Chris Jacobs

A Cincinnati restoration company is working to get ahead of Hurricane Milton as it heads for the coast of Florida.

After going 3-2 to start the season with Jack Dawson as the starting quarterback, the Fort Hays State University football team decided to make a switch. Prior to Saturday’s showdown against No. 12 Central Missouri, FHSU named Caleb Heavner as the starter after playing just over three quarters in FHSU’s last game against UCO.

A local Montessori school is left in shock this week after one of its students and two others were killed in a stabbing.

CINCINNATI — Big changes could be coming to Hyde Park Square.

The deadline for Real ID enforcement at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport is only six months away.

The president of a plant that exploded in Louisville, leaving two dead and several others injured, spoke publicly for the first time on Friday.

Community and governments leaders are responding this week after a group of neo-Nazis were seen marching through the Columbus area on Saturday afternoon.

With weed now legal across Ohio, local marijuana dispensaries celebrated their own holiday ahead of Thanksgiving.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and mixed reality (MR), within human-computer interaction (HCI), are rapidly redefining areas of healthcare by introducing new approaches to patient care and clinical education. This editorial explores how these technologies, through Extended Mind Theory, enhance mental health treatment and medical training. AI-powered virtual therapists, using natural language processing and predictive analytics, provide accessible, personalized mental health support, allowing for remote and immersive therapy. In MR environments, patients with anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), or phobias can safely engage in therapeutic exercises, confronting fears in controlled, virtual settings.In clinical education, AI and MR deliver adaptive, immersive training tools that respond to individual needs, enabling repeated practice in a risk-free environment. These tools improve skills and build confidence by simulating high-stakes scenarios like emergency response, with HCI principles ensuring user-friendly and experiential learning. Ethical considerations, including data security and transparency, are essential as these tools integrate into healthcare. This blend of AI, MR, and HCI redefines healthcare boundaries, extending cognitive and emotional support into virtual spaces, enhancing both patient care and clinical training.

BackgroundStroke is a medical emergency that is risk-stratified using a national scoring system called the National Institute of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS). The management of an acute stroke necessitates prompt management and swift decision-making. Human factors were identified in the literature as the main rate-limiting step to improving door-to-needle (DTN) time. We felt it would be prudent to design a local stroke course implemented at Great Western Hospital Swindon that incorporates both traditional and simulation-based elements to improve theoretical knowledge and emulate real-life scenarios. The objective of this course was to improve practical application in the efficient assessment and management of stroke patients, as this is critical to delivering timely treatment with thrombolysis or thrombectomy.MethodsTwenty-four medical professionals (medical students and resident doctors) participated in our course between November 2022 and July 2023. The domains assessed included understanding thrombolysis, understanding thrombectomy, confidence in performing NIHSS, and confidence in the assessment of stroke patients. The effectiveness of the stroke simulation course was assessed both quantitatively and qualitatively with pre- and post-course questionnaires.ResultsThere was a significant improvement (p<0.05) in all four assessed domains. There was a significant increase (p=0.0003) in the mean difference of score 3.75 (95% CI: 2.43-5.07) in understanding thrombolysis. Similarly, understanding of thrombectomy was significantly improved (p=0.0002) with a mean difference in score of 3.4 (95% CI: 2.28-4.46). There was also a significant increase (p<0.0001) in confidence in completing NIHSS scoring by a mean of 4.33 (95% CI: 3.55-5.12). Lastly, there was a significant increase (p=0.0012) in the mean by 2.75 (95% CI: 1.51-3.99) in confidence in the assessment of stroke. Overall, 95.8% of the participants found the course at least good, if not very good or excellent, and 91.7% would recommend this course to others.ConclusionWe found traditional and simulation-based training to be effective in improving understanding of thrombolysis, understanding of thrombectomy, confidence in NIHSS scoring, and confidence in the assessment of stroke patients. This study validates the effectiveness of our course in improving assessment and management in acute stroke patients. We infer that improvements in these domains coupled with simulation training focused on human factors (e.g., fatigue affecting decision-making or logistical issues such as delays in neuroimaging due to scanner availability) would achieve better DTN time in the participants of our course.