Artificial intelligence and digital health technologies Archive

When you're packing a hurricane go-bag, keep health priorities in mind. If you don't prepare in advance, you might leave behind medicines, medical supplies, important paperwork, and other essentials that can help you stay healthy. Here's how to plan ahead.

Guidelines advise unvaccinated people at high risk for severe COVID to take Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir with ritonavir) soon after symptoms begin. However, a 2024 study suggests that people who are vaccinated and high-risk or unvaccinated and low-risk don't need to do so.

Vertigo is a symptom, not a condition. It can make people feel lightheaded, faint, unsteady, or like the room is spinning. Common conditions causing vertigo include benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, vestibular migraines, vestibular neuritis, and Meniare's disease. People should see a doctor after a single vertigo episode to determine the cause. Depending on the cause, treatments might include medications, a canalith repositioning procedure, vestibular therapy, and cognitive behavioral therapy. Staying active, not sedentary, between episodes can help people with vertigo feel better.

Many people believe they have allergies to certain medications, even though they really don't. It could be that they experienced only a drug side effect after taking a particular drug, not a true allergic reaction (which is an immune system response). Unfortunately, inaccurate information can limit treatment options. So it's best to confirm a suspected drug allergy with an allergist. That typically involves getting a simple skin test or taking a very small dose of the medication in question in the presence of a medical team.

Sleep problems are an all-too-common reality for most older men. They often sleep less deeply and are more easily awakened. They also are more likely to suffer from conditions that affect sleep, such as sleep apnea and restless legs syndrome. Adopting several lifestyle and behavioral changes can help men maintain a proper and healthy sleep cycle.

Artificial intelligence, or A.I., has been used in women's health care for decades. A.I. helps detect and track breast cancer, endometriosis, fibroids, cervical precancers, and other conditions. A.I.-driven mammography software may reveal more breast cancers than radiologists detect alone. A.I. may soon streamline women's breast cancer risk assessment scores to aid screening. Experts once predicted that A.I. would replace radiologists, but that hasn't happened and isn't likely, according to Harvard specialists.

The American Heart Association's first-ever scientific statement on artificial intelligence (A.I.) in cardiology explores how the technology may improve how doctors prevent, detect, and treat heart disease. For example, A.I. data from patch monitors may predict who will develop potentially serious heart rhythms. Applying A.I. tools to a single chest x-ray may predict a person's risk of heart attack and other serious health problems.

Modern medicine offers ever-expanding ways to heal and prevent disease, but it's also true that health care can cause harm. Some harms are preventable while others are much harder to control. So how can you reduce your chances of being harmed?

When cancer patients are treated with radiation, it's possible that the therapy itself may cause new tumors to form in the body later. Canadian researchers published findings in 2014 finding no difference between groups of men treated with cancer or with surgery - but following up another decade later, there was a clear increase in risk.

A 2024 nationwide poll suggests that one in four older adults takes aspirin regularly in hopes of preventing a heart attack or stroke, even though updated guidelines from 2019 advise against that practice in many cases.