Diseases and Disorders

Have humans always slept through the night?

But the notion that we need all of our sleep in one unbroken block, is not necessarily driven by our biology. And there's a good deal of evidence to show we haven't always had this approach to sleep.

In Geoffrey Chaucer's 14th century text, The Squire's Tale, the king's daughter, Canacee, is described as having a "fyrste sleep," arising in the early morning ahead of her companions, who sleep fully through the night.

Baby brings memory and speech back to aged care resident with dementia

Morleen Templeman, 83, has had trouble communicating since being diagnosed with dementia and moving into the care of Feros Village in the northern New South Wales town of Bangalow.

Care manager Jo Dwyer said Mrs Templeman had experienced a lot of frustration since losing her speech.

"Morleen is troubled, and you can see that, but she can't tell us why," Ms Dwyer said.

"One of the biggest ways she's been affected is her speech, she'll be out there muttering and muttering but nothing is clear, only very occasionally she might say 'thank you' or 'pretty flower.'"

Children exposed to CT scans face increased risk of developing cancer

CT scans are used by doctors to get to the core of a problem by creating a 3D image of the most inaccessible nooks of the body.

But the beams of ionising radiation can cause cellular damage.

A fresh analysis of 2013 research is being presented by researchers from the University of Melbourne at the World Congress of Public Health in Melbourne.

They said the radiation risk was much greater than previously acknowledged.

The results indicated that most of the excess cancers occurring more than two years after a CT scan were caused by radiation from the scan.

Study: Obesity during pregnancy increases risk of epilepsy in child

Being overweight during the first trimester of pregnancy has been linked to an increased risk of childhood epilepsy.

The recent Swedish study, published in journal JAMA Neurology, of almost 1.5 million babies found the risk of epilepsy almost doubled from normal-weight women to very severely obese women.

Epilepsy disrupts the normal electrochemical activity of the brain resulting seizures.