Category: AT

The First Prescription Digital Therapeutic Authorized for the Adjunctive Treatment of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) Symptoms

From Otsuka: Click through for the full post…

In a landmark clinical study, this innovative adjunctive treatment delivered via smartphone app reduced depression symptoms in participants on antidepressant medication with no treatment-related adverse events.

Otsuka Pharmaceutical, Co. Ltd. (Otsuka) and Click Therapeutics, Inc., (Click) announce that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared Rejoyn™ (developed as CT-152), the first prescription digital therapeutic authorized for the treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD) symptoms as an adjunct to clinician-managed outpatient care for adult patients with MDD age 22 years and older who are on antidepressant medication. Rejoyn is intended to reduce MDD symptoms.

Rejoyn is a six-week treatment program designed to help enhance cognitive control of emotion through a combination of clinically-validated cognitive emotional training exercises for the brain and brief therapeutic lessons. Unlike wellness apps, the Rejoyn app is a medical device authorized by the FDA for prescription by a healthcare professional.

“Rejoyn represents a novel and exciting adjunctive treatment option to address major depressive disorder (MDD) symptoms that complements the current standard of care,” said John Kraus, M.D., Ph.D., executive vice president and chief medical officer at Otsuka. “While traditional approaches are often effective, many are left with only a partial response to treatment. Otsuka has a long, unwavering commitment to addressing the unmet needs of people living with mental illnesses and the clearance of Rejoyn is an example of delivering on that promise. We are deeply grateful to the trial participants, clinicians, and everyone at Otsuka and Click Therapeutics, who helped Rejoyn reach this important milestone.”

Got tinnitus? A device that tickles the tongue helps this musician find relief

By Allison Aubrey: Click through for the full post…

Imagine if every moment is filled with a high-pitched buzz or ring that you can’t turn off.

More than 25 million adults in the U.S., have a condition called tinnitus, according to the American Tinnitus Association. It can be stressful, even panic-inducing and difficult to manage. Dozens of factors can contribute to the onset of tinnitus, including hearing loss, exposure to loud noise or a viral illness.

There’s no cure, but there are a range of strategies to reduce the symptoms and make it less bothersome, including hearing aids, mindfulness therapy, and one newer option – a device approved by the FDA to treat tinnitus using electrical stimulation of the tongue.

The device has helped Victoria Banks, a singer and songwriter in Nashville, Tenn., who developed tinnitus about three years ago.

“The noise in my head felt like a bunch of cicadas,” Banks says. “It was terrifying.” The buzz made it difficult for her to sing and listen to music. “It can be absolutely debilitating,” she says.

26 ‘Hacks’ That Can Make Cleaning Easier If You Have a Chronic Illness

By Paige Wyant: Click through for the full post…

When you have a chronic illness, seemingly mundane tasks like washing the dishes or doing a load of laundry can be difficult and exhausting. Doing more thorough household chores such as vacuuming, mopping, or scrubbing counters can easily exacerbate chronic pain and fatigue. On bad flare days, cleaning may not be possible at all.

Therefore, many of those with chronic illness have developed certain tricks or found accommodations to help maintain their home while they battle various symptoms. We asked our Mighty community to share some of their “hacks” for making cleaning with a chronic illness easier. Perhaps the following can be of help to you as well.

Just so you know, The Mighty may collect a share of sales from the affiliate links on this page. As an Amazon associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

Here’s what the community shared with us:

End of internet subsidies for low-income households threatens telehealth access

By Sarah Jane Tribble: Click through for the full post…

For Cindy Westman, $30 buys a week’s worth of gas to drive to medical appointments and run errands.

It’s also how much she spent on her monthly internet bill before the federal Affordable Connectivity Program stepped in and covered her payments.

“When you have low income and you are living on disability and your daughter’s disabled, every dollar counts,” said Westman, who lives in rural Illinois.

More than 23 million low-income households — urban, suburban, rural, and tribal — are enrolled in the federal discount program Congress created in 2021 to bridge the nation’s digital connectivity gap. The program has provided $30 monthly subsidies for internet bills or $75 discounts in tribal and high-cost areas.

But the program is expected to run out of money in April or May, according to the Federal Communications Commission. In January, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel asked Congress to allocate $6 billion to keep the program running until the end of 2024. She said the subsidy gives Americans the “internet service they need to fully participate in modern life.”

The importance of high-speed internet was seared into the American psyche by scenes of children sitting in parking lots and outside fast-food restaurants to attend school online during the covid-19 pandemic. During that same period, health care providers and patients like Westman say, being connected also became a vital part of today’s health care delivery system.

Westman said her internet connection has become so important to her access to health care she would sell “anything that I own” to stay connected.

Opinion | An answer to Michigan’s home care needs is right at hand

By Jill Gerrie: Click through for the full post…

Everyone has the right to live in the setting they choose. This is equally true for those with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities, as well as for the aging. Competent, compassionate caregivers are required for loved ones to thrive in their own homes. This requires well-trained, properly compensated caregivers. These professionals are essential for the high-quality long-term support and services that are basic human rights.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that more than 2.3 million Michigan adults have some type of disability. Some 35,000 care workers are in Michigan homes assisting seniors and persons with disabilities. However, Michigan is in a home care crisis as the senior population booms and will have 115,500 home care job openings from 2020–2030. This shortage results in months-long waiting lists for home and community-based services. 

Experts say the high turnover rate and shortage of home care workers is due to low pay. Michigan’s Direct Care Workforce Living Wage and Turnover Cost Analysis, a 2021 report prepared for the Center for Health Care Strategies, says these workers are living paycheck-to-paycheck. It concludes that “direct care workers provide life-or-death services, and it is unfortunate that hourly wages are not commensurate with their responsibilities.”

Low pay is a fundamental flaw in an essential care system that must be addressed. Home care workers deserve enough pay to care for their own families. They deserve benefits to safeguard their health, as they perform physically challenging tasks like lifting people. They deserve to be properly trained to protect them, decreasing injuries, lessening turnover and ensuring continuity of care.

Training, better benefits and higher pay for home care workers through a home help authority, along with restoring their bargaining rights, will bring caregivers to these jobs, encourage continuity of care, relieve the burden of the high cost of a nursing home, and enable better health at home.

That is why Michigan is poised to act, to form a public authority to professionalize home care work to support the workers who provide essential medical and non-medical services. The legislation would establish a much-needed statewide authority to address the root causes of the persistent and worsening workforce crisis. It would provide the guidelines and safeguards needed for more high-quality, well-trained and fairly paid caregivers.

A paramedic was skeptical about this Rx for stopping repeat opioid overdoses. Then he saw it help.

By Lauren Peace: Click through for the full post…

Fire Capt. Jesse Blaire steered his SUV through the mobile home park until he spotted the little beige house with white trim and radioed to let dispatchers know he’d arrived.

There, Shawnice Slaughter waited on the steps, wiping sleep from her eyes.

“Good morning, Shawnice,” Blaire said. “How are you feeling today?”

“I’ve been good, I’ve been good,” Slaughter said. “Much better.”

Three days earlier, Blaire — a paramedic who leads the fire department’s emergency medical team — met Slaughter at a nearby hospital. She had overdosed on opioids. It took four vials of an overdose reversal medication and dozens of chest compressions to get her breathing again.

At the hospital, Blaire told Slaughter about a free program that could help. It wouldn’t just connect her with a recovery center but would also get her doctors’ appointments, plus rides there. More important, she would get medicine to alleviate withdrawal symptoms so she wouldn’t search for drugs to ease the sickness. Blaire would bring that medication, daily, to her home.

“I have a son,” Slaughter, 31, told Blaire. “I need to be alive for him.”

Every morning since, Blaire had driven over for a check-in. He reminded Slaughter of appointments and took note of what she needed: clothes, food, help with bills.

And at the end of each visit, from a lockbox in the back of his car, he dispensed to her a couple of tiny, lifesaving tablets.

Those tablets — a medicine called buprenorphine — represent a tidal change in the way counties in Florida and other states are addressing the opioid crisis. The idea: Get addiction medication to people who need it by meeting them where they are. Sometimes, that’s on the street. Sometimes, it’s in the driveway of a big house with a swimming pool. Sometimes on the steps of a modest home like Slaughter’s.

Evinced Proposes Long Overdue Mobile Content Accessibility Guidelines

By Gus Alexiou: Click through for the full post…

The idea of “mobile-first” in relation to the prioritization of web content design elements has been around for well over a decade and yet a codified set of mobile-specific international guidelines to make smartphone apps accessible to users with disabilities has been slow to emerge.

Presumably when former Google CEO Eric Schmidt introduced the idea of “mobile-first” design back in 2010 he couldn’t have imagined it would take this long. However, he’d likely find it thoroughly unsurprising that, according to the Global System for Mobile Communications Association, there are projected to be 3.7 billion people (72% of the global internet base) who will access the internet exclusively via mobile by 2025.

Attempting to address this design deficit is California-headquartered Evinced which specializes in building software to track and prevent digital accessibility issues. At the CSUN conference held in Anaheim earlier this month, the largest of its kind worldwide focusing on assistive technology and accessibility, the company announced bold plans to kickstart a movement that it hopes will one day lead to an official set of international guidelines for accessible mobile app design.

In fact, rather than just an expression of noble intentions, Evinced has already progressed matters considerably by creating and publishing a draft set of open-source guidelines which the company hopes will be a starting point for further collaboration and collective action within the industry. Led by Head of Accessibility Illai Zeevi, the Mobile Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0, or MCAG for short, derives its nomenclature from the Worldwide Web Consortium’s globally recognized Web Content Accessibility Guidelines that have been around since 1999.

breAthe clean air withrespiray Wear A+

From Respiray: Click through for the full post…

ngd-I can’t vouch for the quality of this device. I just thought it was an interesting take on managing quality of air and respiratory difficulties…

The best wearable personal air purifier for allergies, viruses and air pollution.

Do you support someone experiencing changes in mood or behaviour related to dementia?

From Canadian Coalition for Seniors’ Mental Health: Click through for the full post…

The Behaviours in Dementia Toolkit is a brand-new online library of over 200 free, practical resources that can help you better understand and compassionately respond to dementia-related changes in mood or behaviour

The U.S. Government’s Home Internet Discounts End After April 2024

BY ANDREW HEINZMAN: Click through for the full post…

A lack of funding has doomed the Affordable Connectivity Program.

Due to a lack of funding, the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) will end after April 2024. Low-income households that utilize the program will no longer receive a $30 discount on home internet service.

Subsidized internet access was a key component of the U.S. COVID-19 response. The 2020 CARES Act, which included an Emergency Broadband Benefit program, helped low-income families afford internet service for remote work and schooling. Home internet subsidies were set to end after 2021, but they were extended through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP).

A 2023 study shows that 14% of U.S. households are enrolled in the ACP. That’s about 18.5 million households in total. According to the FCC, about 75% of these participants believe that they’ll encounter service disruptions when ACP ends.

Most service providers have a $40 or $45 monthly plan that is dedicated to ACP service. Through these plans, ACP-participating families are paying as little as $10 a month for internet access (some are paying even less due to Lifeline benefits). The leap from $10 to $40 is massive, and it’s the main reason for discomfort among ACP participants. However, $40 is relatively cheap when compared to the average home internet price—$75 a month.

Service providers have until March 19th to notify customers of the ACP shutdown. Some ISPs may continue offering cheap service, while others may liquidate their subsidized plans. It’s a scramble. And while there’s still plenty of bipartisan support for the ACP, a last-minute injection of cash seems unlikely. The ACP received $6 billion in 2023, but it’s completely out of money today.