The Supreme Court is to hear a case challenging the way councils in England can consider their finances when assessing people for social care. A severely disabled man - known as KM - and four charities will say care should be the same wherever a person lives.
For several years cochlear implants have offered some deaf people the chance to have a "sensation of sound". So why would some deaf teenagers choose not to have the implant even if they had the option? The issue of cochlear implants and efforts to "cure" deafness is a very sensitive subject among the 19,600 deaf teenagers in the UK. Indeed, many young deaf people are proud of deaf culture.
The risk of birth defects increases four-fold if the pregnant mother has diabetes, researchers say. The Newcastle University study, published in the journal Diabetologia, analysed data from more than 400,000 pregnancies in North East England. The risk of defects such as congenital heart disease and spina bifida were increased.
A drug that could save the sight of people with diabetes will not be made available on the NHS in England and Wales, an advisory body has concluded. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) says ranibizumab, sold under the brand name Lucentis, is too expensive to use in people with diabetic macular oedema.
Controversial plans to axe some benefit payments to disabled people living in care homes are being dropped. The government had planned to axe the "mobility" part of Disability Living Allowance - worth £51-a-week and currently paid to up to 80,000 people. Disability charity Scope had condemned the move as "callous" and said it would leave people prisoners in their homes.
A new technique could improve the quality of life for patients with Parkinson's Disease, according to research led by Cardiff University. Patients with the early stages of the disease were trained to control areas of the brain associated with movement by using the power of thought alone. A clinical evaluation later found their movement had improved by up to a third. The charity Parkinson's UK described the research as "exciting" but stressed "these are very early days".
