Daily Rounds: Unhealthy Hospital Noise; Romney's Bisexual Censors; Children's Self-Inflicted Hurting; Resistant TB Rising

Cutting The Cost Of Cacophony In Hospitals (The Wall Street Journal) — "But the noises from electronic devices like intravenous alarms were found to be the source of especially disruptive sounds. Buxton says that while the noise wasn’t always loud enough to completely wake the test subjects up, it did accelerate heart rate as brain activity increased. Previous studies have supported the importance of sleep to a patient’s recovery in terms of reducing the risk of infection, pain and preventing abrupt hormonal changes due to stress, he says. At Long Beach Memorial Medical Center in Southern California, administrators are trying to reduce noise by increasing awareness among staff members. “There’s a whole movement to put the patient back in the center of care,” says Dr. Susan Melvin, chief medical officer at Long Beach. The hospital screens a video it produced called “Quiet Zone” to new employees on how to minimize noise and even placed Yacker Trackers, noise monitors that light up, in its rehab unit to keep staffers’ volume in check."

No Mention Of Bisexual Or Transgender Under Romney (The Boston Globe) — "Former governor Mitt Romney’s administration in 2006 blocked publication of a state antibullying guide for Massachusetts public schools because officials objected to use of the terms “bisexual’’ and “transgender’’ in passages about protecting certain students from harassment, according to state records and interviews with current and former state officials."

Self-Injury: Even Little Girls And Boys Do It (The LA Times) — "By ninth grade, 19% of girls — almost one in five --own up to hurting themselves intentionally, mostly by cutting or carving their skin, but also by burning, biting, cutting or hitting themselves. Some report they will throw themselves against sharp objects or pull their own hair to cause pain. That's more than three times higher than the rate of self-injury among ninth grade boys. But self-injurious behavior, which increasingly is seen as a silent cry of emotional pain, is not unique to teenage girls: 7.6% of third graders — 8- and 9-year-old boys and girls — also reported to researchers that they intentionally harm themselves."

China: Survey Reveals Growing Number Of Drug Resistant Tuberculosis Cases (The New York Times) — "China has a “serious epidemic of drug-resistant tuberculosis,” according to the first national survey of the disease, which was carried out by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and published last week in The New England Journal of Medicine. Of the roughly 4,000 tuberculosis patients tested, a third of those with new cases and half of those with previously treated cases had drug-resistant disease...The report made it clear that China’s current treatment strategies were a failure. More than 40 percent of those treated for MDR tuberculosis had not taken their last dose. The problem was particularly acute among people seen in general hospitals."