Health and Medical

Poets from ASU's creative writing program write verses on-the-fly for patients in the Mayo Clinic Palliative Care unit. Their words offer tangible evidence of a life lived.

Notes from musicians on the experience of playing for patients at the Mayo Clinic Palliative Care unit.

ASU musicians and poets bring a new kind of healing to severely ill patients in the Mayo Clinic's Palliative Care unit. By sharing their talents, these artists help reduce stress, bring families together, and put smiles on the faces of patients. --by Melissa Crytzer Fry

Imagine a brain implant smart enough to maneuver around inside a person's skull. On its own, the device locates the target area to do its work. The task might involve deep brain stimulation therapy for a patient with Parkinson's disease. Or it might include powering the robotic arm of a person who has lost limb control. These kinds of moveable brain implants are not science fiction. They are being developed by scientists in ASU's Neural Microsystems Laboratory. --by Melissa Crytzer-Fry

Many adolescents in the United States are already drinking alcohol or using drugs by the time they are exposed to prevention messages. But new research from ASU social workers shows that it's never too late to intervene. Their findings indicate that prevention messages can reverse the course of alcohol use even after students have started experimenting. --by Debra Palka

Clay has been associated with home cures since Roman times. But there have been very few scientific studies to investigate such claims--until now. Researchers at ASU have found that French green clay can kill pathogenic bacteria. --by Margaret Coulombe

More than 35 million Americans are age 65 and older. More than 20 million of those are women. Despite such demographic muscle, the needs of women in this age bracket are largely ignored in the marketplace. ASU's InnovationSpace program aims to change that. --by Adelheid Fischer

Vaccines have long held great promise for wiping out the diseases that plague humans. Sometimes they work well. Sometimes they don't. Roy Curtiss and his colleagues are working to improve on a good idea. --by Skip Derra