Tooth Infection Kills Unemployed Man

An unemployed man died last week because he couldn't afford treatment for his infected third molar, according to news reports.

Citing physicians and family remembers, Cincinnati's WLWT television station said the infection killed 24-year-old Kyle Willis when it spread from his tooth to his brain.

Dentists advised Willis, the nephew of funk bass player Bootsy Collins, to have the tooth extracted 2 weeks earlier, but Willis had no insurance and decided to wait, according to the report.

"He should have gone to the dentist to take care of the toothache, and it wouldn't have escalated to this. It's a lesson learned by all," said Willis' aunt, Patti Collins.

Suffering from headaches and swelling, Willis later visited an emergency department, where he got prescriptions for antibiotics and analgesics.

He could only afford 1 of the prescriptions and chose the pain medicine. Willis felt better, but swelling in his brain killed him.

Read more on the source :
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/749411

Video Games Improve 'Lazy Eye' in Adults

Adults with amblyopia can achieve substantial improvements in visual acuity by playing video games for 40 hours, suggest the results of a pilot study published onlineAugust 30 in PLoS Biology.

"This study is the first to show that video game play is useful for improving blurred vision in adults with amblyopia," said study lead author Roger Li, OD, PhD, research optometrist at the School of Optometry and the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at University of California–Berkeley, in a university news release. "I was very surprised by this finding; I didn't expect to see this type of improvement."

No studies have shown similar benefits for individuals with normal vision.

Amblyopia, also known as "lazy eye," is a brain disorder that causes reduced vision in 1 eye. It affects 2% to 3% of American children and represents the most frequent cause of permanent 1-eye visual impairment among young and middle-age adults. Although pediatric options include occlusion therapy and use of atropine drops to blur vision in the stronger eye, no treatments are currently available for adults.

Amblyopia means that visual stimulation either fails to transmit or is poorly transmitted through the optic nerve to the brain for a continuous period of time. It can also occur when the brain "turns off" the visual processing of one eye, to prevent double-vision, for example in strabismus (crossed-eyes). It often occurs during early childhood, resulting in poor or blurry vision. Amblyopia normally affects only one eye in most patients, but it is possible (but rare) to be amblyopic in both eyes, if both fail to receive clear visual images. Detecting the condition in early childhood increases the chance of successful treatment, especially if detected before the age of five. The earlier it is detected, and the underlying cause corrected with spectacles and/or surgery, the more successful the treatment in equalizing vision between the two eyes.

A child wearing an adhesive eyepatch to correct amblyopia

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http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/749327?sssdmh=dm1.717075&src=nldne

Tips for Surviving Medical School

How do you survive medical school? From the beginning, time management must be a major priority. If you can manage your time successfully, you can still enjoy your life to a certain extent. Studying in med school is not the same as it was in college; this is a new world where you have to explore different techniques and find what works best for you. In medical school, it is all about studying smart, not studying hard. If you don't know this at the beginning, you will learn it the hard way.


Studying medicine is a long process and demands a great amount of discipline and sacrifice. But the reward is priceless. The author hope that you chose medicine for the amazing field it is: the rich opportunities it provides for helping humans and the avenues it opens for making a difference in the world. The following are some of the most common pieces of advice The author have collected:

1. Take care of yourself. You may face long-term negative consequences to your health if you adopt negative behaviors. Do not deprive yourself of healthy, fresh food. Do not ruin your health by eating fast food and avoiding exercise. Do not pull all-nighters and deprive your body and brain of sleep; the consequences are too severe for what may be only 15 minutes of productive studying. Your brain needs fresh food, water, fruits, and vegetables. Your body needs exercise and sleep.
2. Do not compete with your classmates or compare your grades with others. We all had to be competitive to get into medical school. But once you are accepted, it becomes a level playing field. Although many students still compete with their classmates, it will not make them better physicians. Getting a 95% on your pathology exam does not mean you will be a great pathologist or clinician. As soon as you walk out of your first exam, look around, and you will see people obsessing about what the right answer was for Question 13. It is easy to spot them. They will come to you and ask you if you put "C" for Question 84. Seriously! Avoid everyone after the exam, and make friends with those who share your philosophy.
3. Answer practice questions while you study. "Studying my notes 10 times is probably the best way to prepare for exams." Wrong! The only way to test your learning is to do practice questions. For example, after studying your Board Review Series physiology textbook, make sure you complete the questions at the end of each chapter. This will help solidify the concepts you just read. Studying the same thing repeatedly does not make you smarter, but getting a question wrong will teach you quite a bit. Professional educators will tell you that it is statistically proven that students who do more questions perform better on boards, and that the only time you should go back to the big books is when you consistently miss questions on a certain topic and the answer explanations are insufficient.
4. Learn the big picture. You will likely start your first day in school delving into biochemistry, anatomy, physiology, or histology. From the start, instructors talk about columnar cells, impulse transmission, and glycolysis in fine detail. The next day, you are learning about brachial plexus and cardiac output. This is an enormous amount of information overload and students are often not prepared. As you memorize, learn the big picture
5. Study with groups. "I am going to study on my own because I don't need anyone's help." Wrong! Medicine is all about teamwork and sharing information. You have to be able to cooperate with others. Even when you apply for residency, it is important to keep this concept in mind. The moment the residency directors feel you will not be a good team player or that you might have "issues" with your colleagues, your application goes in the shredder. Find a small group of people who share the same healthy habits as you, meaning they like to exercise, they do not like to discuss grades, and they have a positive attitude. Once you find the right group, arrange to meet weekly for several hours to ask each other questions about concepts you do not understand. Even better, ask each other questions on little details you think your friends might have understood. Arrange for a review session the night before the exam for last-minute tweaking of your knowledge.
6. Take time to engage in stress-relieving activities. Everyone in your class is facing the same amount of stress, some people more than others. You might notice some students walk around with a frown, whereas others wear huge smiles. How is that possible if they are all facing the same pressure? Again, it is time management. If you have extra time, you are able to reduce stress. Spend time with friends, or do something on your own that makes you feel better. Activities like exercise, yoga, listening to calm music, talking to your parents or praying -- there is something out there that makes you feel better. Find it and do it. Do not let the stress affect your studies, relationships and, most importantly, health.

Read more on the source :

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/736773

Laptop Exposure Associated With Nonthermal Effect on Sperm Quality

Exposure to laptop computers might adversely affect male fertility by inducing DNA fragmentation and decreasing progressive motility, according to research presented here at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine 66th Annual Meeting.


In the first study of its kind to evaluate the effect of laptop computers receiving wireless Internet signals on human spermatozoa, researchers evaluated semen samples from 15 men. The samples were separated into 2 incubation groups: one that was exposed to a laptop computer receiving a WiFi signal for 4 hours, and another that was not.


Despite the fact that the 2 groups were kept at a controlled temperature (25 °C) to rule out thermal effects, the results showed significant DNA damage and decreased sperm motility in the laptop-exposed group.

This is the first study to evaluate the impact of laptops on human spermatozoa and to demonstrate a detrimental effect from a nonthermal mechanism. Thus the effect of laptops on real people's testis is still unknown, and this study does not shed light on this.

Because of that the researchers could only recommend that people do not use the computer on the lap, especially if they are of reproductive age.

Hopefully more study would be done about this topic that would answer the question about the effect of laptops on male fertility.

Read more on the source :

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/732024