LIFE STYLE

blast from the past

October 6, 1853
The American Pharmaceutical Association, now known as the American Pharmacists Association (APhA), was founded in Philadelphia. It was the first nationwide pharmacist organization, and today it’s the largest, with more than 60,000 practicing pharmacists, pharmaceutical scientists, student pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and others interested in advancing the profession.

October 28, 1886
On this rainy, foggy day 123 years ago, more than a million people filled the streets of New York dressed in patriotic colors and filled with high spirits to witness the unveiling of the Statue of Liberty. It took four months for the statue to be assembled once all the parts had arrived from France, but it was instantly clear she belonged. As President Grover Cleveland said during the dedication, “We will not forget that Liberty has here made her home, nor shall her chosen altar be neglected.”

October 30, 1938
Radio gets results! A series of radio news bulletins informing people of a Martian invasion in progress 71 years ago caused widespread panic. Listeners jumped into action, notifying local authorities and their closest neighbors. What they failed to realize was that the broadcast was Orson Welles’s performance of War of the Worlds, based on the H.G. Wells novel. Newspapers and public figures decried the news bulletin format as cruelly deceptive, but the broadcast gave Welles instant worldwide fame. 
—Andrew Matthius

RESEARCH UPDATE
The Right Choice
Right-handers know right is right, but on the other hand left-handers know left is right. Recently, a series of studies found that people associate more positive qualities with their dominant side and negative qualities with their clumsier side. Cognitive scientist Daniel Casasanto, PhD, of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands reported that right-handers associate right with good and left with bad, and left-handers do the opposite.

In one study, 219 students from Stanford University and the University of California at Riverside were told a zebra is good and a panda is bad (or vice versa) and then were given paper with two side-by-side boxes and told to draw the animals. Of left-handers, 74% drew the "good" animal in the box on the left, while 67% of right-handers drew the good animal in the box on the right, according to results published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. This handedness effect also applies to purchasing decisions. A study of 371 subjects discovered most righties chose products described on the right-side of a page, while lefties chose from the left. Even for job candidates, righties wanted the guy described on the right and lefties wanted the one on the left.

Casasanto calls this phenomenon the Body-Specificity Hypothesis, suggesting people with different physical characteristics form different abstract concepts. Cognitive scientists long believed spatial recognition had no effect on abstract thought, since the two processes occur in different regions of the brain, according to Newsweek. These studies suggest the opposite by revealing that although our culture’s language and idioms associate right with good, lefties just don’t see it that way. However, the majority of the world’s population is still right-handed, so for marketers and advertisers, targeting the right will always be right.—A.M.

WELL-BEING
Point of Care
Hairstylists offer versatile services, which can include trimming a little off the top, highlighting, coloring, straightening, passing along the latest news of the day, and even giving some friendly, possibly life-saving advice.

A recent study at Ohio State University was designed to see how many stylist sessions actually provided some therapeutic conversation, the often joked-about salon therapy. The study revealed more than 80% of 40 Columbus area stylists have elderly clients who discuss their relationships, family, and health problems during appointments. "Their older clients may sit in a chair for an hour or longer while they're having their hair done, and this may happen once or twice a month,” said Keith Anderson, co-author of the study and assistant professor of social work at OSU in the university’s Research News. “So stylists are in a good position to recognize when things change with a client, and when they may need help.”

About 85% of stylists described their relationships with clients 60 years old or older as “close” or “very close,” while 72% are like one of the “family,” according to the results published in the Journal of Applied Gerontology. These relationships help clients open up, as more than 75% talked about health and family problems and more than 33% discussed depression or anxiety. Still, fewer than half of the stylists were willing to offer advice, and only about a quarter suggested their clients speak with someone who could help. The problem for many stylists is not a lack of desire to help, but a lack of knowledge. About 45% were willing to receive mental health training, but Anderson said they would just need to learn about local community services so that they could point clients in the right direction. Then stylists can help clients feel as good as they make them look. —A.M.

Smooth Recovery
Many people use plastic surgery as their personal fountain of youth to eliminate the signs of aging, but a new study reveals that it may also be the secret to eliminating migraines. A double-blind, 75-person study found that 83.7% of patients who underwent surgery reduced the number of headaches by at least half, compared with 57.7% of the placebo group, who had sham surgery. Also, 57% of the patients who underwent surgery reported “complete elimination” of headaches, compared to 3.8% of the placebo group, according to results in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Dr. Bahman Guyuron, a plastic surgeon and lead author of the study, searched for a surgical solution to migraines after many of his patients had fewer headaches following facelifts. The therapeutic surgery for migraines is performed at one of three trigger points where the headache begins and settles, which include the forehead, temples, and back of the head.

A solution that keeps patients headache-free would be welcome relief to nearly 30 million migraine-afflicted Americans. “It can be a merry-go-round going from medication to medication in pursuit of control,” said Dr. Roger K. Cady, vice president of the board for the National Headache Foundation, to the New York Times. He also noted most current migraine treatments consider 50% reduction successful. However, surgery is suitable only if doctors can identify where a patient’s headaches originate. If the trigger points don’t respond to Botox, which is not an approved method for treating migraines, then surgery is useless. Surgery does offer some cosmetic benefits for forehead furrows or sagging temples. —A.M.