Thanks to all of our readers for helping make 2011 a great year.
Happy holidays from the team at Highlight HEALTH!
Walter Jessen, Diana Gitig, Kirstin Hendrickson and Faith Martin.
Celebrating Five Years of Highlight HEALTH, Prize Pack Giveaways
December 8, 2011 | by
Some events are once-in-a-lifetime and just have to be observed. Here at Highlight HEALTH, we’re coming up on one of those events: our five year anniversary!
To celebrate this milestone and to give something back to our readers, for the next three months we’re holding a prize pack giveaway.
Qualcomm Life Focuses on Wireless Medical Device Connectivity
December 5, 2011 | by
Mobile technology company Qualcomm announced today the formation of a new subsidiary, Qualcomm Life. The subsidiary will run the company’s former Wireless Health business. Qualcomm Life was unveiled today at the mHealth Summit in Washington D.C. As part of the launch, Qualcomm presented the 2net hub, a mobile device designed to plug into a wall socket and provide connectivity for a wide range of medical devices. The 2net platform allows for the wireless transmission of health data from medical devices to various locations, such as a hospital or doctor’s office.
Over 40 medical device manufacturers, application developers, health care services companies and payors are either integrating with or considering the 2net ecosystem.
Qualcomm Life will also establish a $100 million fund, managed by Qualcomm’s venture arm, to invest in wireless technology adoption in the healthcare industry. Desired developments include biosensors, medication compliance, wellness, remote diagnosis or monitoring and analytics.
According to Rick Valencia, vice president and general manager of Qualcomm Life:
Qualcomm Life was founded, in part, to assist medical device manufacturers who approached Qualcomm for help when their own wireless connectivity attempts became untenable due to technology selection errors, unscalable deployment models and prohibitively high operational support costs. Our services, including integration on the 2net platform, remove the burden for medical device manufacturers of a large technical development effort, providing integration with mobile carriers and solving the operational complexities of supporting wireless medical device data in the field.
Source: Qualcomm Life
Brain Awareness Week: Staying Sharp
March 18, 2011 | by
As Brain Awareness Week comes to a close here at Highlight HEALTH, we wanted to leave you with a video from the Dana Foundation that addresses the science behind the healthy brain practices that may help us stay sharp as we get older — the lifestyle factors that may contribute to the maintenance of cognitive function.
Don’t forget that we’re giving away several publications for Brain Awareness Week; in particular, the bookmark was created to be paired with the Staying Staying Sharp booklet (link below) and video (below).
Dr. Jordan Grafman, chief of the Cognitive Neuroscience Section at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), and a member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, is your guide as we cover what to expect from the aging brain and what you can do to “stay sharp”.
Brain Awareness Week: Brain Fitness Book Give Away
March 14, 2011 | by
Here at Highlight HEALTH, we’re very interested in health and wellness, and the evidence-based preventive steps that can be taken to maintain or preclude disease or injury. This same idea applies to brain health: what preventive measures can be taken to improve or retain mental ability and brainpower?
Cognitive decline as you age appears to be largely due to altered connections among brain cells. Keeping the brain active — reading, writing, working crossword or other puzzles, educational courses, memory exercises — appears to strengthen the brain and may build reserves of brain cells and connections.
Today, it’s common to hear the buzzwords “brain fitness”, “brain training” and/or “neuroplasticity”. There are several products available on the market that can help to maintain and/or rebuild cognitive performance. We reviewed the SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness when it was released in 2009. The guide aims to help people make informed decisions about brain health and cognitive fitness, based on the latest scientific research, and to help navigate new products and confusing myths and claims that are part of the emerging brain fitness market.
SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness book give away
For Brain Awareness Week, SharpBrains has generously provided 5 copies of The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness for us to give away. Here’s how it works:
Simply leave a comment below and tell us in 2-3 sentences how brain research can impact health and/or healthcare. Together with Alvaro Fernandez at SharpBrains, we’ll select the 5 best answers and send the authors a copy of The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness.
If you need ideas to help you get started, check out past stories on the brain here at Highlight HEALTH.
Steps to brain fitness
An unhealthy lifestyle can lead to diseases like obesity, diabetes and brain-related health problems, all of which increase the risk of stroke, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. These conditions can be managed and even prevented by a healthy lifestyle. Research shows that brain health is promoted by a healthy lifestyle that includes [1]:
- Eating a brain-healthy diet
- Staying mentally active
- Exercising and keeping fit
- Staying socially engaged
- Getting plenty of sleep
- Managing stress
- Protecting your head from trauma
- Controlling risk factors
- Avoiding unhealthy habits
- Understanding your genetic risk
The decision to review your current lifestyle and start making changes for brain health is truly an important choice to make. Following the healthy steps listed above will be effective at any age; however, the earlier you start, the better off you will be. Your goal should be to make a brain-healthy lifestyle a normal part of your everyday.
References
- Steps to Brain Fitness. Alliance for Aging Research. 2006.
