Is alpha-lipoic acid (a natural antioxidant) better than no treatment or dummy treatment for nerve damage in people with diabetes?

Patient understanding can be key to the successful use of many of the interventions for which there are Cochrane Reviews and, in November 2023, we published a review that might help with this. Here are two of the authors, Angela Aldin from Cochrane Haematology and Annika Baumeister from the University of Bonn, both in Germany, to talk about the findings of that review looking at interventions for improving health literacy in migrants.

Alongside its many reviews of possible treatments for dementia, the Cochrane Dementia and Cognitive Improvement Group produced reviews relevant to other aspects of the care of people with dementia. In this podcast, Tanja Richter talks with Julia Lühnen (Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Institute of Clinical Nursing Science, Berlin, Germany) about the August 2023 update of the 2012 review of psychosocial interventions for reducing the use of antipsychotic medicines for people with dementia living in care homes.

The question of whether and how to treat preterm infants with postnatal corticosteroids for the management of bronchopulmonary dysplasia, which is a chronic lung problem due to prematurity, has been a neonatologist's quandary for decades. In August 2023, Cochrane Neonatal published a network meta-analysis on the use of postnatal corticosteroids for its prevention. In this podcast, Roger Soll of Cochrane Neonatal, talks with the lead author Susanne Hay, an attending neonatologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in the US, about her team's work.

Two of the Cochrane Reviews that investigate different ways to deliver health and social care services look at the qualitative and quantitative research into a strategy called hospital at home. In this podcast, Roses Parker, Cochrane’s Commissioning Editor talks with lead author of the March 2024 qualitative evidence synthesis of implementing hospital at home, Jason Wallis, a physiotherapist and researcher at Monash University in Australia, and Sasha Shepperd, researcher at Oxford Population Health, University of Oxford in the UK who led the Cochrane review of the quantitative effects of admission avoidance hospital at home, which was updated in March 2024.

Immunisation is a key component in the prevention of illness and the Cochrane review of interventions to improve coverage of childhood immunisation in low- and middle-income countries was updated for the second time in December 2023. We asked lead author, Angela Oyo-Ita from University of Calabar Teaching Hospital in Nigeria, to tell us about the latest findings in this podcast.

Among the Cochrane Reviews of treatments to help patients with kidney stones, our review comparing shock wave treatment with surgery was updated for the second time in August 2023. Here's lead author, Vasun Setthawong from Rangsit University in Bangkok, Thailand to tell us about the latest findings.

Alpha-lipoic acid is sometimes used for the treatment of diabetic peripheral neuropathy. In this podcast, one of the authors, Caterina Delcea, talks with lead author Cristian Baicus, consultant in internal medicine from Colentina University Hospital Bucharest in Romania, about the January 2024 Cochrane review of this treatment.

The Cochrane Neonatal group has produced several hundred systematic reviews of interventions that might help to improve the care and treatment of preterm infants and their families. In this podcast, one of the group’s researchers, Dirk Bassler, talks with lead author Friederike Haslbeck, a clinical music therapist and senior researcher at the University Hospital Zurich, Department of Neonatology in Switzerland, about the September 2023 review looking at music and vocal interventions to improve neurodevelopmental outcomes for preterm infants.

The Cochrane Colorectal Group produces reviews across a wide range of conditions affecting the intestines. These were added to in March 2024 with a new review of different ways to close the skin when a person’s stoma is reversed. We asked lead author, Shahab Hajibandeh from Health Education and Improvement Wales to tell us more and he used the ElevenLabs AI Voice Generator to record this podcast.

The Cochrane Collaboration has published more than 30 reviews on interventions for patients with pelvic organ prolapse. Of these, a series of 6 systematic reviews specifically relating to surgical management were first published in 2016. These are currently being updated, with the update for one, on transvaginal mesh or grafts in transvaginal prolapse surgery being published in March 2024. In this podcast, one of the co-authors, Professor Christopher Maher speaks with lead author, Dr Ellen Yeung, a consultant urogynaecologist who works in Brisbane, Australia about the latest findings.