Jamie Heywood: The big idea my brother inspired

http://www.ted.com When Jamie Heywood's brother was diagnosed with ALS, he devoted his life to fighting the disease as well. The Heywood brothers built an ingenious website where people share and track data on their illnesses -- and they discovered that the collective data had enormous power to comfort, explain and predict.

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[tommyk77]

Interesting. Failed to mention that prayer would only be helpful as a placebo :-P

[omegavalerius]

This would be a good way to start seeing some pattern and then go for the real scientific research to see if there is something.

[tommyk77]

@crudhousefull I know there have been a few. It's also the plausibility issue, though. Placebo is the default position too

[crudhousefull]

@tommyk77 Are you alluding to any particular study?

[Pagra101]

If he died 3 years ago, how was still alive in October 2009?

[darryltrushell]

This is very similar to a UK project that is working on this type of technology specifically for endometriosis. Google 'theukendosurvey'.

[ProtonTherapy1]

I work in the field of radiation oncology. The treatment of cancer. This method of patient data sharing is potentially of profound use.

The link to this video was sent to me by my best friend. Also an oncology practitioner, but more importantly, and newly diagnosed ALS sufferer. He gets it, as a medical professional, and as a patient.

[Astowhy]

this is really meaningful data, it will only get better and will thus give people better health care / treatment. Great presentation.

[ritapatel58]

You are great to do this. I have been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. I have been looking for reason for my life , I am Asian Indian and being a woman I have so many people in my life to blame in this male dominated society but instead I want to make this a positive experience and find a purpose for this life.

I went to India to my home country to find comfort with my parents and looking for the spiritual path. I found the ART OF LIVING FOUNDATION., the largest non profit foundation

[andresico2]

@thegiveproject more like shit for thought...

[thegiveproject]

@andresico2 hmmm... that's interesting because I just read a study recently that studied different types of prayer.

Some views of God and prayer certainly had a negative correlation with them, but these were mostly the forms of prayer that associated God as judge of good and bad - aka gulit and shame were associated.

Other forms of prayer, those that viewed God as sustainer and "He who suffers with" to be more precise, showed drastic improvements in people's health. Just food for thought

[BrutusAlbion]

@thisisyourtest

wow wow wow man I realise that my original point was invalid because the organisation is free and people owned. However my concerns were that if this was institutionalized for companies it would break tonnes of privacy and ethical issues. I hope you can understand that much.