Alerts

The lockdowns and restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted eating disorder services. People with anorexia nervosa experienced a loss of routine, heightened anxieties, and increased symptoms. Carers felt more concern and greater responsibility for their loved ones. Despite these difficulties, some patients and carers benefitted from digital self-management resources. The TRIANGLE project aims to help ...

People in England who pay for their own social care receive little assistance in making choices, even though arranging care requires a range of skills that they may not have. Adult social care – for example personal assistance in the home or being cared for in a residential home – comes under the remit of ...

People living with dementia in the community typically rely on unpaid care from friends and family members, combined with some paid care. This helps them remain in their own homes. Researchers wanted to find out how the first nationwide COVID-19 lockdown affected unpaid carers, and how they made decisions about accessing paid care. Paid carers ...

People with one type of irregular heartbeat (called atrial fibrillation) do not benefit from a drug called spironolactone. A new trial called IMPRESS-AF found that the drug does not offer benefits and could even be harmful. Spironolactone offered no improvements in exercise capacity, heart function, or quality of life. In fact, the treatment significantly worsened ...

Urethral narrowing reduces the flow of urine from the bladder out of the body. The tube (called the urethra) may become narrowed because of injury or infection. Painful and potentially dangerous narrowing is more common in men and if it happens repeatedly, it is treated with surgery. Initial treatment is usually a minimally invasive procedure ...

Detecting problems with motor coordination could be a simple way to predict the long-term severity of psychosis. The Neurological Evaluation Scale (NES) is a quick and useful tool for examining sensory-motor issues such as restlessness, tremors, and problems with coordination and balance. A new study used the scale to assess patients after their first psychotic episode. ...

Traditional academic methods of communicating research findings often fail to reach key audiences including patients, or professionals from different disciplines. BRIGHTLIGHT is a national research project looking at whether specialist cancer services for teenagers and young people add value. The researchers wanted young people to know about their results, along with audiences often not reached ...

More than a quarter of hospital patients have dementia and many refuse food, drink, medication or requests to be examined. This presents healthcare professionals with a dilemma. They need to strike a balance between respecting a patient’s wishes, while also delivering effective care. New research looked at the different ways of asking people with dementia ...

Self-management of asthma means healthcare professionals educating, training and supporting people with asthma so they learn to manage their own condition. But there is little evidence to guide the level of support patients need from their healthcare team. This study compared four self-management models for asthma by reviewing existing research papers. The most effective model ...

Common misconceptions about eczema can get in the way of effective treatment. People with eczema are often worried about using treatment creams prescribed by their doctor, particularly those containing corticosteroids. Young people may not view their condition as long term, which can lead to disappointment if it does not disappear when they get older. Researchers ...

Many care homes are struggling to implement a tool designed to help them better meet the needs of people with dementia. New research suggests that care home managers need to be supported, trained and engaged when such tools are introduced into care homes. The tool, called Dementia Care Mapping (DCM), aims to improve practices in ...

A common surgical approach used for hip replacements carries higher risks of worse outcomes and should not be routinely adopted by trainee surgeons, a new analysis suggests. The study found significantly worse outcomes associated with so-called lateral procedures to the hip joint, in which surgeons access the hip by detaching muscle from the side of ...

People with dementia from ethnic minority backgrounds face inequalities in diagnosis and access to care, compared with White British patients. A large study in South East London found that at the time of diagnosis, overall, they are more likely to be on multiple medications, but less likely to be taking antidepressants. Some groups face problems ...

Children with an aggressive cancer of the lymphatic system may benefit from a new treatment regime. New findings from an international trial show that adding a drug called rituximab to standard doses of chemotherapy significantly improves young people’s survival. Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma is a cancer that develops in the lymphatic system, a network of vessels and ...

Stroke is a medical emergency that often results in serious disability. A drug treatment called thrombolysis improves the chance of recovery in some patients but can only be given in hospital in the first few hours after a stroke. A coordinated emergency response involving ambulance and hospital services is needed to identify the patients who ...

An evidence-based programme for care home residents living with dementia improved their quality of life and reduced agitation and other symptoms of dementia. A major study across the UK found that the Well-being and Health for People Living with Dementia (WHELD) programme was effective and cost less to deliver than usual care. The WHELD programme ...

Falls among residents in UK care homes are commonplace. A new study examined whether multiple medications and drugs that act on the brain may contribute to the risk. The research, which included 84 UK care homes, found that residents taking multiple medicines had an increased risk of falling. Risk was also increased with a regular ...

Young adult carers are more likely to be unemployed, to have lower earnings from paid work, and to have worse physical and mental health than other young people. A major study found that these negative effects on young carers aged 16-25 years, also cost the UK economy one billion pounds every year. The study is ...

Being prescribed many medicines places a huge, often hidden, burden on older people in the community and on their families or carers. This affects whether older people take medicines incorrectly or not at all, which puts them at risk of harm and wastes medicine. The MEMORABLE (Medication Management in Older people: Realist Approaches Based on ...

An NHS England programme to integrate health and social care services slowed the rise in emergency admissions to hospital among care home residents but did not achieve its other aims. It was hoped that integrating health and social care would ease the growing pressure upon services and reduce the time people spend in hospital. For ...

People with thyroid cancer who were asked to adjust their diet ahead of treatment, were confused about what they needed to do. The first UK study of these patients’ experiences found that many restricted their diet more and for longer than is advised. Some reported conflict or distress associated with the diet and were anxious ...

The number of 12-to-17 year olds prescribed antidepressants in England more than doubled between 2005 and 2017. This is one of the striking changes seen in a new study into the use of antidepressants by children and young people. It also found that antidepressant prescriptions for 5-to-11 year olds decreased between 1999 and 2017. Antidepressants ...

Women treated for cancer of the stomach or oesophagus (the muscular tube which moves food from mouth to stomach) may survive longer than men. An analysis of over 3000 patients with these cancers also found that women experienced more nausea, vomiting, and diarrhoea during therapy. Cancer-related survival was the same for older (70 or over) ...

Women with a new diagnosis of ovarian cancer receiving weekly chemotherapy may have reduced quality of life compared to those receiving treatment every three weeks because the more frequent treatment may cause long-lasting nerve damage. Ovarian cancer is usually treated every three weeks with chemotherapy containing the medicines carboplatin and paclitaxel. A study in Japan ...

A combination of two drugs – mifepristone and misoprostol – was more effective than mifepristone alone for treating missed miscarriage. A large, multi-centre trial found that women given the combination were more likely to have completed their miscarriage within a week, and less likely to need follow-up surgery. During a miscarriage of pregnancy, the baby ...

People with ongoing pain after knee replacement surgery may experience a sense of futility and believe nothing more can be done. A new study found that that one in five people report ongoing pain after knee replacement surgery, but many do not seek help in dealing with their pain. The researchers say that improvements in ...

A simple, low-cost blood test offers great potential as a tool for diagnosing womb cancer, and for screening high-risk women. The test gives almost instant results and in a new study, it picked up changes in the womb that could lead to cancer (pre-cancerous growths). In the UK, womb cancer is the fourth most common ...

Many groups – such as women, older people and ethnic minorities – are under-served in clinical trials. An NIHR project aims to ensure that health research includes the people who most need it. The project is called Innovations in Clinical Trial Design and Delivery for the Under-served (INCLUDE); the current research formed the first phase ...

Artificial intelligence (AI) predicted the development of a leading cause of blindness in new research. A collaboration between Moorfields Eye Hospital in London and Google’s DeepMind and Google Health found that AI predicted the development of wet age-related macular degeneration (wet-AMD) more accurately than clinicians. Wet-AMD can lead to rapid and severe loss of sight. ...

Befriending programmes are designed to help people who are likely to be socially isolated. This could be due to illness, including mental illness, or old age. Befrienders are often volunteers who make a commitment to have regular meetings with an individual they are put in touch with, often via a service. People with psychosis are ...