconferencing platform. Most previous research using imaging tools to track brain activity involved single individuals, rather than pairs in natural settings. The researchers noted that human brains are finely tuned to process facial cues during in-person encounters. In this study, which recorded neural system responses in the two types of conversations, increased neural signaling among participants in face-to-face conversations was associated with increased gaze time and wider pupils. This suggested increased arousal in the two brains. Participants in in-person interactions also had increased brain wave activity characteristic of enhanced face-processing ability, the study authors said. The investigators also found more coordinated neural activity…  read on >  read on >

Millions of older Americans may be unaware they have memory and thinking impairments — mostly because their doctors aren’t diagnosing them, new research suggests. After analyzing Medicare data covering 40 million older Americans, researchers found that only a small percentage of expected cases of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) were actually diagnosed. The upshot was that more than 7 million cases went undetected. Mild cognitive impairment refers to problems with memory, judgment, language and other mental skills that are not disabling, but go beyond the occasional slips that are expected with age. MCI may turn up as forgotten appointments, regularly misplacing things, trouble following the plot of a book or movie, or difficulty navigating well-known places. Some older adults with MCI eventually develop Alzheimer’s — around 10% per year, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. But more often, MCI has other, often reversible causes, said Dr. Saket Saxena, a geriatrician at the Cleveland Clinic who was not involved in the new research. Those causes run the gamut, Saxena said — including medication side effects, low thyroid hormone, depression, untreated sleep apnea, uncontrolled health conditions like diabetes, mobility limitations and social isolation. “It is not a foregone conclusion that you’re going to develop dementia,” said senior study author Soeren Mattke, director of the Brain Health Observatory at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. And the fact that MCI has…  read on >  read on >

Toos electric scooters are a fire hazard and people should stop using them, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) warned Monday. The Toos Elite 60-volt electric scooters, also marketed under the name Zooz, were sold exclusively at Toos Urban Ride stores in New York and online at the Toos website. Two people recently died in an apartment fire that local fire officials determined was caused by the lithium-ion battery in a Toos Elite 60-volt scooter, the CPSC said in a news release. One of the victims of the fire, which happened April 10 in New York City, was 7, the CPSC said. The scooter that caused that fire was being charged by a 48-volt charger also sold by Toos. The CPSC said the scooter has not been certified by an accredited laboratory to the UL safety standard. UL Solutions issued a public notice concerning these 48-volt chargers because they are marked with unauthorized UL certification. Consumers should stop using the scooters, regardless of the charger used. The business, Toos Urban Ride, has refused to recall the scooters, the CPSC said. The company has said that it disagrees with the commission’s warning, noting the wrong-volt charger, 48-volt instead of 60-volt, was used to charge the scooter. Toos asserts that the CPSC technical staff evaluated a Toos 60-volt scooter and “did not identify any apparent defects…  read on >  read on >

More than 60,000 gun safes have been recalled following the death of a 12-year-old boy and dozens of reports that unauthorized people can open the Fortress Safe devices. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said a programming flaw allows unauthorized people into the biometric safe. The youth died in Nevada after he opened and allegedly accessed a gun stored inside. He suffered a “lethal gunshot wound to the head” in January 2022, according to lawsuit documents obtained by the New York Times. The boy’s father bought the safe in 2021 at a Scheels store in Nevada, the news report said. The safe uses fingerprint technology. Consumers can think they’ve set the biometric lock, allowing access only by an authorized person, but the safe remains in the “default to open” mode, the CPSC said. This allows unauthorized users, including children, to access firearms in the safe. The CPSC said there have been 39 reports of safes accessed by unpaired fingerprints. People who have these safes should immediately stop using the biometric feature, remove the batteries and only use the key, the CPSC advised. You should contact Illinois-based Fortress Safe for instructions on disabling the biometric feature. The company is also offering a free replacement safe. The recalled gun safes include portable lock boxes, personal safes, pistol vaults and gun cabinets with brand names Fortress, Cabela’s, Gettysburg…  read on >  read on >

MONDAY, Oct. 23, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Lots of vaccine disinformation spread during the pandemic, and doctors worried that may have given some parents pause about not only the risks of the COVID shot, but of childhood vaccines as well. Now, new research puts that worry to rest. “We did not see a significant increase in parents who are hesitant toward routine childhood vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to before,” said study author Dr. David Higgins, a research fellow at Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora. For the study, his team analyzed survey data from more than 3,500 parents in Colorado from April 2018 through August 2020 on many health topics, including their attitudes about vaccines. Overall, 20% of parents were “vaccine-hesitant” toward childhood vaccines, but these feelings didn’t change from the pre-pandemic to post-pandemic periods. “The bottom line is that most parents do not hesitate to vaccinate their children to protect them from life-threatening diseases,” Higgins said. Parents who are unsure about vaccines should bring their questions and concerns to their pediatrician or health care provider. There were differences in attitudes toward childhood vaccines by race, preferred language, insurance status and education level. Black and Asian parents were more likely to be hesitant, compared to white parents. The study was published online Oct. 23 in the journal Pediatrics. Noel Brewer is a professor of health behavior at…  read on >  read on >