Category Archives: Health

Government, Health, Medical, Scotland

NHS drug bungles. Care home patients often receive ‘wrong’ medication…

ERRORS IN MEDICATION

Thousands of elderly care home patients are subjected to errors in their medication.

On any given day, seven out of ten residents are given wrongly administered drugs.

The errors, by care home staff, doctors and pharmacists, include giving the incorrect dosage, not giving drugs at the correct time or ensuring patients take their drugs.

Such mistakes can lead to adverse reactions, emergency hospital admissions and even death.

The Scottish Government’s Review of NHS Pharmaceutical care of Patients in the Community in Scotland noted that care homes residents have multiple ailments and complex drug regimes, but said:

… Seven out of ten residents receive some form of medication error each day.

Experts have agreed that action must be taken to address a ‘ticking time bomb’ as thousands of older patients face admission to care homes.

They said ‘poor medicines management’ is the reason for many errors and they called for regular input by pharmacists into patient care.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society in Scotland has set up a working group to examine how pharmaceutical care in care homes could be improved.

Critics described the findings as ‘deeply worrying’ and called for urgent action to ensure the safety of patients.

A spokesperson for the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, said:

… Patients are extremely vulnerable when they transfer from one care setting to another and records do not always follow the patient or go to the community pharmacist.

… There is a need for sharing of information to one single electronic patient record.

According to the review, as the country’s population ages, and patients live longer with medical complications, there are likely to be ‘major challenges for pharmaceutical care in the future’.

After looking at the needs of residents in care homes, experts also found that most medication errors are caused by doctors or pharmacists.

The report found:

… The increasing dependency and multi-morbidity of residents, many with dementia, requires high quality pharmaceutical care, to meet the medication needs of individual residents.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society added that the ‘time bomb’ is one of demography, saying that we have increasing numbers of elderly people with several long-term conditions and, to accommodate this, there is a need to develop more integrated care solutions.

In response to criticism that errors are occurring so shockingly frequently, and that everyone must get round the table to work out how this may be sorted, a Scottish Government official said:

… We are looking at ways to improve pharmaceutical services by working with GPs, the NHS and professional bodies.

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Health, Medical, Research, Science, United States

Eye tests may detect early onset of Alzheimer’s…

AMYLOID PLAQUES

Two new eye tests in America are being trialled that one day may help doctors to detect the very early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

Newly released research has revealed that non-invasive retinal testing is now being trialled by scientists in the U.S. that could help flag up the condition by alerting clinicians to the presence of amyloid plaque deposits, a known biological marker of the disease.

Early stage testing could mean that patients are diagnosed or registered as high-risk up to twenty years before noticeable symptoms begin, helping patients get treatment before memory loss develops.

Scientists generally accept that amyloid plaques (a type of residual protein deposit) in the brain are a key marker of the disease.

This site incorporates a science and biology page. Click the image icon to view it.

This site incorporates a science and biology page. Click the image icon to view it.

Neurologists have believed for a long time that there is a correlation between the amounts of amyloid in the eye and residual protein deposits in the brain. The argument for this correlating factor is a strong one because the retina is formed from the same tissue as the brain when a foetus is developing in the womb.

To confirm this theory, two tests have been developed and trials are currently underway. The tests are known as the Retinal Amyloid Index (by NeuroVision) and the Sapphire II (by Cognoptix).

Ocular based examinations through the years have been used to detect and diagnose Alzheimer’s at any early stage through methods such as optic nerve cupping, pupillary response to tropicamide dilation and ocular muscle movement. However, all have failed to withstand the test of time in terms of sensitivity and specificity.

Professor Keith Black is chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles, and co-founder of NeuroVision. He says that if people are going to get Alzheimer’s they begin to develop the hallmarks, such as amyloid deposits, in their 50s.

Professor Black said:

… The key for having an effective treatment for AD is early detection. You want to prevent those brain cells from being killed or dying in the first place.

The Sapphire II test works by measuring the amount of photons (i.e. light particles) captured when scanning the eyes. The amount of photons captured directly correlates with the amount of amyloid in the eye.

Experts state that the Sapphire II is currently in phase one of two in clinical feasibility trials, and that phase three is expected to begin in 2014.

Approximately 800,000 people in Britain suffer from Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. The number of cases is predicted to double within a generation.

There is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease and existing drugs can only alleviate symptoms. The condition is diagnosed by memory tests and, in some cases, through brain scans.

Presently, the disease can only be confirmed by a post-mortem examination, which reveals the presence of harmful amyloid plaques in the brain.

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Health, Medical, Research, Science

British scientists unlock the secret DNA genetics of 30 cancers…

MUTATIONAL SIGNATURES

Scientists in the UK have achieved a ‘profound’ and major breakthrough in the fight against cancer that could lead to new treatments and possibly even its prevention.

Despite significant advances, very little is known about what triggers cancer, which kills around half the 325,000 Britons diagnosed with it each year.

But British scientists believe they have unlocked the DNA secrets of 30 of the most common forms of the disease. This will now bring us closer in understanding their causes.

In the biggest analysis yet of its kind, the researchers compared DNA from more than 7,000 cancer patients around the world. The cases included the most common forms, including breast, bowel, lung and prostate, which account for more than half of those diagnosed in Britain.

Cancer is caused by mutations in DNA. These mutations are caused by such things as tobacco in the case of lung or throat cancer, and excess ultraviolet light in the case of skin cancer. Researchers looked for patterns in the genetic code of the tumours made by these mutations.

Analysis of the 7,000 DNA samples revealed 21 patterns that between them were responsible for 30 cancers. Working out which food, drink, habit or other external factor causes them could lead to new ways of preventing the disease.

Knowing more about the genetics of cancer should also speed the search for new treatments – and some existing drugs might also work better in those whose tumours are caused by particular patterns.

Certain patterns in the tumour DNA were expected, such as the one caused by smoking; but others were surprising, including one believed to be caused by a protein that helps us fight infections.

Some of the patterns were only found in one type of cancer, while others, such as the marks left by ageing, were found in many different tumours.

Although further research may reveal more patterns – or ‘mutational signatures’ – the scientists, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute near Cambridge, believe they have found most of them.

Professor Mike Stratton, the lead researcher, said:

… This compendium of mutational signatures and consequent insights into the mutational processes underlying them has profound implications for the understanding of cancer development, with potential applications in disease prevention and treatment.

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