Let's talk medical research

October 10 is World Mental Health Day, a day aimed at raising awareness of mental health and wellness around the globe. For many mental health conditions, it can take a period of trial and error to find the right treatment plan for patients — but through clinical trials, discovering new and more efficient treatments can be made possible.

Reaching the right patients is frequently cited as one of the most difficult parts of medical research. Without clinical trial participants, it’s impossible for researchers to advance their studies — but with smart outreach strategies, there are options for increasing the visibility of a trial.

Different types of clinical studies are designed to investigate potential therapies, medications, and medical devices — and all of these must go through each phase of a clinical trial before they are approved. This means that volunteers who are willing to participate in research studies are essential to medical breakthroughs and the advancement of knowledge surrounding any given condition.

Clinical trial patient recruitment is an important aspect of medical research, but unfortunately, it is also one of the challenges. There are many regulations surrounding how information about trials can be shared with patients, and because outreach materials must be approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) before a campaign launches, planning a recruitment campaign requires a good deal ...

Complement 3 Glomerulopathy, most commonly shortened to C3G or C3G kidney disease, is a rare type of kidney disease that has only been diagnosed since 2013. “C3” refers to a blood protein that has a vital role in the immune system, and “G” is for the damage to glomeruli in the kidneys.

Since 1999, October has been recognized as Health Literacy Month. The goal, as defined by the Institute for Healthcare Advancement, is to raise awareness about the importance of understandable health information — but what is health literacy and why is it important?

Though it has only been identified since the early 1990s, Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EoE) has come to be known as a major cause of gastrointestinal illness. Though there are still a lot of unknowns surrounding EoE, ongoing research hopes to provide patients and medical professionals with more insights in the future.

At Antidote, we believe that getting to know patients is about more than making an initial connection. As a digital patient engagement company with a database of 400,000 users, we know a lot about finding patients — but we also know how to keep them engaged.

September 21 is World Alzheimer’s Day, a day of recognition aimed at increasing awareness of and understanding the issues faced by people living with Alzheimer’s. Though there are many conditions that can cause memory loss, Alzheimer’s is one of the most common — it is estimated that 5.4 million Americans are living with the condition, most of whom are over the age of 65.

Sickle cell disease (SCD) refers to a genetically inherited set of red blood cell disorders that are present from birth. Millions of people are impacted by SCD each year, but it disproportionately impacts Black and African American populations, occurring in about 1 out of every 365 Black or African-American births.