Cochrane Library Podcasts

As well as looking at what healthcare workers can do to help patients, The Cochrane Library also contains reviews of ways in which those very same healthcare workers can help themselves. Jani Ruotsalainen from the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health describes one such review, looking at the prevention of occupational stress, which was updated in December 2014.

One of the recent developments in surgery allows the surgeon to do the operation remotely by guiding mechanical arms, rather than being next to the patient. This is called robot-assisted surgery and, in December 2014, two of the relevant Cochrane Reviews, one from the Cochrane Gynaecological Cancer Group and the other from the Menstrual Disorders and Subfertility Group, were brought together in an update. Theresa Lawrie from the Cochrane Gynaecological Cancer Group based in Bath in the UK, tells us the latest.

Selecting the appropriate medication for older people is difficult and complex. Cathal Cadogan from the School of Pharmacy at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland describes an updated Cochrane Review from October 2014, which looks at interventions that might help.

The hundreds of reviews from the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth group cover a wide range of interventions and settings. Aleena Wojcieszek, from the Mater Research Institute at the University of Queensland in Australia describes the October 2014 update of one of these, investigating the use of antibiotics to prevent infection in women whose waters have broken, or more technically, whose membranes have ruptured.

Antibiotic resistance is a rising concern for many health systems and one solution would be to find ways to identify which of the patients who present to primary care with respiratory tract infections don’t need antibiotics. Rune Aabenhus from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, describes a new Cochrane Review from November 2014, which looks at the possible role of point-of-care biomarkers.

If the amount of physical activity in a society increased, it should improve public health; but uncertainties remain about how to achieve this. Professor Philip Baker from the Queensland University of Technology in Australia describes the findings from the January 2015 update of the Cochrane review of the evidence on community-wide interventions.

It’s widely recommended that babies should be exclusively breastfed for the first six months of their lives, though debate continues over this recommendation. What does the research evidence say? Genevieve Becker, researcher in maternal and infant nutrition, updated her relevant Cochrane Review in November 2014 and describes the latest findings.

Different strategies are used to communicate with communities about child vaccination. Ingvil Saeterdal from the Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services and colleagues have studied the effects in a new Cochrane Review, which was published in November 2014.

Melanoma in situ is the earliest stage of malignant melanoma, and is on the increase worldwide. Thrasivoulos Tzellos, from the University Hospital of North Norway in Tromso, and colleagues from Canada, Germany, Greece and Italy have looked for evidence on ways to treat this, and they published their new Cochrane Review in December 2014.

Acute cough is a common reason for people to use over the counter medicines but do these medicines work? Susan Smith from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, describes the November 2014 update of her Cochrane Review, outlining the latest evidence on the effects of these widely used remedies.