Featured Buzz
By Debbie Bunch
November 18, 2024
Asthma May Impact Cognitive Abilities in Children
Children with asthma may be at increased risk for memory and executive function difficulties, find researchers publishing in JAMA Open Network.
The study, which was carried out by investigators from the University of California Davis, involved children taking part in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study who were enrolled at age nine or ten in 2015. The kids were followed for one to two years.
Among that group, 474 children with asthma were identified and classified into two groups according to when their asthma developed. The researchers found lower rates of longitudinal memory improvements in kids who were first diagnosed with asthma at an earlier age.
In another analysis of 2,062 children from the study, half with asthma and half without, children with asthma had lower scores on episodic memory, processing speed, and inhibition and attention tests.
The authors believe asthma that occurs at an earlier age may be more likely to disturb neurodevelopment. They also suggest the longer duration of asthma in these kids may be having an impact on their cognitive abilities as well.
“Prolonged inflammation due to longer duration may result in detrimental neuroinflammatory responses, which may in turn disrupt neural processing and manifest in the form of cognitive dysfunction, consistent with results from rodent models of asthma,” wrote the authors. “Future studies including additional assessment points will help disentangle effects of early exposure (i.e., age of onset) from effects associated with the duration of exposure.” Read Full Paper
Too Many Asthma and COPD Patients are Saying No to the Flu Shot
A recent study from investigators at Cedar Gate Technologies suggests people with asthma and COPD are not taking advantage of the annual influenza vaccine.
The research was based on an analysis of Cedar Gate’s National Healthcare Benchmark Database, which includes claims for about 15 million commercially insured members. Overall, only 29.16% of people received the shot in the 2022-2023 flu season, with the numbers for COPD and asthma patients just slightly higher at 35.5% and 34.5%, respectively.
The researchers also looked at the costs associated with influenza in people with asthma and COPD compared to those without, with results showing —
- 32.6% of COPD patients went to the emergency room or were admitted for hospital inpatient care for influenza, four times higher than the 8% of patients without either asthma or COPD who went to the ER or hospital for flu-related care.
- More than 85% of flu treatments for people without a COPD or asthma diagnosis took place in a lower-cost setting, such as a doctor’s office, urgent care center, or telehealth appointment.
- The per-event cost for treatment of flu-related illness was almost three times higher for COPD and asthma patients at $952.01 than the average cost for someone without either chronic health condition, which came in at $359.52 per event.
The AI model used by Cedar Gate in this study suggests 65.5% of people in their database are unlikely to receive a flu shot this flu season. Read Press Release
New Patch May Outperform Digital Stethoscope
Scientists from the Georgia Institute of Technology are developing a deep learning model that can be paired with a wearable patch equipped with a highly sensitive sensor to detect wheezing.
They believe the technology will be a step up from the current digital stethoscopes used to listen to and record abnormal lung sounds such as wheezing and crackles because those devices rely on a computerized time-frequency analysis that uses an algorithm that is not comprehensive and can lead to missed cases.
The model was tested in 52 patients, 25 of whom were obese. Participants wore the patch on up to nine places on their chests and lung sounds were recorded from each location while they took deep breaths for 30 seconds at a time.
Lung recordings using digital stethoscopes on the same chest sites were collected for comparison purposes.
When the researchers listened to the recordings, they found that those labeled as wheezes by the patch were highly aligned to those labeled as wheezes by the digital stethoscope, even among the patients classified as obese. The data were then fed into the deep learning model and the deep learning model was compared to the standard time-frequency method for wheeze detection when paired with the patch or the digital stethoscope.
Results showed the deep learning model paired with the patch consistently had the highest average accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity rates for wheeze detection — 95%, 96%, and 93%, respectively — outperforming the time-frequency method paired with the patch or the digital stethoscope, and the deep learning method paired with the digital stethoscope.
“Our sensitive patch has many advantages over traditional wheeze detection, which struggles to detect all variations of wheezes and crackles, which can lead to misdiagnosis,” said senior study author Farrokh Ayazi, PhD.
The team believes the patch can be used both in the clinic to diagnose an exacerbation and at home for long-term monitoring. They are working on a wireless version of the patch that will be able to transmit the patient’s data to their physician or clinic.
The study was published by Biosensors. Read Press Release Read Full Paper
All pictures were generated by AI.
