Just walking 3 hours a week may lower a woman's risk to get a stroke by 43%, a new study has revealed.Researchers discovered that female subjects who walked 210 minutes or more per week had a significantly lower chance of getting a stroke compared to women who walked less or not at all."The message for the general population remains similar: regularly engaging in moderate recreational activity is good for your health," lead author Jose Huerta, a researcher at the Murcia Regional Health Authority in Spain, ...

A few minutes of exercise can help children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder perform better academically, according to a new study led by a Michigan State University (MSU) researcher.The study, published in the Journal of Pediatrics, shows for the first time that kids with ADHD can better drown out distractions and focus on a task after a single bout of exercise. Scientists say such "inhibitory control" is the main challenge faced by people with the disorder."This provides some very early ...

Taking beta-blocker drugs may cut the risk of dementia, a trial in 774 men suggests. The medication is used to treat high blood pressure, a known risk factor for dementia. In the study, which was presented at the American Academy of Neurology's annual meeting men on beta-blockers were less likely to have brain changes suggestive of dementia.Experts say it is too early to recommend beta-blockers for dementia. The findings are preliminary and larger studies in men and women from different ethnicities are ...

When initial computed tomography (CT) scans show bleeding within the brain after mild head injury, decisions about repeated CT scans should be based on the patient's neurological condition, according to a report in the January issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.The study questions the need for routinely obtaining repeated CT scans in patients with mild head trauma. ...

Some brain changes that are found in adults with common gene variants linked to disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia and autism can also be seen in the brain scans of newborns."These results suggest that prenatal brain development may be a very important influence on psychiatric risk later in life," said Rebecca C. Knickmeyer, PhD, lead author of the study and assistant professor of psychiatry in the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. The study was published by the journal ...

Tobii ATI, the global market leader in eye tracking and Gaze Interaction assistive technology, has released its newest augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) products - the Tobii I-Series. The Tobii I-Series, a family of eye-controlled communication devices, provides individually optimized communication solutions for people with communication conditions such as Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS), autism, Rett syndrome, cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy.Two new purpose-built speech generating devices ...

The public health burden associated with children swallowing caustic chemicals is less than widely believed, U.S. researchers report in the Archives of Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery.The researchers said their findings support the beneficial impact of legislative efforts such as the Poison Prevention Packaging Act in helping to reduce injuries to children from caustics and other household chemicals.Ingestion of caustic substances such as lye can result in a range of injuries from mild esophageal ...

Exposure to radiation in space has the potential to accelerate the development of Alzheimer's disease in astronauts, U.S. researchers said.Senior author M. Kerry O'Banion, MD. Ph.D., a professor in the University of Rochester Medical Center Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, first author Jonathan Cherry, a graduate student, and colleagues, said space is full of radiation, but Earth's magnetic field generally protects the planet and its people.However, once astronauts leave orbit, they are exposed to ...

ABC News anchor and chief national correspondent Byron Pitts was honored by the Stuttering Foundation at its May 7 gala in New York to celebrate National Stuttering Awareness Week."To see Byron on television, you would never know the childhood he endured," said Jane Fraser, president of the Stuttering Foundation, the world's leading charitable organization helping those who stutter."Bullying, illiteracy and stuttering were the prologue to Byron's journey to become one of America's most trusted television ...

Newborns are much more attuned to the sounds of their native language than first thought. In fact, these linguistic whizzes can up pick on distinctive sounds of their mother tongue while in utero, a new study has concluded.Research led by Christine Moon, a professor of psychology at Pacific Lutheran University, shows that infants only hours old showed marked interest for the vowels of a language that was not their mother tongue.Co-authors for the study were Hugo Lagercrantz, a professor at the Karolinska ...

The Childhood Apraxia of Speech Association of North America (CASANA) and Small Steps in Speech (SSIS) have initiated a joint project to aid families of children with apraxia of speech by providing small grants for children's speech therapy.Children with apraxia of speech typically require frequent and intensive speech therapy, especially initially and when severely affected. With appropriate and early speech therapy, most children with apraxia can become verbal communicators, speaking with their very own ...

Hospital MRIs may be better at predicting long-term outcomes for people with mild traumatic brain injuries than CT scans, the standard technique for evaluating such injuries in the emergency room, according to a clinical trial led by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco  (UCSF) and the San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center (SFGH).Published in the journal Annals of Neurology, the study was led by UCSF neuroradiologist Esther Yuh, MD, PhD and followed 135 people ...

An international team of researchers from the University of Massachusetts medical school , the University of Bonn, and the Center for Advanced European Studies and Research in Germany have shown that a well-known immune and inflammatory process plays an important role in the pathology of Alzheimer's disease. This process, which results in the mature production of the pro-inflammatory cytokine called interleukin-1 beta (IL-1B) and is involved in the body's defense against infection, has also been ...

According to projections in the American Heart Association's Heart Disease and Stroke Statistical Update 2013, cardiovascular health may only improve by 6% if current trends continue.The AHA cites the biggest barriers to success as projected increases in obesity and diabetes, and only modest improvements in diet and physical activity. In contrast, smoking, high cholesterol and hypertension rates are projected to decline, according to a press release."Americans need to move a lot more, eat healthier ...

As U.S. health care goes high tech, spurred by $20 billion in federal stimulus incentives, the widespread adoption of electronic medical records and related digital technologies is predicted to reduce errors and lower costs - but it is also likely to significantly boost musculoskeletal injuries among doctors and nurses, concludes a Cornell University ergonomics professor in two new papers.The repetitive strain injuries, he said, will stem from poor office layouts and improper use of computer devices."Many ...