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IMAGE: Colin Walsh, MD, MA, assistant professor of Biomedical Informatics, Medicine and Psychiatry, Vanderbilt University Medical Center. view more
Credit: Vanderbilt University Medical Center
A machine learning algorithm that predicts suicide attempt recently underwent a prospective trial at the institution where it was developed, Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Over the 11 consecutive months concluding in April 2020, predictions ran silently in the background as adult patients were seen at VUMC. The algorithm, dubbed the Vanderbilt Suicide Attempt and Ideation Likelihood (VSAIL) model, uses routine information from electronic health records (EHRs) to calculate 30-day risk of return visits for suicide attempt, and, by extension, suicidal ideation.
Omitting ethnic minorities from the vaccine priority list is putting these groups at a significantly higher risk of COVID-19 illness and death. Public health doctors, writing in a commentary published by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, say that the UK s colour-blind vaccination model disregards the unequal impact of the pandemic on minority ethnic groups and is worsening the racial inequalities that the pandemic and the wider governmental and societal response have harshly exposed and amplified.
Because Purim in 2020 caused hundreds of Orthodox Jews to become ill or hospitalized with COVID-19 in the earliest stages of the pandemic, we realized that these patients who were convalescing when others were just coming in contact with SARS-CoV-2 for the first time were an important population to study to better understand why and how the virus spreads through a culturally bonded community, says study co-senior author Avi Rosenberg, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. We felt with that insight, health care practitioners could develop strategies based on scientific evidence to limit the spread of COVID-19 while still enabling important religious and other cultural practices to go on, he explains.
When the operating room is busy, 20 per cent more hip replacement patients died within 60 days after the operation, a study of Norwegian patients shows.
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Every three seconds, a new case of dementia is diagnosed somewhere in the world. The term encompasses a group of neurodegenerative diseases that have no cure and which affect memory, cognitive abilities and behaviour, and includes Alzheimer s disease. According to World Health Organization (WHO) data, it is estimated that dementia affects about 50 million people around the world. With increasing life expectancy and an ageing population, this figure is expected to increase to 75 million by 2030 and 132 million by 2050.
Dementias cause disability and dependence, they have an enormous impact on those who suffer them and their caregivers, and raise considerable challenges for the sustainability of social protection systems. Although a number of drug therapies are available for treating the symptoms, psychosocial interventions help slow down the rate of progression and counteract the aspects that impair the quality of life of the sufferers and their caregivers. Through the eHea