• Cancer diagnosis The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has released new guidelines to try to speed up the diagnosis of cancer. They recommend that all GPs should have direct access (without referral) to magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography, upper gastrointestinal endoscopy, colonoscopy, and occult blood screening. At present, only some […]
Tag: dementia
Sarah Waller: We need to make our wards more friendly for people with dementia
The report of the national audit of dementia care in general hospitals 2011, published last week, has put a sharp and timely focus on the care of people with dementia in hospitals and the need for improvements in the physical environment of care. A ward at King’s College Hospital, refurbished as part of The King’s […]
Richard Smith: Improving dementia care
The recent meeting of the Cambridge Health Network on dementia swung between pessimism and optimism, reflecting perhaps the national feeling. Dementia, said several speakers, is where cancer was 30 years ago and HIV 20 years ago: feared, not talked about, neglected, and thought untreatable. But there’s every reason why the same progress can be made […]
Research highlights – 22 July 2011
“Research highlights” is a weekly round-up of research papers appearing in the print BMJ. We start off with this week’s research questions, before providing more detail on some individual research papers and accompanying articles. […]
Domhnall MacAuley: Excellence in Practice. RCGP Annual National Primary Care Conference.
Are you an apple, a pear, or even a melon? Metabolic risk is less if you have the body profile of a pear rather than an apple. If you are shaped like a melon, it is definitely time for a serious diet. You may not have noticed, however, that you are now one of the […]
David Payne: BMJ in the news
Spectator blogger Melanie Phillips attracts lots of comments after flagging up a “big row” between the BMJ and Israel lobbying organisation Honest Reporting. The journal published five Israeli-themed articles last week, one of which concluded that Honest Reporting had targeted a hostile email campaign towards the BMJ five years ago. […]
Juliet Walker: BMJ in the news
The BMJ received some praise this week in a blog by Revere, on the Science Blogs forum. Here is an extract: “Science journals are not just about science. They compete with each other for readership, public recognition and prestige. It used to be that in the UK publishing world The British Medical Journal (BMJ) was […]
Aliya Razaaq on learning about dementia
Baroness Warnock, one of Britain’s leading ethical experts recently talked of the “right to die” of patients with dementia. She called for more research into the illness, in order to establish whether patients with dementia were mentally competent. Thus when they reached a certain point in their illness, they could make a decision of whether […]