I've been listening to Medical Matters podcasts from last year.
- Blood Recycling - Instead of blood transfusions, a hospital in Wales is using blood collected from the bleeding from the patient. This blood is cleaned and then put back into the body. Only if the red blood cell count drops below a certain amount is other blood them brought in. Because the blood is taken from an open wound, there is the chance of bacteria being collected with the blood, but the amounts in the cleaned blood are small and the body is able to deal with them. Patients tested the day after the operation show no trace of these bacteria in their blood.[MedMatters: Case Notes Blood Transfusion Consent 21 Sep 10]
- Worrying - The advice about trying not to worry seems to be a bad idea since trying not to worry just makes it worse, and trying to stop doesn't work except when using drugs and alcohol. What we should be doing, according to some Dutch research by Ad Kirkhof, is to actively worry about things in a pre-determined way, setting aside time to worry. If waking up in the night, try to change your thinking to something positive and 'worry' about that and repeat it over and over. You're still worrying but it's positive. [MedMatters: All In The Mind: 09 Nov 10, 20:30 minutes onwards] He has a book on using CBT to combat worry. ["Stop Worrying: Get your life back on track with CBT"]
- Bioengineering - The TED talk for today was about bioengineering. For years, we've had crossbreeds through selective breeding, but the scope is wider through genetics. Now there is genetic manipulation to make glow in the dark mice, cats, dogs, monkeys and fish. You can even buy these fish in some places in the USA. If they can do it for monkeys then probably for humans too? The most exciting part I found was of a monkey whose brain waves were connected to an arm in another room. The monkey noticed that when her arm moved, the other arm moved. After a while she stopped moving her arm and just moved the artificial one in the other room, making her the first primate to have 3 independently functioning arms. So when is this going to be used to replace missing limbs in humans, or is it already? [TEDtalk]
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