Medical news from the Boston Marathon

Check out Boston.com’s live blog.

10 am
Boston police just made sweep of grandstand with their dogs, spectators were carefully and tightly shuffled out of key areas and credentials were being checked at every stop along the finish line. Front of the medical tent is completely covered with just one opening in the tarp allowing a peek inside. Volunteers just wait now with most of the prep work done.

Watch the race live on WBZ

Check out our Storify

WBUR on one-legged runner:

BOSTON — When one-legged runner Chris Mehmel, of East Sandwich, Mass., was training for the 2012 Boston Marathon, an act of kindness occurred that had him overcome with gratitude.

Mehmel, who has a right leg below-knee prosthesis as a result of a birth defect, was out running up the notorious Heartbreak Hill — an uphill area between the 20- and 21-mile marks of the Boston Marathon route — when he was approached by a man who had caught sight of both his prosthetic leg and his Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary training jersey

• Photo:  Wheelchair — aka mobility impaired —  racers

Metro West Daily on medical volunteers.

When runners cross the finish line at the 117th Boston Marathon on Monday, their work for the day will be done. But for the volunteers at the finish line medical tent, the work starts when the thousands of runners complete their 26.2-mile trek from Hopkinton to Boston.

 

According to the Boston Athletic Association, 1,300 medical personnel will provide care for runners this year. These include some local residents who will offer their medical expertise and make sure the runners get the help they may need.

 

“It is a lot of work, but it is a lot of fun,” said Jeanette Corsini, a Hopkinton resident and nurse at MetroWest Medical Center. “It is definitely rewarding. Certainly we get a lot of positive feedback from the runners. I don’t think any other marathon provides the care we do.”

Read more: http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/x935164262/Local-residents-provide-care-for-Boston-Marathon-runners#ixzz2QXnwmejr

Running teams

BMC 

BIDMC

UMass Med School

Newton Wellesley Hospital

More to come

What is the # for that? See the Healthcare Hashtag Project #health #boston

More wisdom from #ahcj13.

Check out the “Healthcare Hashtag Project.” 

Web 2.0 and health 2.0 are converging to become one of the most powerful shifts in health and human behavior in the last generation.  At its heart is the fact that patients are people, and that people are social.  They want to know their healthcare professional, and want to both seek the opinions of others and share their own opinion, actively seeking information and optioions.  In this context patients are rightfully taking ownership of their healthcare decisions via act

ns on the web. As we looked at this rapidly evolving new landscape we found a fractured market in terms of being able to meet the varied needs of healthcare professionals and broader healthcare community who are wishing to actively enter the online sphere.  With such a dynamic and digital environment, the need for technology solutions, strategic solutions, and solutions for content creation abound.  However, with such a diverse set of issues that each require specialized talent and technical know-how, we saw a profound need to simplify the process, to decrease the barriers to entry, and to enhance the ability of healthcare entities to effectively engage and spread their message

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From March 2013: Whose getting new NIH money in Massachusetts?

It may take a while for the full impact of sequestration to show up in the flow of NIH dollars to Massachusetts. Rep. Edward Markey, who is running to replace John Kerry in the Senate, is calling for the restoration of NIH funding. In the meantime, here’s a look at five of the 29 new projects funding in Massachusetts in March.
A NEW DEVICE FOR ELECTRICAL & CHEMICAL MODULATION OF PATHOLOGICAL NEURAL ACTIVITY
$1,127,687 Robert Langer, MIT
Intractable psychiatric disorders are severely debilitating; and the emerging understanding of their origins has identified the need for an advanced chronic implant to deliver electrical and chemical stimulation to attenuate pathological activity in neuralcircuits. This work combines biomaterials; device microfabrication and neuroscience to develop a cannula based device that can simultaneously deliver electrical and chemical stimulation. The device will be fabricated to achieve failsafe function; prolonged biocompatibility and its functionwill be validated in non-human primate models of psychiatric disorders.
NOVEL EPIGENOMIC BIOMARKERS OF PRENATAL RISK FACTORS; AND CHILDHOOD OBESITY$594,055 Andrea Baccarelli, Harvard
The dramatic rise in obesity rates is an alarming global health trend that consumes an ever increasing portion of our limited health care budgets. During childhood alone; excess weight causes an estimated $3 billion per year in direct medical costs. Because adult-life obesity has its roots in childhood; tackling childhood obesity may represent the most cost-effective strategy to reverse the current obesity trends.
IMPACTS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD PROGRAMS ON CHILDREN: A COMPREHENSIVE META-ANALYSIS$584,215 Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Harvard
Policymakers and program administrators currently lack systematic and comprehensive evidence on which types of early childhood programs or program components are most effective for improving the well-being – physical; cognitive and socio-emotional of vulnerable children. The proposed research will provide this information as well as provide the research community with a database that can be used to address a host of additional policy-relevant intervention questions.
BREAST CANCER RISK FACTORS AMONG WOMEN AGED 75 AND OLDER Mara Schonberg, BIDMC, $492,360
Because the population of women aged 75 and older is growing rapidly in the US and worldwide; and the incidence of breast cancer increases with age; a worldwide epidemic” of breast cancer is expected in the coming years; despite this; older women’s decisions whether or not to undergo mammography screening are complex since none of the randomized screening trials included women aged 75 and older. As a Beeson Scholar; Dr. Schonberg’s research focused on informing mammography screening decisions by collecting data on older women’s life expectancy and screening preferences; however; information on older women’s individualized risk of breast cancer is needed to further improve their screening decisions. In this application we will identify risk factors for late-life breast cncer using these factors to develop and validate a clinical prediction tool for women aged 75 and older to be used by older women and their doctors to make more informed decisions about breast cancer screening; thereby improving both their quality of care and quality of life. EMERGENCE AND EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL SELF-MANAGEMENT OF PARKINSONS DISEASE$490,028, Linda Tickle-Degnen, Tufts   Parkinson’s disease (PD) affects 1% to 2% of the US population over age 60; and its prevalence is increasing as the population ages. The proposed research will establish the natural evolution of the social lives of people with Parkinson’s disease and their families and its relationship to health outcomes; and thus has the potential to significantly advance Parkinson’s disease research and evidence-based neurological nursing and rehabilitation. The project develops the new construct of social self-management of chronic disease and results will inform the development of new interventions aimed at supporting social integration and preventing isolation and loneliness in people living with Parkinson’s disease.

At Tufts, engineers aim sensor technology at world health problems

Tufts School of Engineering is sponsoring a program all day on Monday about research into information and sensor technologies that can be applied to health problems.

Keynote speaker will be Dr. Andrey Egorov Manager of the Environmental Health Information System (ENHIS) of the World Health Organization

His work involves the development of harmonized data collection, analysis and interpretation methods for monitoring the implementation of international commitments to protect children’s health from environmental hazards in the WHO European Region. 

The event’s program promises that Tufts “research in Smart Sensors, Disaster Management, Visual Analytics, and New Devices has wide-reaching impact on the future of world health and the environment.”

The first half of the event will be available via live webcast.

 

Health events this week : AIDS, “psychedelic research” and disaster prep

This week’s health-related events;

Massachusetts issues medical marijuana rules

The Globe reports on rules for Massachusetts docs who want to prescribe on medical marijuana:

Patients must have a debilitating condition — defined as causing weakness, wasting syndrome, intractable pain or nausea, or impairing strength or ability and limiting major life activities — and the regulations list qualifying conditions, including cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, and ALS. But the rules also would allow doctors and their patients to decide what other conditions would qualify patients for treatment.

The 45 pages of rules also would require applicants wishing to open a medical marijuana treatment center, known as a dispensary, to be a nonprofit and to operate their own cultivation and dispensing facilities. No wholesale distribution of marijuana products would be allowed, the department said in a news release.

Should docs tell patients about the results of genetic scans?

The Globe offers a story on a new report urging doctors who sequence a  patient’s genome  inform patient of disease-related defects.

Click the image below for the full Storify .

her for the Globe story