Tag Archives: columbia university

Study links cognitive decline with early hearing loss

Leave a reply

Photo: Mike Krzeszak via Flickr

Age-related hearing loss is one of the most common health disorders of aging, affecting two-thirds of those over age 70. While hearing loss previously had been linked to higher rates of cognitive decline, a new study finds that this decline may start much earlier than previously thought.

Researchers at Columbia University found that even the earliest stage of hearing loss — when hearing is still considered normal — also is linked to loss of cognitive function. Continue reading →

Liz Seegert is an independent health journalist and AHCJ’s topic leader on aging. She covers older adults, baby boomers, health policy, and social determinants of health, as well as many other health issues. Her bylines include stories for PBS/NextAvenue.org. the American Journal of Nursing, TIME Health, Medscape, Consumer Reports, and Medical Economics, as well as dozens of other trade and mainstream media. Her articles have been syndicated in Forbes.com, the Los Angeles Times, the Hartford Courant, the Saturday Evening Post and other major outlets.

Feds take Columbia to task over decade-old study

Leave a reply

The run of intriguing health journalism from the Huffington Post Investigative Fund continues this week, as Jeanne Lenzer and Shannon Brownlee look at the federal government’s entrance into an internal conflict at Columbia University’s medical center over the legality and morality of a heart-related study that took place from 1999 to 2001, one in which some experts say it was “virtually guaranteed” that some patients would suffer hemorrhaging.

milsteinhospital
Milstein Hospital Building at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, photo by Samat Jain via Flickr.

Columbia has already conducted three internal investigations on the matter. Now, the federal government has asked for a full account of what happened to the study’s participants and ordered that Columbia write a letter to the study’s participants and disclose the “true nature” of what some contend was a deceptive study.

NOTE: In addition to the story itself, the reporters have posted a selection of key documents online.

Lenzer and Brownlee explain that the study went wrong when participants (some of whom were “Spanish-speaking patients who lived in low-income neighborhoods near the hospital”) “were not told that they could be given high doses of the fluids or that they faced a risk of serious bleeding.” Then, despite protests from hospital doctors that patients hadn’t been informed of what were serious possible health risks, the local Institutional Review Board allowed the study to continue. This was followed by years of internal fighting, and finally capped by the HHS’ Office of Human Research Protections entrance into the fray.

Andrew Van Dam of The Wall Street Journal previously worked at the AHCJ offices while earning his master’s degree at the Missouri School of Journalism.