Every three minutes somebody in the UK develops dementia, so when it's claimed that tailored computer brain training can reduce cases of dementia and cognitive decline by a third over a decade, people sit up and take notice. The research claiming the 33% reduction for the group of people whose "processing function" was targeted for brain training, hasn't yet been published - so isn't peer-reviewed - but the preliminary data by a US team was presented to the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Toronto this week. Dr Doug Brown, Director of R&D at the UK's Alzheimer's Society speaks from the Canadian conference to Dr Mark Porter and says there's widespread excitement about the potential of brain training to protect against dementia. Dr Margaret McCartney urges caution, warning it's too early to make claims before the full data is available.James is a young man with a high pressure sales job, but every year in the summer months he is crippled by agonising headaches. He's one of the 100,000 people in the UK who suffers from cluster headaches, so called because they come in disabling bouts, lasting for 4-6 weeks at a time. Inside Health visits a new one-stop multidisciplinary rapid-access headache clinic at St Thomas's Hospital in London, where James is getting treatment. Dr Giorgio Lambru, who heads the new service, tells Mark why it's so vital that patients with cluster headaches have to be seen, diagnosed and treated quickly.Years after cardiac rehabilitation became a standard part of therapy for heart attacks, the same post-treatment care still isn't routinely available for people who've had cancer, despite decade-old guidance from NICE suggesting that it should be. The UK's first clinical trial to measure holistic cancer care is hoping to provide the evidence that will demonstrate the type of support and rehabilitation that really works. Professor of Nursing Annie Young from Warwick Medical School and University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust tells Mark that after treatment, patients can feel abandoned and vulnerable.#hellomynameis is a hugely successful social media campaign which highlights the importance of healthcare staff introducing themselves to patients. It was launched by Dr Kate Granger after her experience of being in hospital. Kate died at the weekend from cancer, aged just 34. Dr Margaret McCartney describes the enormous impact of Kate's campaign throughout the NHS.

What is Papilloedema? The condition has been in the headlines as an optometrist was found guilty of manslaughter after missing abnormalities in the eyes of an eight year old child. Plus, Margaret McCartney debates the accuracy of screening young people for Sudden Cardiac Death in Sport. How to diagnose early miscarriage in women who are bleeding in early pregnancy? And the serendipitous story of how the anti-clotting agent warfarin was first discovered.

Care.data, the scheme to build an enormous database containing the medical records of all English patients has been scrapped. Dr Mark Porter investigates the fall-out following the cancellation of this expensive programme, which foundered on concerns about confidentiality and public and professional trust. Chair of the national EMIS user group and Sheffield GP Dr Geoff Schrecker and GP Dr Margaret McCartney discuss the scale of the failure of the care.data programme and outline what needs to happen in the future if valuable patient data is to be used for the public good.Twelve hundred adults and children die every year in the UK from asthma attacks, and these grim statistics have remained stubbornly consistent for decades. But there is light on the horizon as researchers in the field begin to stratify the disease; identifying patients with different types of asthma and treating them accordingly. Mark visits the Churchill Hospital in Oxford where some pioneering work has taken place to develop new diagnostic tests and new treatments. Ian Pavord, Professor of Respiratory Medicine at the Nuffield Department of Medicine, shows Mark the new FENO breath test for nitric oxide to test inflammation - soon to be available for use in general practice.Acne Rosacea is a debilitating and painful condition. It's characterised by redness, spots and inflammation on the face and affects both sexes but mainly women. Dr Bav Shergill of the British Association of Dermatologists discusses latest treatments.And the first in a new series dedicated to happy accidents that have altered modern medicine. First off, the pacemaker. Dr Margaret McCartney and Carl Heneghan, Professor of Evidence Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, tell the remarkable story of the serendipitous discovery of this life-saving device.

David Haslam, chair of NICE, discusses with Mark Porter how doctors should treat patients with 'multi-morbidity', the millions of people receiving many different drugs for many different conditions. There's plenty of trial data for starting treatments, but a dearth of evidence for stopping them! And one-shot radiotherapy during surgery for breast cancer may help 20,000 women in the UK. Rather than daily hospital visits for radiotherapy over 5 weeks, a dose is given straight to the open wound during the operation. It is quicker, cheaper and much more convenient, so why isn't it more widely available?

NHS health checks or 'mid-life MOTs' have hit the headlines as new research claims they are a success. The aim is prevention - of diabetes, heart attacks and strokes - but their introduction has been controversial amid criticism they are not evidence based or cost effective. Resident sceptic Dr Margaret McCartney debates the issues with National Clinical Advisor Dr Matt Kearney.And putting the family back into planning. As more couples leave it later before starting a family there is growing concern from fertility experts that many people don't know enough about when female fertility starts to decline. Professor Adam Balen and Professor Joyce Harper discuss the issues. And how accurate is the perception, often reported in the media, that fertility 'drops off a cliff' in the mid to late thirties? Professor Richard Anderson reviews the so called 'broken stick' study, a mathematical model which first defined the sharp drop off of female fertility.And another instalment of Inside Language where Dr Margaret McCartney and Professor Carl Heneghan examine the terms used in evidence based medicine and why they matter. This week, adjustment and how researchers allow for factors that might skew their findings.

The average five-year-old consumes their own body weight in sugar every year in this country - a scary illustration of the scale of the sugar problem. The new sugar tax is supposed to tackle this, but what's the evidence that a tax on sugary drinks alone will make a difference? Dr Margaret McCartney reviews the evidence from other countries, which have also used fiscal measures to nudge their populations into eating a healthy diet.PrEP - pre-exposure prophylaxis - is the latest advance in the ongoing battle against HIV. Studies show this preventive HIV therapy can reduce the risk of HIV infection by 86%. So the announcement by NHS England that it wasn't its responsibility to commission the drug has been met by shock and disappointment. Sexual Health and HIV consultant, Dr Jake Bayley, tells Mark that PrEP is a game changer in preventing HIV in high risk groups and the news that it won't be rolled out nationally, as expected, means the UK is falling behind in HIV prevention."We don't like to talk about our bottoms", Maureen Williams tells Inside Health is one reason why take up of bowel cancer screening across the country is so patchy. Maureen was one of the first people to receive the faecal occult blood test ten years ago as part of the roll out of the bowel cancer screening programme and despite having no symptoms, they found early stage bowel cancer. Ten years later Maureen campaigns for people to complete and return the potentially life-saving test. The clinical head of the Scottish Bowel Cancer Screening Programme talks to Mark about the new, simpler screening test called FIT, the Faecal Immunochemical Test, due to be rolled out in Scotland, and perhaps soon in the rest of the UK as well.Researchers in Taiwan have concluded that most patients who undergo surgery can start showering 48 hours after an operation - a finding that flies in the face of traditional thinking that scars need to be kept dry and under a dressing for a week or more, before getting wet. Consultant Surgeon Nicholas Markham from North Devon District Hospital details the dramatic changes for patients undergoing surgery, including keyhole surgery, changes in the use of anaesthetic, access to food and water and bed rest.

Why asthma is both over diagnosed and undertreated. Professor Mike Thomas and GP Dr Margaret McCartney discuss this apparent contradiction and look behind recent headlines that half a million children in the UK could be taking asthma medicines they don't need. A new study finds that putting doctors under pressure or being a difficult patient may backfire, inducing them to make diagnostic errors. With scarlet fever and measles in the news, Margaret McCartney gives a quick guide on the key symptoms as both diseases have a characteristic rash. A listener has emailed to ask about visual snow, a condition where your vision is like an untuned TV set. World expert, Professor Peter Goadsby explains the latest understanding of visual snow, and says that even 15 years ago it hadn't been universally accepted as a condition. Plus the first in the latest Inside Language series with Margaret and Dr Carl Heneghan of Oxford University. This week, they discuss confounding factors and why they matter to your health.

Millions of anti-depressants are prescribed every year and more than half of people taking them have been doing so for two years or more. But how do you know when you're better and how can you tell that the time is right to stop taking them? Withdrawal symptoms are often confused with a return of the original depression so careful tapering of medication is crucial. Tony Kendrick, Professor of Primary Care at the University of Southampton gives Dr Mark Porter a run down of what to do, and what not to do, when it comes to coming off medication. If you're 40 or above you're to receive dementia awareness as part of the latest Prime Minister's Challenge on Dementia 2020, just announced. The plans to include dementia education for middle aged people in future NHS Health Checks are aimed at making England - no plans as yet to replicate this in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland - the best country in the world for dementia care. Dr Margaret McCartney reviews the new proposals.Seven thousand people in the UK are currently waiting for life saving organ transplants - and every year 1200 die because there's a critical shortage of donor organs. It's meant that the transplant community has had to consider using organs that aren't quite as perfect as they would like. Poorer quality, older or damaged organs are now being considered when they would have been rejected in the past. Mark visits Rutger Ploeg, Professor of Transplant Biology at the University of Oxford at the Oxford Transplant Centre to find out about the pioneering work to treat, heal and re-condition organs using normothermic perfusion devices - essentially mini-life support machines that work at body temperature. Frederique Rattue was the first woman at her local hospital to use "vaginal seeding" when her fourth child was born by caesarean section a year ago. It's a practice that involves taking a swab from the mother's vagina and rubbing it over the baby's mouth, face and skin after birth and the theory is that vaginal seeding will restore the microbiota of infants born by caesarean section, boosting their gut bacteria and reducing the risk of allergies or obesity. Dr Margaret McCartney discusses the theory of vaginal seeding and the evidence that the practice leads to health benefits for the baby.

The use of talc and its potential connection with ovarian cancer has hit the headlines after a court ruling in America. Given that nearly half the UK population uses talc to some degree GP Dr Margaret McCartney looks at the evidence and puts any link in perspective. PBC is an often missed condition that causes severe itching and fatigue with the resulting liver damage mistakenly associated with drinking too much. Laura Gilmore lived with the symptoms for many years - scratching herself raw and falling asleep during the day but still not waking refreshed - before getting a diagnosis. Professor James Neuberger explains the science behind PBC.Plus treating severe head injury and why a commonly used intervention used in intensive care units across the country is being questioned. Professor Peter Andrews is the man behind a new trial looking at the evidence for hypothermia, or cooling people with head trauma to prevent damage. The trial was stopped because early evidence suggested harms from this commonly used practice. Dr Mark Porter discusses the implications for critical care medicine across the world with Peter Andrews and Professor John Myburgh who is at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

Up to half a million people in the UK could have it, but it's a condition that hardly anybody has heard about: Charles Bonnet Syndrome. It happens to people who are losing their sight through age-related macular degeneration, cataracts, diabetic eye problems or glaucoma. They see vivid and often frightening visual hallucinations and these images are soundless. Judith Potts' mother Esme was in her 90's when she eventually admitted to her daughter that she was seeing frightening images of goblins and Victorian children all around her. Judith had never heard of the condition and as she tells Dr Mark Porter, neither had any of the health professionals taking care of her mother. Shocked that there was so little awareness about something that is so common, she set up an awareness group, Esme's Umbrella. Dr Dominic Ffytche, Clinical Senior Lecturer at King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry and an expert in visual hallucinations, tells Mark that a key area of research is why some people have Charles Bonnet Syndrome and others don't.Co-proxamol, or Distalgesic as it's better known, was a common drug for mild to moderate pain in the 1990's. But a decade ago, a review by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) decided that it wasn't a good painkiller and it had very worrying side effects. Its licence was withdrawn and doctors were urged to switch patients onto different medication (although it could still be prescribed on a "named patient" basis). Dr Andrew Green, Chair of the Clinical and Prescribing arm of the GP committee of the British Medical Association tells Mark he's disturbed that nearly ten years after the licence was withdrawn, thousands of patients are still being prescribed co-proxamol at a high cost to the NHS while Bedfordshire GP Dr John Lockley defends continued and careful prescribing for a tiny number of patients who can't get relief from other medication.In a week in which hundreds of thousands of people have signed a petition calling for more children to receive the Meningitis B vaccine, Dr Margaret McCartney talks to Mark about the tricky decisions involved in planning immunisation programmes.Traditional bedside paper charts, which record and monitor patients' vital signs, have been replaced in Oxford hospitals with smart PC tablets. Clinical staff enter patients' blood pressure, heart rate and temperature on the tablet and the new "smart" system provides an early warning traffic light system, alerting them if there's a deterioration in the patient's condition. This means clinicians can prioritise care and another major bonus is that the same information is available, at the touch of a button, to medical staff across Oxford's hospitals. The project is called SEND - System for Electronic Notification and Documentation - and it's a collaboration between the University of Oxford and Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Mark goes to Oxford and with intensive care consultant and SEND Project Leader Dr Peter Watkinson, sees how the new paperless system is working.