News by Subject Medicine & Health

Infants born prematurely face challenges in developing the complex, interrelated skills needed for effective feeding. An assessment called the Early Feeding Skills (EFS) checklist is a valid and reliable tool for evaluating the emergence of feeding skills in preterm infants, reports a study in Advances in Neonatal Care, official journal of the National Association of Neonatal Nurses. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.

A series of illustrations and charts designed as decision aids for parents of children with minor head injuries helped them communicate with emergency medicine physicians and make informed decisions about their child's care.

More than 450,000 children visit emergency departments every year because of head trauma and many will undergo head computed tomography (CT) imaging, although few scans will show evidence of traumatic brain injury. Efforts have been made to avoid unnecessary CT imaging in children and to reduce radiation exposure. An information tool to help parents decide about care for their children with minor head trauma didn't reduce the rate of CT imaging in emergency departments in this randomized clinical trial.

The time until a first attempt at defibrillation in pediatric patients who experienced cardiac arrest in the hospital wasn't associated with survival or other main outcomes. This is in contrast to children who have a cardiac arrest outside of the hospital setting, or adult patients in or out of the hospital, where worse outcomes are associated with defibrillation delayed more than two minutes.

A Loyola Medicine study demonstrates that an educational curriculum for resident physicians improves their emotional intelligence, which may help protect against burnout. Physician burnout has reached alarming levels, with one study finding it affects at least half of all doctors.

A head-to-head trial comparing the decades-old steroid, prednisone, and a promising new steroid, vamorolone, finds both act on the same key set of genetic pathways involved in controlling inflammation, indicates a new study led by Children's National Health System researchers. However, the study suggests the new investigational steroid doesn't activate several additional pathways involved in prednisone's bevy of undesirable side effects.

A rapid genetic test developed by Newcastle researchers has identified the first four patients with inherited mutations in a new disease gene, a building block of complex I called NDUFA6.