Medical

The progression of Parkinson’s is characterized by a deterioration in motor control, and through a new study MIT researchers have explored how this might be monitored via a person’s walking patterns at home.

A fascinating trial has reported virtual reality immersion can reduce the amount of sedatives needed during certain types of hand surgery. The trial found patients using VR could get through an entire surgical procedure with only local anesthetic.

Scientists have genetically modified a strain of the herpes virus to act as a cancer-killing agent in humans. Findings from an initial human trial are encouraging, with the experimental treatment proving safe and promisingly effective.

Scientists have recently had success in curing mice of a serious type of pneumonia, using what are described as "microrobots." The bots were actually live algae cells, which carried life-saving medication throughout the rodents' lungs.

Treatments for osteoarthritis-related knee pain range from medication all the way up to knee joint replacement. The recently trialled Misha Knee System is intended to help fill the gap between those extremes, by acting as an implanted shock absorber.

The latest findings around the impacts of plastic on the human body center on liver and lung cells, which lab research has shown can ingest nano-scale plastic particles and undergo metabolic changes as a result.

Respiratory ailments may hamper the body's ability to draw oxygen from the lungs, which is why patients' blood oxygen levels often need to be checked. New research now suggests that people could track those levels at home, using their smartphone.

Researchers are reporting a new type of dental coating, which is made by tweaking the composition of a naturally-occurring mineral to emulate the microstructure of natural enamel, and do so in a way that offers even greater strength.

Scientists have reported that five patients undergoing an experimental treatment for lupus have all entered remission for up to 17 months. The promising breakthrough came from the use of CAR T cell immunotherapy, increasingly used to treat cancer.

Getting cancer drugs to the right place in the right quantities is a perpetual problem for medical scientists, but a group from University of California, Los Angeles has developed a new drug delivery system to address the problem.

Researchers at the University of New South Wales have demonstrated how a microfluidic device that mimics the embryonic heart can produce blood stem cell precursors, which could let blood stem cells be manufactured on demand.

Scientists at the University of California San Francisco have found a way to fight one of the most common cancer-causing mutations. The new drug puts up an “eat me” marker that can help the immune system or other drugs find and kill the cancer.

People subjected to irregular sleeping and eating habits through shift work are known to have higher risk of a wide range of health problems, and a new study has drilled into the impacts of this lifestyle on mental health.

People with cystic fibrosis are vulnerable to potentially fatal Mycobacterium abscessus lung infections, which are notoriously difficult to treat. A new treatment may succeed where others have failed, however – and it utilizes antibacterial honey.

With the nursing workforce getting older, and more and more in-home care being done by just one worker, this super-portable, inflatable patient transfer device could help save a lot of backs and knees, by doing much of the heavy lifting.