NAVARRA, SPAIN - Reuters Health reported severe sleep apnea (SSA) appears to be an independent risk for ischemic stroke in elderly patients, stated a report in the journal Stroke.  Sleep apnea occurs when breathing is briefly but frequently blocked while sleeping.  Ischemic stroke, the most common type, occurs when oxygen to the brain is blocked, usually by a blood clot, causing "ischemia" or tissue death.  Reports have supported a causal relationship between sleep apnea and stroke, Dr. Roberto Munoz, of Hospital de Navarra, and colleagues note.  However, these studies focused primarily on middle-aged subjects.  Scientists studied 394 patients 70-100.  At the start of the six-year study, subjects were stroke-free and weren’t institutionalized.  In follow-up, 20 ischemic strokes occurred, the report shows.

BETHESDA, MD - A clinical trial is testing whether injection of a long-lasting antipsychotic medication every two weeks has better adherence to treatment and better outcomes among schizophrenics than do oral drugs taken daily.  The $10 million trial is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and is called Preventing Relapse in Schizophrenia: Oral Antipsychotics Compared to Injectables - Evaluating Efficacy (PROACTIVE).  Patients can participate for any 2.5-year period during the -five-year study conducted at seven U.S. sites and will include only newer, second-generation antipsychotic medications.  The study is addressing a major challenge in the treatment of schizophrenia: how best to encourage long-term treatment and medication adherence.  Research shows schizophrenics who take antipsychotic drugs consistently fare better than those who don’t.

SEATTLE - Newswise noted children exposed to violence in the home engaged in higher levels of physical bullying than kids who weren’t witnesses to such behavior, states a study from the University of Washington and Indiana University.  The study is one of the first in the U.S. to examine specifically the tie between child exposure to intimate partner violence and involvement in bullying.  It’s one of the first to break down bullying into physical aggression (hitting, pushing, etc.) and relational aggression (teasing, being mean, and ostracizing peers).  Overall, 34% of children studied bullied and 73% reported ,having been bullied in the previous year.  Almost all of the bullies, 97%, said they were victims of bullying.  “Children learn from seeing what their primary caregivers do.  They are very attuned and very observant about what goes on in a household,” said Dr. Nerissa Bauer, lead author of the study and a former UW pediatrician now an assistant professor of pediatrics at Indian and Riley Children’s Hospital.

ROCHESTER, MN - Reuters Health disclosed a pamphlet on benefits and risks of mammography can teach women a lot, even if they've had the procedure numerous times.  Researchers found among 668 women about to have a mammogram, those who received two educational pamphlets shortly before their appointment knew more about the breast cancer screening procedure.  Compared with peers, they were more likely to know most women should begin having mammograms at 40, and experts recommend yearly mammograms thereafter.  These women showed more understanding of test limits, and were more likely to know most abnormalities detected - more than 80% - turn out to be non-cancerous.  A striking thing about the study is nearly all of the women had undergone mammography - more than seven times in most cases.  These are the very women doctors might assume to be well-informed and comfortable with mammography, note Caroline P. Haakenson and her colleagues at the Mayo Clinic.

GAINESVILLE, FL - A University of Florida team delivered a gene via an eggshell to give sight to a chicken type normally born blind, Newswise noted.  The finding, posted online at Public Library of Science-Medicine, proves in principle that a similar treatment can be developed for an incurable childhood blindness.  “We were able to restore function to photoreceptor cells in retinas of an avian model of a disease that is one of the more common causes of inherited blindness in human infants,” said Dr. Sue Semple-Rowland, associate professor of neuroscience at UF’s Evelyn and William McKnight Brain Institute.  “The vision capabilities of the treated animals far exceeded our expectations.”  The bird - a type of Rhode Island Red chicken - has a genetic defect that prevents it from producing an enzyme essential for sight.  The condition closely models a genetic disease in humans that causes Leber congenital amaurosis type 1, or LCA1.  About 2,000 people in the U.S. are blind because they have a disease that falls in the LCA family.