Posts for Tag: Health Care

Smart Medicine


First time I've seen a report that places the arrival of sensor-enabled medicines to such a short time frame—one to two years. The lead from this Wall Street Journal report points out
Taking medication haphazardly—skipping doses, lapsing between refills or taking pills beyond their expiration date—has been linked to health complications and hundreds of millions of wasted dollars for insurers and hospitals.
I wonder how these developers are planning for people who take more than one medicine. None of the devices shown here seem to be readily adaptable to my regimen.

Here's Why I bought a Fitbit

This study is reported at Medical News Today with the headline "Stroke Survivors Benefit From Regular, Brisk Outdoor Walks" and contains the following

Previous studies have already suggested that exercise that doesn't put undue stresson the body can help stroke survivors increase their quality of life, but these have mainly studied the effect of indoor activities such as walking on a treadmill or using an exercise bike."Little is known about the effects of community-based walking programs in persons with chronic stroke," write the authors.

So lead author and physical therapy lecturer Carron Gordon and colleagues decided to carry out a randomized controlled trial to investigate effects of aerobic training, namely walking outdoors, on stroke survivors.

Early results indicate I'm a long way from the 6000-steps-a-week recommendation I saw in another journal, but I can at least make sure I'm active.

Face-to-face

Frederic Brussat posts an interesting article pointing out that face-to-face communications can improve your health. Brussat's conclusion—put down your devices and extend your hand to someone for the benefit of your health—and the accompanying post somehow seem more compelling to me than the many posts about the Internet Sabbath I've already seen. Even though research is cited here, this is more urgent and more personal than the somewhat more abstract arguments I've looked at before.