The NHS - A reason to moan or celebrate?

The celebration of the NHS at the 
Olympics opening ceremony

With the Olympics opening ceremony last night, many of us were feeling proud to be British. And what I found delightfully refreshing was our celebration of the National Health Service, the NHS. These three little letters that have come under a huge amount of abuse over the years. The NHS is inefficient, unorganised and is a waste of time are the commonly heard spiels from the daily mail. But I really want to question this. Is the NHS actually as bad as the media makes out? 


I personally would argue that the NHS is at its best in treating emergencies and accidents. If you chop your arm off, you will be rushed to hospital, treated, and your life will be saved. I would argue that it is the GP side of healthcare which causes the NHS frustration - and often not at the fault of the GPs. The GP is the port of call to assess your health and if necessary refer you on to the right people for the right treatment - e.g. specialist assessments, MRI scans and so on. These referrals can take many weeks, and if you have a health grumble, this is time that you are not at your best and this can be an agonizing wait for many.


Then again, how can we slate a free system that will save our life in an emergency with efficiency and offer us the services and skills of hard working, frankly, amazing people... because we have to wait 6 weeks for a referral? I think this may also be down to perspective - if you expect the NHS to deliver a guaranteed solution to your health problem in a short time, you will be let down. Do we just have unrealistic expectations of the NHS?

The celebration of the NHS at the
Olympics opening ceremony

Then there is the private sector - having experience working in this area myself, I feel there is a strong vibe that those in a position of wealth who are able to afford private services are increasingly taking it up, often due to frustration with the NHS. People in the middle earnings who would perhaps before have used the NHS are sacrificing a larger proportion of their income than before for their health. And the thing is, I cannot fault private clinics - they eliminate a proportion of the population from using the NHS, which in turn saves the NHS time and resources leaving more for the majority of us who would not afford private healthcare.

Plus, the private sector is undoubtedly more efficient - I would personally advise people to save some money away in case a time arises when you need a treatment or referral done quickly and efficiently as the private sector is much faster than the NHS and if I were to ever need masses of medical treatment I know I would prefer to go private - who wouldn’t? But the private sector is just that - private. It is no different from HSBC or Tesco in terms of business. Private clinics generally offer health assessments - no symptoms needed, but a full health check for a large sum of money. Now, in some cases, things are picked up and lives potentially saved - but for others, hypochondrias causes people to spend their hard earned money on such assessments to be told they are completely fine, which again although reassures, may not be the best way to spend your dosh.

The media are a huge culprit in our lack of faith in the NHS. I know I am like a broken record with my general dislike for the media but the papers never report on 'middle aged man had a heart attack, he was efficiently taken to hospital, taken straight to theatre, had an operation which saved his life, in recovery where he is being attended to by friendly and helpful staff' No. All we see is - 'The GP missed it even though I told them it was cancer' 'Old woman had to wait 10 weeks for a referral' 'GP thought meningitis was the flu'. I think even the most efficient systems have incompetency’s from time to time, so looking at the NHS which is on such a large scale there will be such inefficiencies. And by reporting the worst cases to the world and victimizing doctors and healthcare professionals who make a slip up, the media does not only shake our faith in the NHS, but also encourages the idea that people are wronged by bad service and have the right to sue doctors. This in turn causes doctors to treat people with one eye over their shoulder - extra precautions are taken which can save lives, but can also waste NHS time and money.

Are the government the problem, not the NHS?

A further point is the government - the picture to the right here shows the governments actions have the potential to 'destroy' the NHS - so perhaps it is the government who we should blame, not the NHS. Is it the people working in the NHS who are responsible for the flaws, faults and inefficiencies, or is it the few at the top of the pyramid who oversee things on a larger scale, and set often unrealistic and detrimental targets? GPs, for example, have targets for the amount of referrals they make - and if they keep their referral numbers below this target they receive a financial bonus - so the government tries to discourage GPs referring with cash incentives? Therefore people with borderline problems may not be referred, indirectly due to the government not only rewarding targets, but by putting immense pressure on surgeries and hospitals to meet them.

For all the moaning about the NHS, I would say this is not constructive. The NHS will never meet our expectations - with the whole population to please this simply will never happen. We will look to neighbor countries and say why we aren’t like that, like the jealous child wanting better than what they have. I am by no means staying the NHS is perfect, believe me I’m not, the media may twist things but they do not fabricate stories from nowhere - people are dying while they wait on a list, and others are treated terribly. And I do understand the personal frustration if one has a medical problem and feels they have not been treated as they should. But what I am saying is that so many lives are saved by so many people who go into work day in and day out and really make a difference to the people they help. The NHS isn’t perfect, but it’s the system we have. We should celebrate the success, not dwell on the flaws.

But what do you think? Tweet me @Human_Interests or visit facebook.com/humaninterests.

Interesting reads
http://nhslocal.nhs.uk/blogs/jessica-arrowsmith/2011/03/why-nhs-one-best-healthcare-systems-world

One small step for Robot, one giant leap for Humankind

Technology...where would we be without it? Many of us live in a world where a smart phone is a vital organ and internet access is our oxygen. With the Paralympics fast approaching, we are seeing many athletes on our screens with prosthetic limbs that allow them to hop, skip and jump like any other. And the good news is that the technology is constantly developing to help people with otherwise limiting disabilities live like any other. This got me thinking about the impact of technology on our lives and the potential areas in which it can influence us as humans. So after a bit of research, I'm going to share with you three recent interesting advances in the general area where robot meets human.

1. Making the limited human unlimited

This is the robot which was
controlled by the mind of a student

Just this week,  researchers made the first successful thought-controlled robot avatar...pretty awesome.  So how did it work? Well, the team used fMRI to scan the brain of a university student as he imagined moving different parts of his body - the scanner measured changes in blood flow to the brains primary motor cortex, which the team used to distinguished between each thought of movement. The long term aim is to create an avatar that would allow people who are unable to move but fully concious (known as locked in) to interact with the world using this surrogate body. Although this is still said to be a long way off, this advance is still amazing. The student was able to control the robot with his thoughts, while a camera on the robots head allowed him to see from the robots view. He could imagine moving his legs to make the robot walk forward and could also turn 30 degrees to the left or right. 

2. Increasing our understanding of the human body

The robot legs

Again, just this week US scientists developed the most biologically accurate 'robot legs' yet. These legs arn't intended to be used by humans, but were made to help improve our understanding of the mechanisms of walking, which could impact on people with spinal damage that has limited or inhibited their ability to walk. These legs have a replicated nerve cell network in the lumbar region of the spinal cord to generate muscle signals. Previous robotic models mimic human movement, where as this one actually mimics the human control mechanisms (ie nerves) that drive the movement by stimulating muscles. This could provide a new way to understand the link between problems with control of the nervous system and problems with walking. 

3. A robotic impact on the human arts

Believe it or not this is
Geminoid-F, a robot actor.

In what I feel could be the most interesting development, robot personalities are evolving. Robot actors and comedians have been created in different parts of the world, which questions the impact robots could have in the area of the arts -  laughter, emotion and entertainment. Realistic human models have been made and combined with robotics to form realistic human-appearing actors - this works well as the robots can deliver exact lines at exact times/when prompted. However, this has been taken even one step further. A robot comedian has been made which tells particular jokes, measures the laughter response of the audience and tells more jokes based on the type of humour the audience enjoys - clever huh? This raises the question of the potentials for robots in arts, entertainment and even providing emotional support for humans.

So there you go. Three interesting technological advances making life better for the human. But there is always debate around technology - is too much of it a good thing? Will technological advances lead to a lazy world where human health will deteriorate whilst sitting in front of a 3D television, or will it provide us with advances like those above which could actually improve our health and well being? Personally, I air on the side that technological advances do more good than they do harm, with the benefits outweighing the negative effects. But what do you think?

References

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528725.900-robot-avatar-body-controlled-by-thought-alone.html?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18724114

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20827920.400-robot-robot-wherefore-art-thou-robot.html

The Rhythm of Life

Have you ever wondered why some people can sing amazingly while others are completely tone deaf? And why some people can dance and others can't tap their foot to a beat? Well, I have. Just this week. And I decided to find out why we have such extremes of singers and dancers, and what it is that separates singers like Adele from the deluded individuals we see on the X-factor. And I found some interesting stuff along the way.

Musical competence develops in us spontaneously when we are children without any conscious effort - in the same way as language does. But also in the same way as language impairments, a proportion of individuals grow up to have music-specific impairments. Congenital amusia is the term used for the condition where some people are born without the ability to develop a normally functioning system for music. There are different types and extremes of amusias – for example some can result from brain damage in adulthood.

So what is amusia? Well this is a severe deficiency in processing pitch variations, which relates to impairments in music recognition, singing and the ability to tap in time to music. This can be more than our common understanding of the term 'tone-deafness', used for those who can’t sing on key, as people with the worst cases of amusia can neither produce or perceive music in any way, being unable to distinguish songs. Interestingly, this is completely specific to the area of music, with individuals being completely able to process speech, environmental sounds, voices and language like any other. And surprisingly, this 'condition' affects around 4% of the human population – but of course to differing extremes. 

So what are the basic causes of this amusia? Well genetics as ever plays a huge role, but there has been no specific gene linked to amusia at present. A more recent study has linked amusia to an area of the brain, known as the arcuate fasiculus (or AF). The AF is known to be involved in language, and connects the sound perception and production with each other. This study found tone-dead people had reduced AF connectivity, and hence had pitch-related impairments due to the inability to link sound perception and production in the brain.

There are many conflicting studies relating to the area of amusia, and the ways in which amusia prevents people from being able to perceive/produce music. People with amusia may suffer from a problem with recognition of their music – how they hear themselves may be different to how we hear it. Another reason for such terrible tunes is due to a problem with the voice itself. A person can have poor control over their vocal system – so even if they hear and recognize a musical note, they are unable to reproduce it. Some studies have also questioned memory in relation to this – would remembering the pitch sequences of songs be harder for some, making it difficult to reproduce themselves? Amusia is also linked to the lack of ability to keep in time to music – making some people less able to dance in time than others, impairing their rhythm.

So that explains why some people just cannot sing, and no doubt research in the field will continue so one day we will have a much clearer picture. As for the question of why others can sing so incredibly well? There is no specific reason for this – some people are just born with it, and although I’m sure going to the BRIT school helped artists like Adele, Jessie J and Rizzle Kicks control their voices and develop their talents, they still would have been able to blast out a good tune none the less…lucky sods.

References
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070823214755.htm
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/125/2/238.long
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4655352.stm
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/29/33/10215