Day: April 30, 2025

Categories : Cardiovascular Disease IT in HealthcareTags :

A New Way of Visualising BP Data to Better Manage Hypertension

On By ModernMedia
Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is a graph worth? For doctors trying to determine whether a patient’s blood pressure is within normal range, the answer may depend on the type of graph they’re looking at.

A new study from the University of Missouri highlights how different graph formats can affect clinical decision-making. Because blood pressure fluctuates moment to moment, day to day, it can be tricky for doctors to accurately assess it.

“Sometimes a patient’s blood pressure is high at the doctor’s office but normal at home, a condition called white coat hypertension,” said Victoria Shaffer, a psychology professor in the College of Arts and Science and lead author of the study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. “There are some estimates that 10% to 20% of the high blood pressure that gets diagnosed in the clinic is actually controlled – it’s just white coat hypertension – and if you take those same people’s blood pressure at home, it is really controlled.”

In the study, Shaffer and the team showed 57 doctors how a hypothetical patient’s blood pressure data would change over time using two different types of graphs. One raw graph showed the actual numbers, which displayed peaks and valleys, while the other graph was a new visual tool they created: a smoothed graph that averages out fluctuations in data.  

When the blood pressure of the patient was under control but had a lot of fluctuation, the doctors were more likely to accurately assess the patient’s health using the new smoothed graph compared to the raw graph.

“Raw data can be visually noisy and hard to interpret because it is easy to get distracted by outliers in the data,” Shaffer said. “At the end of the day, patients and their doctors just want to know if blood pressure is under control, and this new smoothed graph can be an additional tool to make it easier and faster for busy doctors to accurately assess that.”

This proof-of-concept study is the foundation for Shaffer’s ongoing research with Richelle Koopman, a professor in the School of Medicine, which includes working with Vanderbilt University and Oregon Health & Science University to determine whether the new smoothed graph can one day be shown to patients taking their own blood pressure at home. The research team is working to get the technology integrated with HIPAA-compliant electronic health records that patients and their care team have access to.

This could alleviate pressure on the health care system by potentially reducing the need for in-person visits when blood pressure is under control, reducing the risk for false positives that may lead to over-treatment.

 “There are some people who are being over-treated with unnecessary blood pressure medication that can make them dizzy and lower their heart rate,” Shaffer said. “This is particularly risky for older adults who are more at risk for falling. Hopefully, this work can help identify those who are being over-treated.”

The findings were not particularly surprising to Shaffer.

“As a psychologist, I know that, as humans, we have these biases that underlie a lot of our judgments and decisions,” Shaffer said. “We tend to be visually drawn to extreme cases and perceive extreme cases as threats. It’s hard to ignore, whether you’re a patient or a provider. We are all humans.”

Given the increasing popularity of health informatics and smart wearable devices that track vital signs, the smoothed graphs could one day be applied to interpreting other health metrics.

“We have access to all this data now like never before, but how do we make use of it in a meaningful way, so we are not constantly overwhelming people?” Shaffer said. “With better visualisation tools, we can give people better context for their health information and help them take action when needed.”

Source: EurekAlert!

Categories : IT in HealthcareTags :

Taking Your Medical Practice to the Next Level

On By ModernMedia

As a healthcare professional, you’re used to taking care of the health of your patients. But what about the health of your practice? If you’re not sure, that’s understandable – after all, doctors and practice managers have enough on their plate without worrying about finding opportunities for more revenue. Luckily, there’s a new, easy to use tool from a provider with a strong track record of developing actionable, real-world solutions for the South African market.

A control room for your practice

“Think of the new Engage Mx report as the control room for your practice,” says Dr Benji Ozynski, who developed the platform in partnership with Altron HealthTech. “With Engage Mx, everything you need to know about your practice is in one place with one easy to use interface.”

“Engage Mx on Elixir Live has been in the market for a couple of years and already proven popular with doctors eager to embrace the advantages of data-driven healthcare,” says Ntombizanele Gxamza, Head of Product Strategy at Altron HealthTech. “The new Engage Mx report functionality on the platform brings data about the financial health of the practice and most importantly the health of a practice’s population of patients to a patient-centred approach. At a glance, the report makes it possible to see a range of statistics, presented in the form of easy to read graphics. It can be accessed on any device, making it convenient for even the busiest doctor.”

When using the new Engage Mx report, healthcare professionals can see:

  • Revenue by week
  • Number of patients seen, compared month by month and year by year
  • Busiest days, months, and seasons
  • Patient profiles by age group
  • Gaps in care by age group
  • Trends in types of conditions being treated

Using this kind of information, doctors are able to build up a clear picture of the health of their practice, and where there could be opportunities for improvement. In just one pilot project with a GP with a busy practice, the Engage Mx report uncovered over R400 000 lost due to missed patient health reviews. The doctor was able to see which age groups were most likely to need intervention – and prevention – before health problems became more serious.

Better health for patients, healthcare professionals and practices

The report helps healthcare professionals answer a range of questions such as:

  • When is the best time for me to take leave?
  • What kind of services could I add to the practice offering?
  • Are there growing patient needs that my practice could be fulfilling?
  • Where and how can I innovate my offering?
  • How do I grow my practice sustainably?
  • What kind of resources am I going to need in order to grow?
  • When and how should I be communicating with my patients?
  • Could my practice benefit from running marketing campaigns?
  •  

Because the data is so clearly visualised and easily accessible, busy healthcare providers don’t need to take hours out of their professional or personal time to make sense of the numbers.

Ultimately, the beauty of the new tool is that better health outcomes for patients can also improve the financial health of the practice – and also the time and administrative burden on doctors, because it can help reduce the hours currently spent on doing these tasks manually. Adds Dr Ozynski: “Doctors who’ve already used the Engage Mx report have told me that it makes it easier to plan their leave, for example, or look for new opportunities to expand services, while making their patients feel valued.”

Data-driven healthcare is perhaps the most exciting global trend in healthcare today. Practical, user-friendly tools like Engage Mx make it possible for South African doctors to take what they do best – bring the human touch to healthcare, while enabling them to future-proof their practices in an increasingly complex clinical and regulatory environment. A financially healthy practice is a sustainable practice, and that’s good for everyone.

Learn more: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0jd6vb0

Categories : Neurodegenerative DiseasesTags :

Rare Congenital Paralysis Disease is Driven by Immune Cells

On By ModernMedia

Study confirmed early-stage brain inflammation in mice

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Patients with spastic paraplegia type 15 develop movement disorders during adolescence that may ultimately require the use of a wheelchair. In the early stages of this rare hereditary disease the brain appears to play a major role by over-activating the immune system, as shown by a recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. The study was led by researchers at the University of Bonn and the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE). These findings could also be relevant for Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative conditions.

Spastic paraplegia type 15 is characterised by the progressive loss of neurons in the central nervous system that are responsible for controlling movement. Initial symptoms typically appear in late childhood, manifesting first in the legs in the form of uncontrollable twitching and paralysis. “What exactly causes these neurons to die is still not fully understood,” explains Professor Elvira Mass from the LIMES Institute at the University of Bonn. “In this study, we investigated the potential role of the immune system in this process.”

Professor Mass and Dr. Marc Beyer from the DZNE, together with Professor Ralf Stumm from University Hospital Jena, served as the study’s lead investigators, bringing together extensive experience to study this rare hereditary disease. The condition is triggered by a defect in the so-called SPG15 gene, which contains instructions for building a protein. But due to that defect, the protein cannot be produced.

Severe inflammation preceding the onset of cell damage

In their experiments the researchers used mice that shared the same genetic defect. “There was existing evidence that inflammatory processes in the brain play a role in development of the disease,” Dr Beyer explains, “So we studied microglia, which are the immune cells of the brain, and also whether immune cells in bone marrow are additionally involved in the inflammatory response.”

White blood cells form in bone marrow and can reach the brain via the bloodstream. Microglia, on the other hand, have already migrated to the brain during embryonic development. The researchers succeeded in specifically labelling the cells derived from bone marrow with a fluorescent dye. “This makes them distinguishable from microglia under a microscope,” Mass elaborates. “This allowed us to study the interaction between these two cell populations at the individual cell level.”

Analyses show that the microglia cells undergo dramatic changes in very early stages of the disease, long before any neuronal damage is identifiable. The cells are thereby altered into “disease-associated microglia.” These release messenger substances which, among other things, call for the help of cytotoxic “killer” T cells from the bone marrow that destroy other cells. The two cell types communicate with each other via signaling molecules, and their interplay drives the inflammatory process.

New therapeutic possibilities

“Our data suggest that the early stages of the disease are driven not by the loss of motor neurons but rather by the severe, early immune response,” Mass relates, “and that finding implies new therapeutic possibilities. Immune suppression drugs could potentially help slow progression of the disease.”

Inflammatory processes in the brain play an important role in Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. Spastic paraplegia is caused by entirely different conditions than dementia, but a very similar disruption of the immune system could be involved in dementia.

Source: University of Bonn

Categories : Cardiovascular Disease Regenerative MedicineTags :

This Injected Polymer Boosts Healing after a Heart Attack

On By ModernMedia
Human heart. Credit: Scientific Animations CC4.0

Researchers have developed a new therapy that can be injected intravenously right after a heart attack to promote healing and prevent heart failure. The therapy both prompts the immune system to encourage tissue repair and promotes survival of heart muscle cells after a heart attack. Researchers tested the therapy in rats and showed that it is effective up to five weeks after injection.

The research team, led by bioengineers at the University of California San Diego and chemists at Northwestern University, published their findings in Advanced Materials.

“Preventing heart failure after a heart attack is still a major unmet clinical need,” said Karen Christman, one of the study’s corresponding authors and a professor of bioengineering at UC San Diego. “The goal of this therapy is to intervene very soon after someone suffers a heart attack to keep them from ultimately going into heart failure.”

Side by side comparison of heart muscle cells with and without treatment. Damage to the cells is shown in blue. On the left, tissue has been injected with saline and the damaged area is considerably larger. On the right, the issue was treated with the PLP platform and the damaged area is significantly smaller.

The therapy could have broader applications, said Nathan Gianneschi, the paper’s other corresponding author and a professor in the Department of Chemistry at Northwestern.

“This therapeutic platform has tremendous potential for several diseases, including everything from macular degeneration to multiple sclerosis and kidney disease,” Gianneschi said.

The platform aims to block the interaction of two key proteins that intervene in the body’s response to stress and inflammation. When the protein Nrf2 is activated, cells resist the degradation brought on by inflammation. But KEAP1 binds with Nrf2 to degrade it in turn. After a heart attack, this process of degradation has to be stopped so that tissues can health better.

The protein-like polymer, or PLP, platform is made from a polymer that mimics Nrf2. Once injected intravenously, it finds KEAP1 and binds to it, preventing it from binding to the actual Nrf2 protein and degrading it.

Researchers injected rat models after a heart attack with either the PLP platform or a saline solution. The team was blinded to which animals received the polymer or saline. After five weeks, the rodents underwent MRIs while sedated. The animals injected with the polymer showed better cardiac function and significantly more healing in their heart muscle tissue. Other tests also showed that genes that promote healing of tissues were expressed more.

Researchers describe the study as a proof of concept. Before moving on to tests in larger mammals, they want to optimize the design and dosage, and conduct further analysis.

“Proteins are the molecular machines that drive all essential cellular function, and dysregulated intracellular protein-protein interactions are the cause of many human diseases,” Gianneschi said. “Existing drug modalities are either unable to penetrate cells or cannot effectively engage these large disease target domains. We are looking at these challenges through a new lens.”

The therapy method was developed by Gianneschi, while he was a faculty member at UC San Diego, where he is now an adjunct faculty. He continued working on the technology at Northwestern.

Source: University of California – San Diego