Welcome to the Tweed Trends podcast. Hey, Evette, what's trending today? Hey, I'm Evette, hey girl. And you are tuned in to Tweed Trends.
It's the quickest way to find out what's trending today. Good morning. Hey, you've got things to do. I've got things to do.
So let's not delay things here. Let's go ahead and jump right in. Today's title for the show is, Momography, Miscarriage, and Mobility. Let's get started.
So the first topic is Momography. And with October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month, this particular topic is right on time. Now, if you've never had a mammogram before, let me try to give you an image, a visual, something's kind of relate. So imagine you go to a sandwich shop, and you go in the back, and they have a panini press.
And you take off your top, your bra, everything, and you literally lift your breast up, no matter how big or small it is, you lift it up and you put it on that panini press, and then you close that bad boy down on it as hard as you can. You get other people in there, and they press down on it, and they keep pressing, pressing, pressing. That's a mammogram. Oh, oh, hold on.
Hold on. There's more. I'm gonna go in some x-rays in there, some radiation. That's a mammogram.
Well, a research team in Japan at Kobi University has developed a mammography screening technique that actually uses microwaves. Now not the kind of you throw your popcorn in, but the actual waves, microwaves. And it's less painful, it's safer, and more accurate than what's currently used. So I told you about one method.
That's the mammogram where you get your breast nashed on the panini press, you know, panini. I wonder if that's like somebody went and had a mammogram done, and then thought about it, and was like, you know, this, they just made a sandwich out of my breast. This would be pretty awesome if it was a for real sandwich. Like panini, panini, panini, panini, panini, panini.
Panini, the new sandwich is called a panini after the fact that they took my breast and mashed it as flies a pancake. Yeah, I'm just, hey, who knows? I'm gonna have to look that one up. But anyway, the other way that it's detected is using ultrasound.
The problem with ultrasound is it depends on the type of breast tissue you have, and everybody's different. So if you have dense breast tissue, it's gonna show up different. And, you know, sometimes it causes concern, and they have to do more checks and whatever. Whereas the microwaves, it only detects cancer.
Now, they're saying that that's a drawback in my mind. I'm like, well, if that's what I'm trying to check to see if I have, then isn't that a good thing? But what they're saying is basically that they can't tell you anything else about your breast other than there's cancer in there when they use these microwaves. But I don't know.
So they're working on it and trying to come up with some better uses of the technology to develop better screenings for breast cancer. So this isn't Japan though, so who knows when it'll get to the States? Or if it'll get to the States, you know, people may start going to Japan to have their mammograms done, you know, just to keep from having the traditional breast mash. But, you know, I think it's pretty promising.
We should definitely keep an eye out for this one. Do do do. So there's research thinking that recurring miscarriages may be caused by an underlying infection. Basically what they're saying is that it appears that women who continually miscarry that the lining of their womb is inflamed.
And it's a condition called endometritis. And although in several countries, they've already recommended antibiotics for endometritis, which can cause bleeding and pain, no one actually knows if it's an effective treatment for miscarriage. So what they're saying is when the womb is inflamed, people have been given antibiotics to help that. But what this medical research that they have going at the University of Warwick and the University Hospital Coventry over in England and Wales, what they're saying is that maybe they can put these women on the antibiotics prior to conceiving, to make a better environment for the embryo to then attach and grow.
And so this is really, really interesting. This potentially new treatment would be earth shattering, especially for women who have had multiple miscarriages. It's one thing if you've had one miscarriage and then you've managed to have baby after baby after baby, but people who have miscarriage after miscarriage after miscarriage and they're telling them that they don't know why that's a pretty tough place to be in. And so I am really looking forward to this research to seeing that they're gonna be recruiting couples over the next two years.
So it's gonna be awhile before we hear anything definitive about this, but I'm definitely excited that someone is coming up with something from miscarriage. Now let's talk about mobility for visually impaired people. There's a blind inventor that created a smart cane that uses Google Maps to navigate. How freaking cool is that?
So it's called WeWalk and the device is equipped with built-in speakers, smart phone integration and sensors that send vibrations to worn users of obstacles up ahead. And I'm guessing too, it must also tell you which way to go that it's integrated with Google Maps as well. So it tells you how to get to wherever it is that you're going. Cause I think about that every now and then.
Like I don't know how to get every place that I'm going. And so to say that you're a blind person and you don't have another person or a dog to help you figure stuff out and you're just walking with your cane, how do you figure out how to get to a new place that you've never been before? And I know there's probably really cool things in place to figure that out. And there's also, oh, I can't think of the name of the app.
I'm gonna have to link it though. I have an app that actually allows me to help a visually impaired person do things. Like I'll get, it's like I get a phone call from a visually impaired person. And I've only received one call to date because there's so many people that have volunteered to help on this app, but it'll tell you that, like they'll call and say, hey, I'm at work and I'm trying to sort something.
Can you tell me what's here? Or hey, I'm trying to get dressed. Did I pick out the right color socks or you know that sort of thing? And it was really amazing.
It was really cool. Like I wanted to call the lady back and just like chat with her. But I digress, I went off the deep end. We're talking about We Walk.
So this particular device We Walk was initially shown in Design Boom. That's when it first appeared. I'm not familiar with Design Boom, I'm gonna have to look that up. But it's an architecture and design magazine.
So I think this sounds really amazing. I would like to just test it out just to see what that is like. Yeah, We Walk. Check it out.
Thanks for joining me on today's episode. Do me a favor, head on over to Twitter and follow me at he that that's at he y e v e t t e or just look for the hashtag tweet trends. I hope you enjoy all of the medical information that I provided today because guess what? Ta da.
Today is International Patient Safety Day. Probably never heard of this before, but with the complex multi-layered healthcare system, sometimes people have issues. Patient safety is an issue. And now we have to focus more on that.
So the International Patient Safety Day is observed on September 17th to remind us that patient safety is up to all of us. We're all relevant stakeholders in the healthcare process. That means the patients, the doctors, the administrators, and we all need to work together to ensure the safety of the people and the safe delivery of the healthcare. And finally, the theme for International Patient Safety Day this year, 2019, is to build a culture of safety at all levels of the healthcare system.
So there was one topic that I didn't include in here, but it also speaks to this particular day. And it's about a COSURBA hospital in India where they're getting women to speak openly about gynecological health. And I really think that should be worldwide. That should be everywhere because we don't normally talk about our girly parts.
Some people do, but most people don't. And so when things don't look right and you've never seen or heard anything about it, then you're kind of like, well, I think that must be normal because I've always seen it like this. And it's always looked like that or it's always felt like this. But let's be open, let's be honest, speak to your doctors, speak to each other, share those stories.
And let's see to it that our health is well managed and we'll take care of. Have a great day, guys.