Women's Health

Doctors And Patients See Benefits Of Wearable Technology

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As glucose monitors, continuous ultrasound systems, Fitbits and other wearable technology become more prevalent, the devices are changing the way doctors care for their patients and the way patients care for themselves. Wearable technology is still evolving, but doctors already see the benefits, says Stephen Huot, a medical professor at Yale University. And while technology is not a substitute for doctor-patient conversations, “it could be game changing,” he says. A nationwide Pew Research Center survey in 2012 found that 69 percent of adults monitor at least one health indicator, such as weight, diet or exercise, and 21 percent said they used some form of technology to keep track. That number is projected to increase as wearable technology becomes more available.

Albertus Magnus College

Sex Assault Reports Rise At State Colleges

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The number of sexual assaults on Connecticut college campuses jumped 25 percent in 2013 compared with the previous year, newly released data show. Among 19 colleges and universities in the state, 104 assaults were reported last year, up from 83 in 2013. The data on assaults was provided by the colleges, as required under the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act. In 2013, the University of Connecticut in Storrs had the greatest number of reported sex assaults with 23, followed by Trinity College in Hartford with 21 and Yale University in New Haven with 12. Trinity had the highest rate of assaults, with 8.79 per 1,000 students.  Connecticut College in New London ranked second, with a rate of 4.68 per 1,000 students.

American Society of Clinical Oncology

Federal Funding For Cancer Research Plummets In State

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Connecticut’s share of funding from the National Cancer Institute has dropped 19 percent since 2010 – a steeper decline than many other states, an analysis of National Institutes of Health (NIH) data show. Federal cancer institute funding to Connecticut fell to $33.4 million in 2014 – down from $41.1 million in 2010. The biggest grantee, Yale University, is receiving $7 million less from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), one of the NIH’s most prominent centers. Overall, NIH research grants to Connecticut fell to $461.3 million – down from $484.4 million in 2010, NIH reports show. Most of that decline was in research awards to Yale, which dropped $25 million.

I-Team In-Depth

Middle-Age “Senior Moments’’ Just Part Of Aging

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Everyone occasionally struggles to remember a name, blanks out on an appointment or forgets why they walked into the other room. But somewhere around age 40, those “senior moments” start to take on a new seriousness. They suddenly seem like scary signs of aging, perhaps harbingers of major memory loss to come. “A few years ago, these complaints were just dismissed,” says Dr. Anne Louise Oaklander, a neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Now, researchers have become interested in mid-life memory, both to understand their patients’ complaints, and because of the recognition that the seeds of dementia are laid around this time of life.

Disparities

As Gap Widens, A Push For Learning For Under-Threes

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When Connecticut’s new kindergarten class starts school in a few weeks, as many as a third of the children from the state’s poorest communities will be walking into their first classroom ever. Among their peers from the state’s richest areas, 97 percent will have attended preschool. It’s a persistent gap that can affect a child’s success through school and beyond, and it widened from 2011 to 2012, according to Connecticut Voices for Children.  The percentage of kindergartners in poor communities who had attended preschool fell from 69.5 percent in the 2010-11 school year to 65.9 percent in 2011-12.  For children in wealthy communities the percentage rose from 94.9 percent to 97.4 percent. And while the importance of kindergarten readiness is well known, child advocates are now pressing policymakers to recognize that the need for quality learning begins long before a child even reaches preschool age.

Women's Health

Yale Study: Moms Who Can’t Afford Diapers Are More Likely To Be Depressed

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Low-income mothers in New Haven who can’t afford enough diapers to keep their babies clean and dry are more likely to report trouble coping with stress, depression or trauma, according to a study published today in the journal Pediatrics. The survey of 877 New Haven mothers found that nearly 30 percent said they didn’t have enough diapers to change their children as often as they would like, and the problem was more common among Hispanic women and caregivers over age 45, usually grandmothers. Women who reported diaper need were nearly twice as likely to experience mental health issues, although the nature of the link is unclear. The authors hypothesize that the link could be direct, or it could be part of more complex interaction between mental health and poverty. “It could be that moms who have more mental health difficulties have trouble obtaining diapers,” said the lead author, Megan Smith, an assistant professor of psychiatry, child study and public health at Yale University.

Interns

When Interns Snooze, Do Patients Lose?

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For the second time in eight years, the organization that regulates graduate medical education has limited the number of hours interns and residents may work at a time.