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Panic attacks are sudden bouts of intense fear without an obvious cause. An estimated 10% of people experience at least one panic attack in their lifetime. But between 2% and 3% of the population have such frequent and severe panic attacks that they meet the criteria for the debilitating condition “panic disorder.”

Reduce, reuse, recycle, and rethink can be applied in Canadian operating rooms (ORs) to increase environmental sustainability, advises a new guideline published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal)

The presence of nitazenes on the unregulated drug market has risen steeply in the last seven years—prompting UK and international bodies to issue public health warnings about their use. King’s College London research, published in Clinical Toxicology, sheds light on the UK’s growing synthetic opioid problem.

Recent research at Åbo Akademi University highlights that promoting thriving is essential for older people in care homes and constitutes a cornerstone of high-quality aged care. Ann-Sofie Silvennoinen’s doctoral thesis in health sciences is the first in Finland to examine how older persons experience thriving in care homes, highlighting the factors that contribute to a fulfilling and meaningful daily life.

A team led by the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (CNIC) and Hospital Clínico Universitario de Valladolid has developed and clinically applied a minimally invasive technique that, for the first time, enables the treatment of defective mechanical aortic valves using a catheter-based approach. The procedure avoids high-risk open-heart surgery and opens new therapeutic possibilities for patients who previously had no realistic options. The two research groups, led respectively by Dr. Borja Ibáñez and Dr. Alberto San Román, are part of the Spanish cardiovascular research network CIBERCV.

A new multicenter study led by Zachary Binder, MD, associate professor of pediatrics, provides compelling evidence that an ultrasound-guided nerve block can dramatically improve pain control for children with femur fractures, while reducing their need for opioids by nearly 75%. Published in Academic Emergency Medicine, the study is the first large, prospective evaluation of the technique in pediatric emergency settings and offers a promising new approach to managing one of childhood’s most painful injuries.

A clinical trial led by Kirby Institute at UNSW Sydney has found that point-of-care testing for hepatitis B DNA is as effective as traditional laboratory testing, paving the way for faster diagnosis and treatment in hard-to-reach communities. The results have been published in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology.

Time-restricted eating has emerged as a popular dietary approach because it focuses on when people eat rather than strictly limiting calories. Instead of counting calories, individuals restrict their daily food intake to a defined time window. While this approach has been widely studied, most research has focused on whether time-restricted eating works, with less attention paid to how eating timing and eating duration interact.

Rounds focused on critically ill pediatric patients at the greatest risk for developing health care–associated conditions (HACs) reduced the rate of specific HACs by nearly 50% at a Colorado hospital, according to a study published in Critical Care Nurse. After implementing a high-risk rounding process, Children’s Hospital Colorado, Aurora, was able to decrease the mean rate of project-specific HACs in its pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) from 5.41 to 2.89 events per 1,000 patient days. The 48-bed PICU averages 3,500 admissions annually from across the seven states served by the hospital.

Panic disorder (PD) is a mental health disorder characterized by recurring panic attacks, episodes of intense fear and anxiety accompanied by physical sensations and physiological responses such as a racing heart, shortness of breath, dizziness, blurred vision and other symptoms. Estimates suggest that approximately 2–3% of people worldwide experience PD at some point during their lives.