Bionic Man: Controls Artificial Leg with his Thoughts

For the first time ever, doctors have developed an artificial leg that is controlled by the person’s thoughts.  

And it happened here at the Rehabilitation Institute Of Chicago (RIC).

“So I move my leg out, push the toes down and bring my toes back up,” said Zac Vawter, the first man in the nation to have a so-called bionic leg.

He is able to make these movements just like people with a fully functioning leg do: With his thoughts.

In 2009, Vawter lost his right leg from above the knee down in a motorcycle accident. His bionic leg allows him to bend his knee and move his ankle. “It’s exciting,” he said. “It’s neat. It’s intuitive. It puts energy into me walking and moving around.” With a regular prosthetic leg, movement like this isn’t possible.

So how does this all work?

Two nerves in Vawter’s leg were rewired to his hamstring muscle.  Those nerves communicate with the sensors inside the prosthetic leg socket. The sensors send a message to a computer. “So when he thinks about straightening or bending his knee, this computer can detect that and tell the knee to bend or to straighten,” Dr. Annie Simon, Biomedical Engineer at the RIC.

A team, headed by Dr. Levi Hargrove, spent four years perfecting the technology Vawter is using. “He’s giving back so much,” Hargrove said. “He’s taken a less than ideal situation and made the most of it and he’s helping potentially, millions of people.”

Vawter, a software engineer, knew about RIC’s bionic research. He never thought one day, that technology would be used to help him walk.

“RIC is really pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with prosthetics and it’s exciting to contribute to that and to help them push forward into new areas of research,” Vawter said.

RIC research is funded through an $8 million grant from the U.S. Army with a goal of creating better prosthetic limbs.

More than 1,200 soldiers have had lower limb amputations from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Source: http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2013/09/25/bionic-man-amputee-controls-artificial-leg-with-thoughts/

5 Exercises You Should Never Do

Think Twice Before Trying These 5 Moves

1. Behind-the-Head Lat Pull downs
In the “old days,” people were actually taught to pull the bar behind their heads when doing a lat pull down exercise—and many people still do that today. Bad idea. The problem? Only people with extremely flexible shoulder joints can do this behind-the-head movement safely, and even they have to be very careful about not hitting the back of their necks with the bar. In addition, almost anyone who spends their days desk bound is likely to have rounded shoulders or poor posture—a symptom of poor shoulder flexibility (among other things), making this exercise a no-no.

The Alternative: You can still work your lats without the risk of behind-the-head pull downs by pulling the bar down in front of you. Sit with your spine straight, abs pulled in, and then lean your torso back slightly, keeping your spine straight. Pull the bar down towards your chest, but not below your collar bone.

2. Squats or Leg Presses with Deep Knee Bends
Whether you’re doing basic squats on your own or using a leg press machine, it can be very dangerous to bend your knees too deeply. The Problem? When your knees bend too deeply, your spine cannot maintain proper alignment. When that happens, the pelvis tilts and the lower back begins to take over, increasing the risk of strain to your lower back muscles or damage to spinal discs. In addition, bending your knees too deeply can injure or damage your knees, especially if you have knee problems.

The Alternatives: Squats and leg presses are generally safe and effective when done properly. But you should never bend your knees or hips more than 90 degrees during these exercises. Here’s an example of proper form when doing a leg press machine, but this can apply to squats with a barbell, and the sled machine, too.

3. Seated Leg Extensions
This is a very popular exercise for targeting the muscles on the front of your thighs (quadriceps). The Problem? This exercise poses major risks to the knees. Lifting heavy weights in this position (with all the resistance focused at your ankles), is not what the knee was designed to do. If you have any kind of knee problem, or use a too much resistance during this exercise, you can easily run into big trouble.

The Alternatives: Simple squats and lunges, with or without added weight, will work your thigh muscles naturally, safely and effectively. If you want to expand on these exercises (to develop explosive force for sports like soccer, basketball, or volleyball, for example), try sport-specific plyometrics. If you can’t do lunges and squats because you lack the leg strength, start with simple ball squats or modified “mini” lunges, and only lower yourself part way, gradually increasing your range of motion as you get stronger.

4. Inner and Outer Thigh Machine Exercises
These machines are pretty popular in most gyms. Both involve sitting with your knees bent in front of you. The adduction machine is designed to target the muscles of the inner thighs, and the abduction machine helps target the outer thigh muscles. The Problem? Using your inner and outer thighs to lift weight while in a seated position puts you at risk of straining these relatively small muscles and aggravating lower back and hip problems. In addition, your inner and outer thigh muscles are designed to support movement, not to be prime movers like they are in these types of exercises.

The Alternatives: The best way to target these muscles safely is with body weight exercises, such as standing adduction, standing abduction, lying adduction and abduction exercises, Pilates exercises, or similar movements that use resistance bands or the cable cross machines. Always start with a weight you know you can handle, and add resistance gradually.

5. Upright Rows
In this exercise, you stand holding a barbell or weight in the center, with hands close together, and bring your hands up under your chin. The Problem? Upright rows are controversial because the movement can compress the nerves in the shoulder area, impinging the shoulder.

The Alternatives: Instead of standing to perform an upright row, try bent-over rows, bending forward 90 degrees at the hip, holding weight down beneath your shoulders with hands slightly more than shoulder width apart, then lift weight straight up towards your chest until elbows and shoulders form a straight line. You can also try front or lateral shoulder raises, using a modest weight, so that you don’t need to lean back or use momentum for assistance.

Source: http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/fitness_articles.asp?id=1097&page=2

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Portable devices save lives in sudden cardiac arrests

An AED, if used during a cardiac arrest within the first 4-6 minutes, can save more than 95 percent of lives

Nimit Ahuja, a 35-year old software professional, was shopping at a mall when he suddenly collapsed. He was rushed to a hospital where he was pronounced dead. He had suffered from what doctors call a sudden cardiac arrest.

Cardiologists say young lives like these can be saved if there are facilities like Automated External Defibrillators (AED) available at public places in India. An AED is a portable device that can automatically diagnose a sudden cardiac arrest and help save life with the press of a button. It sends an electric shock to the heart to restore its normal rhythm and bring a person back from the verge of death.

“An AED, if used during a cardiac arrest within the first 4-6 minutes, can save more than 95 percent of lives,” Bipin Kumar Dubey, director, department of cardiology in the Rockland group of hospitals, told IANS.

“There should be at least one AED available at all public spaces like shopping malls and airports. The government should make it mandatory for builders to set up at least one AED in all public buildings,” he said.

Doctors said Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) is a leading cause of death and account for greater than 50 percent of cardiovascular deaths in India. More than 660,000 deaths occur every year in India alone as a result of SCA.

The SCA is a condition in which the heart suddenly and unexpectedly stops beating. If this happens, blood stops flowing to the brain and other vital organs.

Experts said people who have heart disease are at a higher risk for SCA. SCA can however happen in people who appear healthy and have no known heart disease or other risk factors like hypertension.

Ram E. Rajagopalan in the department of critical care medicine in Sundaram Medical Foundation of Chennai said if an AED is used on a patient suffering with a sudden cardiac arrest his chances of survival will grow by more than 60 percent.

“We definitely need the common man to be aware of what an AED is, as anyone anywhere with access to an AED can save a life,” Rajagopalan told IANS.

Lamenting that very few people know how to respond to emergency situations like SCAs in India, Anil Bansal, chief cardiologist at Columbia Asia Hospital in Gurgaon, said people have to be trained to use an AED.

“The need of the hour is to make AED devices available at all public spaces and to train people on how to use them,” he added.

A recent study in medical journal Lancet said that by 2010, 60 percent of the world’s heart patients would be in India.

As per World Health Organization (WHO) statistics, mortality due to cardiac causes has overtaken mortality due to all cancers put together across the world.
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Source : Zee News

Hot exercise classes catching on like fire

Mimi Benz discovered her fervor for hot exercise by accident. She had taken heated yoga classes but had never thought to combine high temperatures with her true passion, indoor cycling, until the air conditioning broke during a cycling class at her gym.

From that first hot ride, she was hooked.

“I loved it,” says Benz, explaining that with a heated workout she didn’t have to waste time warming up. “It improves blood flow throughout your body, so you go into a high-calorie burn more quickly. And it feels really good afterwards.”

In 2011, Benz opened the Sweat Shoppe, a heated indoor cycling studio in North Hollywood.

“I wasn’t sure how people would respond, so in the beginning we had half heated classes and half non-heated classes.” But the demand for heated classes was so high that by 2013 they’d eliminated non-heated rides from the schedule.

As the demand for hot workouts continues to rise, heated studios are popping up all over, offering everything from traditional Bikram yoga, which started the hot exercise trend with a regimented sequence of yoga postures performed in a 105-degree room with 40% humidity, to hot power yoga, hot Pilates and hot barre. Some classes even incorporate hot weightlifting.

Bikram’s static poses can be sustained at over 100 degrees, but more dynamic classes are typically in the 95-degree range, and the Sweat Shoppe’s SweatCycle classes top out at 85 degrees. “If you go hotter, that’s nuts” and not safe, says Benz.

Read the full article at http://texilaconnect.com/hot-exercise-classes-catching-on-like-fire/

Photo of pregnant weightlifter sparks heated debate

Pregnant women are encouraged to stay fit and active during pregnancy to help reduce the risk to themselves and their unborn children. But 35-year-old weightlifter, Lea-Ann Ellison, has sparked a huge online debate after sharing photographs of her lifting heavy weights just two weeks before giving birth.

Pregnant women are encouraged to stay fit and active during pregnancy to help reduce the risk to themselves and their unborn children. But 35-year-old weightlifter, Lea-Ann Ellison, has sparked a huge online debate after sharing photographs of her lifting heavy weights just two weeks before giving birth.

The Los Angeles mom-to-be can be seen hoisting kettle balls and barbells above her head. With the photos, she gave the statement, “I strongly believe that pregnancy is not an illness, but a time to relish in your body’s capabilities to kick .”

Within just hours of the CrossFit regime follower’s post, more than 500 shares had taken place. Within less than five days, nearly 17,000 shares had been counted. That has resulted in some vehemently opposed comments regarding her fitness routine, which is described as a ‘strength and conditioning program [adopted by many organizations, including] military special operations units, champion martial artists and professional athletes worldwide.’

User Amanda Cinq-Mars wrote: “This is actually sickening. I hope pregnant women around the world do not do this kind of crap…I am a crossfit enthusiast but I DO NOT recommend this at all. Doctors always strongly suggest to not lift heavy because you can sever your placenta and cause major damage and  early labor and miscarriage…Posting this picture [gives] people the wrong message that it is OKAY when it’s not!!!”

Another user, Stephanie Herrera wrote: “Sure you look and sound cool, but we’re only human…why would you risk hurting your baby just to stay in shape? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. It’s not time to kick. It’s time to be protective of your unborn child.”

But not everyone has lashed out at the expectant Lea-Ann. In fact, she’s had some pretty strong supporters on her Facebook page.

For More interesting news: http://texilaconnect.com/photo-of-pregnant-weightlifter-sparks-heated-debate/

How Many Die From Medical Mistakes In U.S. Hospitals?

It seems that every time researchers estimate how often a medical mistake contributes to a hospital patient’s death, the numbers come out worse.

In 1999, the Institute of Medicine published the famous “To Err Is Human” report, which dropped a bombshell on the medical community by reporting that up to 98,000 people a year die because of mistakes in hospitals. The number was initially disputed, but is now widely accepted by doctors and hospital officials — and quoted ubiquitously in the media.

In 2010, the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services said that bad hospital care contributed to the deaths of 180,000 patients in Medicare alone in a given year.

In the four studies, which examined records of more than 4,200 patients hospitalized between 2002 and 2008, researchers found serious adverse events in as many as 21 percent of cases reviewed and rates of lethal adverse events as high as 1.4 percent of cases.

By combining the findings and extrapolating across 34 million hospitalizations in 2007, James concluded that preventable errors contribute to the hospital patients annually.

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A Video Game Makes Old Brains Act Younger

older people who aren’t functioning well and make them cognitively younger through this training,” said Earl K. Miller, a neuroscientist 

Brain scientists have discovered that swerving around cars while simultaneously picking out road signs in a video game can improve the short-term memory and long-term focus of older adults.

Cognitive scientists say the findings, to be published Thursday in the scientific journal Nature, are a significant development in understanding how to strengthen older brains. That is because the improvements in brain performance did not come just within the game but were shown outside the game in other cognitive tasks.

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Single cup of tea `boosts the brain

A new study has claimed that the nutrients found in a cup of tea can boost your brain power and increase alertness.

For the research, Dutch scientists studied the brain activity in 44 young volunteers to analyze the effect of key chemicals, an amino acid called L-theanine, and caffeine at levels typically found in a cup of tea, News.com.au reported.

The natural ingredients radically enhanced accuracy across a number of switching tasks for those who drank the tea after 20 and 70 minutes, compared with those who didn't.

The study also found that tea drinkers’ had heightened alertness and were less tired as compared to their non tea-drinker counterparts.

Researchers added that the results of the study suggest that the combination helps to focus attention during a demanding cognitive task.

The study was published in the journal Nutritional Neuroscience

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Woman in Bihar Gives Birth to Quintuplets

Woman in Bihar Gives Birth to Quintuplets

The babies were born at a private hospital in Bihar’s Nawada district. Janakai Prajapati gave birth to four children at Sultania Hospital on Thursday late night. Hospital superintendent Dr Sudha Chaurasia told that the delivery was done in seven-and-a-half months, therefore, the children are weak but stable.

Three infants died soon after birth, while a boy and a girl survived despite weighing less than normal, said the district health official. 

The woman, resident of Ambika village, was fine and the doctor was monitoring the health of the two surviving babies, he added.

Hundreds of villagers thronged the hospital to take a look at the quintuplets but doctors did not allow them to enter the hospital.

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Source: medindia.net