Smart Stimulation for People with Dementia

Though it claims as many as 300,000 lives every year, meningitis is not widely regarded as a major health problem by many health organizations in comparison to more familiar diseases like tuberculosis. One family-run company in Oklahoma is working to tackle the disease by developing simpler tools like the Cryptococcal Antigen Lateral Flow Assay, or CrAg LFA, to diagnose fungal infections. Faster and more accurate than previous methods, and significantly less expensive, the test allows for earlier diagnosis and treatment.

To protect the heads of football players, it might be advisable to have them occasionally practice without head protection, according to a counterintuitive new study of a successful Division I football program.

More than five million Americans have Alzheimer’s or similar illnesses, and that number is growing as the population ages - without any immediate prospect of a cure, advocacy groups have begun promoting ways to offer people with dementia a comfortable decline instead of imposing on them a medical model of care, which seeks to defer death through escalating interventions. An Arizona nursing home offers new ways to care for people with dementia.

After a young rugby player died in Northern Ireland, his family and a brain expert set about to establish concussion guidelines, looking in part to the United States.

A certain breed of sheep may carry a specific trait that could possibly treat Huntington’s disease. Early trials have shown that mice treated with the chemical compound found in sheep can reactivate motor function.

The Canadian federal government has identified bullying as a national problem. Roots of Empathy, based in Toronto, encourages empathy in elementary kids by having them interact with babies.

Game inventors have created a new game to help students who suffer from ADHD and other mental problems develop and stimulate their brains in a safer, more targeted way than normal medicines.

The typical surgery for hydrocephalus, a brain swelling disease, often leads to infection. Medical constraints in Uganda inspired a neurosurgeon to create a safer and more effective surgery which is now used in Uganda and the U.S.

In Saudi Arabia, female gamers were barred from gaming conventions so an all-female gaming convection was born, offering women a place of self expression and encouraging careers in science and computer programming.

Despite significant increases in funding and advances in biomedical research, the rates of new treatments and drugs for illnesses that reach the market every year have plummeted. A group called the Myelin Repair Foundation, along with several other foundations, uses an intensely goal-directed and collaborative method to tackle the bottleneck.