Music plays important role in mental health
A new study has revealed that the risk of mental decline through age or illness, is less in people, who play one or more musical instruments.
Researchers at St Andrews University found that musicians have sharper minds and they are able to pick up and rectify mistakes quicker than their non-musician counterparts, News.com.au reported.
For the research, led by psychologist Ines Jentzsch, scientists compared the behavioural and brain responses of amateur musicians with non-musicians when performing simple mental tasks.
The results showed that playing a musical instrument, even at moderate levels, improves a person’s ability to detect errors and adjust responses more successfully.
Jentzsch said that the study shows that even moderate levels of musical activity can benefit brain functioning.
She asserted that the findings could have important implications as the processes involved are amongst the first to be affected by ageing, as well as a number of mental illnesses such as depression.
She added that the research suggests that musical activity could be used as an effective intervention to slow, stop or even reverse age or illness-related decline in mental functioning.
The study was published in the journal Neuropsychologia. (ANI)
Smart phones turn eye disease detectors
Smartphones are now being used more routinely in ophthalmology to document patients’ ocular conditions. Commercial retinal or fundus cameras can cost tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars, making the technology out of reach for smaller ophthalmic practices and to physicians in third-world countries.
In a recent study, Massachusetts Eye and Ear researchers describe the relatively simple technique of fundus photography in human and rabbit eyes using a smartphone, an inexpensive app for the smartphone, and instruments that are readily available in an ophthalmic practice.
Previously described techniques of fundus imaging often proved difficult to repeat, partly because video capture using Apple’s built-in camera app in the iPhones cannot independently control the focus and the exposure during filming, which results in glare and poor image quality.
“Our technique provides a simpler and higher quality method to more consistently produce excellent images of a patient’s fundus,” senior author Shizuo Mukai, M.D., Mass. Eye and Ear retina specialist and Harvard Medical School associate professor of Ophthalmology, said.
“This technique has been extremely helpful for us in the emergency department setting, in-patient consultations, and during examinations under anesthesia as it provides a cheaper and portable option for high-quality fundus-image acquisition for documentation and consultation.
Using the described technique of smartphone fundus photography with the use of iPhone 4 or iPhone 5, the app Filmic pro, and a 20D lens with or without a Koeppe lens, researchers were was able to capture excellent, high-quality fundus images in both children under anesthesia and in awake adults. (ANI)
Kids born to mums under 30 at higher risk of childhood death
A new research has found that children born to mothers under 30 are more likely to die than those born to older mums.
While overall child mortality fell by 50 percent in the past 20 years, young maternal age was found to be a risk factor for death in early childhood, according to a report on child deaths in the UK.
Support should be extended to mothers of all ages, not just first-time teenage mums, the report said.
The research was led by the Institute of Child Health at UCL, the BBC reported.
It looked at why children die in the UK using death registration data from January 1980 to December 2010.
It focused on child injuries, birthweight and maternal age to assess the risk factors for child deaths.
The research found that in England, Scotland and Wales, the difference in mortality between children of mothers under 30 and those born to mothers aged 30 to 34 accounted for 11percent of all deaths up to nine years old.
This is equivalent to an average of 397 deaths in the UK each year, the report said. (ANI)