World of Medicine

Fight Phobias in a Flash

The standard advice for overcoming a fear is to face it. In a recent experiment, two groups of women – one with arachnophobia (fear of spiders) and one without – watched a computer program that flashed tarantula photos for a few microseconds. Brain scans of the arachnophobic women showed that the areas that process fear were active, indicating that they had indeed faced their fear, even though they didn’t consciously remember seeing the image. In fact, their fear-processing regions were even more active than when the women knowingly approached a live tarantula, suggesting that this brief exposure might combat phobias better than traditional exposure therapy.

Avoiding Carpal Tunnel Surgery

Carpal tunnel syndrome develops when the median nerve (running from the forearm through the wrist to the hand) is compressed, resulting in pain, numbness, tingling – and 400,000 to 500,000 operations a year in the US alone. However, in the first study of its kind, women who were randomly assigned to three weeks of physical therapy, supplemented by stretching exercises at home, experienced better pain reduction and hand functioning than those who went under the knife. The researchers suggest trying therapy before committing to surgery.

When the Shoe Doesn’t Fit

Feet tend to get wider, longer and flatter as we age – the result of supporting our body weight for all those years. A Spanish study found that 83 per cent of participants (adults in their 70s and 80s) were wearing the wrong shoe size. A second study found that a poor fit can lead to bunions and toenail malformations, which can affect walking and balance. The researchers recommended that seniors get their feet remeasured and choose shoes with Velcro straps so they can easily adjust the width.