Telemedicine, including text messaging and Web portals, may help patients with diabetes and their doctors manage blood sugar levels, according to a study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). The prevalence of diabetes has more than doubled worldwide in the last 30 years, to 382 million in 2013, and is projected to increase to 592 million in 2035.

There are plenty of cellphone apps on the market designed to help people monitor their sleep patterns. The apps generally record data on when people go to bed and when they wake, and many use the device's microphone and accelerometer to take note of noises in the night and to monitor how much people toss and turn.

A UNC School of Medicine dermatologist recently conducted a study to determine if the way a prescription was written - either traditionally or electronically - played a role in whether a patient filled and picked up the medication. In the study, published in JAMA Dermatology, Adewole S. Adamson, MD, assistant professor of dermatology, found that the way a prescription was written could influence whether a patient filled the prescription.

Our Facebook status updates, 'likes' and even photos could help researchers better understand mental health disorders with the right ethical safeguards, argue researchers from the University of Cambridge, who suggest that social networks may even be used in future to provide support and interventions, particularly among young people.

Ever wonder what it would be like if a device could decode your thoughts into actual speech or written words? While this might enhance the capabilities of already existing speech interfaces with devices, it could be a potential game-changer for those with speech pathologies, and even more so for "locked-in" patients who lack any speech or motor function.

More than 40 million people worldwide are blind, and many of them reach this condition after many years of slow and progressive retinal degeneration. The development of sophisticated prostheses or new light-responsive elements, aiming to replace the disrupted retinal function and to feed restored visual signals to the brain, has provided new hope. However, very little is known about whether the brain of blind people retains residual capacity to process restored or artificial visual inputs.

Teens use smartphones successfully to do almost anything: learn new skills, communicate with friends, do research and catch Pokémon. But a new study finds smartphones aren't as useful for helping teens maintain weight loss. In a 24-week behavioral study that combined traditional weight control intervention with smartphone-assisted helps, researchers found that teens lost weight initially, but couldn't maintain it when smartphones were the only tool helping them stay on track.