A simple vision test performed on the sidelines may help determine whether athletes have suffered a concussion.

 

The King-Devick test usually takes less than one minute. It involves quickly reading numbers on index cards. During the study, 217 members of the University of Florida men’s football, women’s soccer and women’s lacrosse teams took the test at the beginning of the season. Thirty of the athletes had a concussion during the season and were tested again at the time of the injury.

 

The time to complete the test was longer for 79% of the athletes after the injury. The test requires eye movements, language and concentration, all of which can be impaired as a result of concussion.

 

“The visual pathways are commonly affected in concussion,” said Laura Balcer, lead author of the study. “Adding a vision-based test to evaluate athletes on the sidelines may allow us to better detect more athletes with concussion more quickly. This is particularly important since not all athletes reliably report their symptoms of concussion, including any vision problems.”

Source:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140226165110.htm

 

Ocuco, the company behind the Acuitas Practice Management System (Acuitas PMS) and the Innovations Lab Management System (LMS), has acquired Canada-based EMRlogic, provider of the ODPro PMS and activEHR.

 

Ocuco will honour all software support contracts for EMRlogic and will fix certain bugs in the ODPro system; however, development on this system will be frozen. Ultimately, ODPro will be discontinued and replaced by Acuitas PMS. Technical support will continue for two years after the replacement has been released. Ocuco will also enhance activEHR features.

 

EMRlogic had been under protection from its creditors for some months. A settlement has been reached and the acquisition will save most of the jobs in the company. EMRlogic’s employees will form the core of Ocuco’s new North American software support team. “We are delighted to provide a safe home with Ocuco for our customers and staff who have invested so much with us over the past few years,” said John McCormick, owner of EMRlogic.

 

There are already 7,200 eyecare professionals in 35 countries who use Ocuco products, including the FYidoctors network in Canada. The company is now intent on increasing its market share in North America.

Source:

http://www.emrlogic.com/PDFs/PR_20140220%20-%20Ocuco%20Acquires%20EMRlogic%20Software_INT.pdf

 

A French surgeon used the Google Glass to allow a physician located 10,000 km away to observe an operation as if he were on site.

 

Dr. Philippe Collin, an orthopedic surgeon at the Saint-Grégoire Private Hospital Centre, near Rennes, was operating on an 80-year-old patient who had ruptured his shoulder tendons. The patient was receiving a shoulder replacement that would help him recover his motor functions.

 

Since the prosthesis design used by Dr. Collin has just been approved in Japan, professor Goto at the Nagoya Hospital Centre wanted to observe the operation. Wearing the Google Glass during the operation, Dr. Collin was able not only to transmit images of the surgery, but also to interact with his Japanese colleague. An application created by Advanced Mobile Applications allowed him to receive images, to see his colleague and to talk to him. A simple voice command could make professor Goto appear.

 

“Mentoring is part of the philosophy of surgery and Google Glass is the perfect tool,” said Dr. Collin. He also imagines other applications in the future, such as displaying surgical procedures during an operation, looking up patient data or using augmented reality to optimize joint replacement procedures.

Source:

http://www.sciencesetavenir.fr/sante/20140218.OBS6751/un-chirurgien-francais-opere-avec-les-google-glass.html

 

A US study shows that multivitamins may lower cataract risk, but do not have the same effect on macular degeneration.

 

The researchers followed 14,641 male doctors in the United States. Half of them were taking daily multivitamins, as well as vitamin C, vitamin E, and beta carotene supplements, whereas the other half took a placebo.

 

In the placebo group, 945 cases of cataract developed over the years, compared to 872 cases in the doctors who took multivitamins, which is a 9% decrease in risk. This risk dropped by as much as 13% for nuclear cataract. Given the extremely high number of patients with cataracts, even a modest 10% drop in risk “would nonetheless have a large public health impact,” said Dr. William Christen, researcher at Harvard Medical School and the study’s lead author.

 

Mmultivitamins, however, did not produce the same results for AMD prevention. The researchers even found more cases of AMD in patients who had taken the vitamins (152), compared to the placebo group (129). Though it was a finding deemed to be statistically insignificant, it nonetheless raised some concerns. “Clearly, this finding needs to be examined further in other trials,” concluded Dr. Christen.

Source:

http://www.aao.org/newsroom/release/daily-multivitamin-supplement-use-decreases-cataract-risk-in-men.cfm

The Aspex Group just signed with the German company BMW a worldwide distribution agreement for its eyewear collection. Aspex and BMW had already signed a distribution agreement in Canada and the United States less than a year ago.