REPOST: Many Hearts, One Beat: Singing Syncs Up Heart Rates

Music is good for the soul in more ways than one. Time.com’s Clair Groden writes about the positive effects music has on a person’s heart rate. Read more about this finding here.

When choir members sing together, it’s not just their voices that join in harmony.

According to a study published in the journal Frontiers of Neuroscience, when members of a choir sing together, their heart rates tend to synchronize and beat as one. A team of Swedish researchers led by Björn Vickhoff discovered that this synchronicity can produce a sense of calm that is similar to the effects of yoga.

It works like this: a long nerve called the vagus nerve — Latin for “wandering” — trails down from the brain stem into the body, where it influences the heart along with a handful of other organs. Exhaling activates the vagus nerve, which slows the heart’s pulse, Vickhoff says. So, if a group’s breathing is in sync, then it makes sense that the beating of their hearts will be too.

“Singing is quite like guided breathing,” Vickhoff says. “If I would say to you, ‘Breathe in…breathe out,’ it would be quite as if you were singing a hymn in the church.”

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The researchers asked 15 high school students to sing three different song structures while their pulses were recorded. By humming a song, singing a hymn, and chanting a slow manta, the choir members varied the synchronization of their breathing. The hymn required the most rigid breathing pattern, only allowing participants to breathe at the end of musical phrases, while the hum allowed participants to breathe at will. When students sang the hymn, their heart rates were the most in harmony.

The synchronized beating isn’t just of musical interest, says Vickhoff, since the finding could inform how singing might help some people to control their breathing and heart rate more effectively. Older people and those who are under stress tend to have less variability in their heart rates, a sign of poorer heart health since their hearts are less able to adjust to the body’s changing needs. Singing, however, brings a more consistent pattern to the changes in heart rate that follows the structure of the music, according to Rickard Åström, a musician who worked on the research team.

And the unified heart rates isn’t just symbolic — it has real, emotional effects. The vagus nerve that affects the heart has a serious hand in a person’s sense of arousal or calmness. “When people are singing slow songs together, waves of calming effect go through the choir,” Vickhoff says.

The researchers are hesitant to claim any long-term health effects yet, but Vickhoff says they are already preparing another experiment that will examine the effects of the synchrony on cooperation. He and Åström both suspect that choir singers are better at coordination and are more sensitive to one another after experiencing this physical synchrony. Their hope is to see if uniting heart rates can also unite hearts.

Watch the researchers discuss the study:

Source: Nsikan Akpan on YouTube

Dr. Kamal Patel, a certified internist, runs a private practice based in Arlignton Heights, Illinois. Visit this blog for updates.

Brain surgery for OCD

An obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) that is too severe for psychotherapy and medication may be cured by brain surgery. This is according to a recent study published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, & Psychiatry.

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In the study, 19 OCD sufferers who underwent a type of psychosurgery called bilateral capsulotomy between 1997 and 2009 were observed. Nearly half of them showed improvement and 15 percent have fully recovered seven years later.

LiveScience reports that psychosurgery—brain surgery for mental disorders—has been performed since the 1930s but has declined during the introduction of psychiatric medications. The new advancements in brain imaging technology, however, have revived the practice by helping doctors select the surgery target more carefully.

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Prior to the recognition of bilateral capsulotomy as a treatment for OCD, doctors have also performed deep brain stimulation. Unlike capsulotomy, which permanently damages brain tissue, deep brain stimulation implant is reversible. However, those who have undergone the procedure face risks of infection and erosion of the device through the skin. It is up to the patients then to choose what type of surgery to undergo since both options are not free of complications.

OCD is defined by the National Institute of Mental Health as an anxiety disorder that causes individuals to repeat things over and over in an act to relieve themselves of distress. When their rituals get in the way of daily life, it becomes a compulsion. While normal people repeat or re-check an activity for assurance, OCD sufferers do not have control over what they are doing.

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Dr. Kamal Patel, an internist practicing in Arlington Heights, IL, is an expert in the diagnoses and treatment of adult diseases, like OCD. Follow this Twitter page to keep abreast of the latest happenings in health and medical science.

Of grief and loss: Adults in the time of bereavement

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When they lose someone special due to an accident or a disease or any unfortunate event, some adult Americans choose to grieve privately than publicly, something that is dangerous to their well-being.

Grief, a natural response to loss, is an emotional suffering a person feels after losing someone or something he loves. It is also an emotion that is detrimental to adults, because, unlike children, they already have the capacity to understand the gravity of the experienced loss.

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Although adults have the understanding they need to cope with grieving, they also have the tendency to over-dwell on it. That said, what a grieving adult needs is a person who knows him well. Spending time with friends and family will keep the grieving person from spiraling down into depression, and will help him gradually accept the loss.

In some cases, joining a support group, composed of different people who experience the same problem, can also help. When the grieving is too much to take, it is advisable to talk to a therapist or a grief counselor. Health professionals have their own special way of dealing with patients having problems concerning grief, since they work thorough intense emotions and overcome obstacles to a person’s grieving.

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Losing a loved one is difficult, but going through the whole process of accepting the loss can be more difficult for some. In times of bereavement, individuals can always seek the help of family, friends, and medical professionals.  


An internist and multi-linguist, Dr. Kamal Patel specializes in treating adult diseases. Discover more about his practice at this Twitter page.

A rare form of sleepwalking

There is pleasure in making love in the middle of the night, but there is none when one realizes that he’s the only one awake in that passionate feat.

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Though it has been regarded as a mere sexual behavior in sleep in a 1996 research done by Sleep Research, sexsomnia—or a condition in which the person engages in sexual acts while he’s asleep——has had its precise definition broadened after the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry redefined it in 2003 as a subtype of parasomnia and not a kind of somnambulism.

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What makes sexsomnia different from other sleep disorders is that it involves another individual. In the perspective of the sexsomniac, he would end up waking in the middle of his sleep while performing a sexual act with another person. This manifestation made many experts believe that this sleeping disorder happens while the person is dreaming and unconscious, which means that a person can only suffer from sexsomnia if he has experienced sex—or “anything sexual” for that matter—be it direct (an actual sexual intercourse) or not (through heard stories and watched movies).

The latter, however, creates a more alarming fact: now that the younger generation is more exposed than at any other time in history to the explicit contents that are available on the Web, there’s a possibility that sexsomnia would soon blight the innocent population of the youth.

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Dr. Kamal Patel is a seasoned internist at the Northwest Medical Clinic in Arlington Heights, Illinois who has expertise in treating people suffering from different kinds of sleep disorder. To learn more about his specializations, visit this Twitter page.

On adult vaccination: Grown-ups don't like getting shots

The recent flu epidemic has motivated many Americans to get flu shots to protect and maintain their well-being. 44 US states have already declared widespread flu outbreak, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also reported that the percentage of Americans going to the hospital has doubled within the past month. While the flu vaccine doesn’t guarantee a flu-free effect, people see it as the best option for flu prevention.

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The number of people getting flu shots significantly increased, but there are only few adults who get non-flu vaccination. CDC says that the vaccination coverage levels in adults are “unacceptably low” for pneumonia, cervical cancer, and hepatitis. The coverage for the Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis) and HPV (human papilloma virus) vaccines have only showed modest gains, too.

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The low rate of American adults getting non-flu vaccination is believed to be caused by their confusion about what vaccines to get, the vaccination schedules, and their individual risk to vaccines.

To solve this problem, public health workers are encouraged to be intent on influencing adults to get immunizations. The CDC website has also provided an online assessment to help people determine if they are due for any immunizations.

For their part, adults should ask their healthcare providers if they are due for any shots. They can also visit health centers or consult their doctors for immunization vaccines.

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For adults looking for more information on diseases and health care, this Dr. Kamal Patel Twitter page is a good source of information.

REPOST: Society of General Internal Medicine Launches New Website on Bridgeline Digital's iAPPS Platform

This feature was taken from Yahoo! Finance and appeared in the website on December 11, 2012. The article primarily discusses the Society of General Internal Medicine's launching of its newest set of online portals through Bridgeline Digital's iAPPS platform.

Bridgeline Digital, Inc. (BLIN), The Digital Engagement Company(TM), today announced the launch of a new website for The Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) at SGIM.org. SGIM joins a growing number of healthcare organizations including American Dental Association, the American Academy of Dermatology, and the Maryland Hospital Association to select Bridgeline Digital's iAPPS platform to power its next generation websites.

Bridgeline Digital redeveloped SGIM's main website and consolidated and enhanced two microsites run by SGIM affiliate groups: the Association of Chiefs in General Internal Medicine (ACLGIM), and SGIM's Journal of General Internal Medicine (JGIM). The SGIM main site and the new micro site for the ACLGIM are now live and the new microsite for the JGIM is in development and expected to launch in early 2013.

Bridgeline's development team added a dynamic Social Footer to SGIM's primary website which incorporates interaction and content from LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook that enables increased engagement and understanding of their website users. Bridgeline also added a comprehensive customization feature allowing SGIM to change microsite-based templates with ease to respond to changes in their marketing strategy.

SGIM's new website also features innovative functionality around internal search and data recovery in its Resource Library. Leveraging iAPPS' out-of-the-box integration with Perceptive Software Enterprise Search (formerly ISYS Search), the new site leverages search component catalogs natively within the iAPPS framework and indexes all media types, including content within PDF files vastly improving the ease and speed in which users can access relevant content.

"Bridgeline Digital was extremely innovative with their services," said Francine Jetton, Society of General Medicine's Director of Communications. "The Social Footer strengthens SGIM's presence and activity across social media outposts, which is a key component of our marketing strategy and critical for our business success going forward."

Dr. Kamal Patel is a renowned internist based in Arlington Heights, Illinois. He has extensive resources to develop medical technologies to combat adult diseases. Read updates on this Facebook page to know more about him and his field of expertise.

On prescriptions and noncompliant patients

Prescriptions from doctors should be followed—this is, as far as the healthcare industry is concerned, a golden rule for patients.

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However, there are always patients who do not take the medicines that were prescribed to them, intentionally or not. In the field of medicine, these people are described as noncompliant.

When patients are described as noncompliant, doctors usually think that they would only cause trouble, a mindset that should be stopped.

According to an article from The New York Times, the branding is loaded with implications and stereotypes, a label that, unfortunately, tends to stick to the patients.

Image credit: npr.org

This was backed up by a piece published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The author, Dr. John Steiner, notes that it is an immense oversimplification to base a patient’s compliance on whether he swallows a pill or not. He believes that there are numerous reasons why people forget to take their medicines.

For example, a patient, after receiving prescriptions from the doctor, may also be asked to cut down on certain food items, exercise three or four times a day, check his blood sugar, and go to doctors’ appointments. According to Dr. Steiner, remembering all of these can be difficult for some patients, making it difficult for them not to miss taking their meds on schedule.

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On that note, he also emphasized how important it is for doctors to take the time to know the situation of their patients.

“Be compassionate,” Dr. Steiner says to doctors. “Understand what a complicated balancing act it is for patients.”

Dr. Kamal Patel is an internist from Arlington Heights, Illinois. Get more updates about the healthcare industry, particularly on internal medicine, by visiting this Twitter page.