Publications by authors named "Armstrong K"

Objective: Adolescence marks a time of transition where teenagers are learning to advocate for themselves. In those with underlying chronic conditions such as adolescent dysautonomia, improving communication between clinic visits may improve connection with their health care provider which may aide management. Our aims were as follows: (1) to implement a text message platform to increase communication between adolescent patients and health care provider (HCP); (2) to evaluate its effect on quality of life (QoL), symptom burden, and patient engagement; and (3) to determine patient satisfaction with the platform.

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Obesity factors into hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM)-related risk as a disease modifying environmental factor. Behaviours such as diet and sleep are seldom reported upon in children with HCM. It was our aim to report on these factors in this population.

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True parenchymal breast changes following COVID-19 vaccination are exceedingly rare. Equally rare are incidences of pseudoangiomatous stromal hyperplasia (PASH)-associated gigantomastia. The patient in this case report presented with both occurrences and experienced massive breast enlargement 1 week postadministration of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, which worsened after her second dose.

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Symbiont genotype plays a vital role in the ability of a coral host to tolerate rising ocean temperatures, with some members of the family Symbiodiniaceae possessing more thermal tolerance than others. While existing studies on genetic structure in symbiont populations have focused on broader scales of 10-100 s of km, there is a noticeable gap in understanding the seascape genetics of coral symbionts at finer-yet ecologically and evolutionarily relevant-scales. Here, we mapped short reads from 271 holobiont genome libraries of individual colonies to protein coding genes from the chloroplast genome to identify patterns of symbiont population genetic structure.

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Background: Timing of didactic theoretical content with clinical experiences can be challenging due to limited clinical placements and insufficient experienced faculty. However, appropriate and timely clinical experiences for nursing students are essential for developing knowledge and skills. This project evaluated the effects of the timing of clinical experiences on examination performance.

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Background: The insula is a heterogeneous cortical region with three cytoarchitectural subregions-agranular, dysgranular, and granular-that have distinct functional roles. Previous cross-sectional studies have shown smaller volume of all insula subregions in individuals with psychotic disorders. However, longitudinal trajectories of insula subregions in early psychosis, and the relationship between subregional volumes and relevant clinical phenomena, such as perceptual aberrations, have not been previously examined.

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Objectives: The aim of our study was to assess the effectiveness and side-effect profile of a combination of azithromycin and metronidazole (CD AZCRO) as alternative induction therapy for 8 weeks in mild to moderately active paediatric Crohn's disease (CD).

Methods: We performed a retrospective cohort study (November 2012 to July 2023) of a regional paediatric inflammatory bowel disease service. Disease activity, faecal calprotectin (FC), C-reactive protein (CRP), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), haematological parameters and albumin were collected at baseline, 8 and 16 weeks.

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Article Synopsis
  • Paediatric hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is linked to a higher risk of sudden cardiac death, leading to restrictions on physical activity; this inactivity, combined with rising youth obesity, may negatively impact cardiovascular health in these patients.* -
  • The study involved 56 Canadian HCM patients aged 10-19 and evaluated their cardiovascular health using standardized questionnaires; results showed that many had poor health scores similar to those of the general Canadian youth population.* -
  • Findings indicate a significant number of HCM patients have intermediate or poor cardiovascular health, underscoring the need for targeted interventions to encourage healthier lifestyles and improve overall cardiovascular wellbeing.*
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  • Cannabis use can lead to using other drugs and also affect how well people drive.
  • A study with 200 cannabis users found that they often use other substances more than those who don't use cannabis.
  • The researchers recommend teaching people how to control their actions to help keep roads safer from impaired driving.
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Background: Transgender and gender diverse (TGD) individuals face barriers when seeking top surgery, or bilateral mastectomies, as part of surgical transition, leading to delayed care and adverse health outcomes. Understanding differential experiences between nonbinary and binary patients is crucial for improving TGD patient care, but this distinction is seldom made in the current literature.

Methods: This single-center cross-sectional mixed-methods survey study conducted between 2022 and 2023 enrolled all consecutive TGD patients undergoing top surgery.

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One in three patients admitted to intensive care will sustain a pressure injury (PI) from a medical device. These injuries are painful and when on the face, head or neck they can result in permanent disfigurement. Preliminary evidence of the efficacy of hyper-oxygenated fatty acids (HOFAs) to prevent facial pressure injuries from medical devices is promising; however, the feasibility of incorporating HOFAs into current standard care to prevent PI from a medical device of the face, head and neck has not been extensively explored.

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  • - This paper presents a new method for accurately transferring blood pressure (BP) data from oscillometric devices into medical records, focusing on accessibility for low literacy populations, particularly during pregnancy and postpartum.
  • - An automated image transcription technique was developed to capture and analyze BP readings from photos taken in mobile health (mHealth) monitoring programs in Guatemala and Georgia, involving midwives and postpartum women.
  • - A deep learning model was created to enhance digit recognition from BP devices, utilizing advanced techniques like the YOLO object detection and convolutional neural networks; training experiments showed that models using transfer learning performed better than those that did not.
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Research regarding the delivery of neuropsychological feedback (NF) has grown in recent years to include specific models and strategies for working with patients with diverse medical conditions across the lifespan, and is now considered a core competency for neuropsychologists. NF is an individualized therapeutic intervention designed to maximize the patient's understanding of assessment results and catalyze follow through with treatment recommendations. This article summarizes research on NF and its strategic goals, as well as the potential impact/outcomes of these therapeutic interventions.

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  • The study aimed to analyze the relationship between the sex of surgeons and the number of days patients spend alive and at home (DAH) after surgery.
  • It found that patients treated by female surgeons had significantly more DAH compared to those treated by male surgeons over all measured time frames (30, 90, and 365 days).
  • The findings suggest that higher DAH associated with female surgeons could lead to lower healthcare costs and better patient quality of life, indicating a need for further research in different healthcare settings.
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  • Disordered thinking affects both clinical cases and the general population, but there is currently no effective way to measure it, prompting the development of the Disorganised Thoughts Scale (DTS).
  • A survey was conducted with various groups, including a large sample from Australia, to evaluate the DTS using statistical methods that confirmed its internal and external validity.
  • Results indicated that the DTS effectively captures two types of disorganized thinking: Positive (accelerated, uncontrollable) and Negative (inhibited, disjointed), and it correlates well with other cognitive measures, particularly in individuals experiencing psychological distress and substance use.
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Background: Life with end-stage organ failure is accompanied by an accumulation of traumatic medical or surgical experiences. Despite recovery after solid organ transplantation (SOT), many children and adolescents develop post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS). PTSS remain underappreciated as a major comorbidity in SOT programs, despite their association with decreased quality of life.

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Oil sands process-affected water (OSPW), generated by surface mining in Canada's oil sands, require treatment of environmentally persistent dissolved organic compounds before release to the watershed. Conventional chemical and mechanical treatments have not proved suitable for treating the large quantities of stored OSPW, and the biological recalcitrance of some dissolved organics may not be adequately addressed by conventional passive treatment systems. Previous work has evaluated photocatalytic treatment as a passive advanced oxidation process (P-AOP) for OSPW remediation.

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  • Two common intravenous medications for quick blood pressure control, nicardipine and clevidipine, were evaluated for their efficacy and safety in a hospital setting.
  • A study involving 100 matched patient pairs found that clevidipine led to a significantly faster time to reach the target blood pressure range compared to nicardipine (20 minutes vs. 34 minutes).
  • Although the percentage of time within the target blood pressure range was similar for both medications, nicardipine showed a non-significant trend toward a higher rate of hypotension.
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Background: Many studies have described barriers to gender-affirming surgery (GAS) in Canada; however, few have explored why these barriers persist. To address this knowledge gap, we sought to describe documents related to public health insurance (Medicare) for GAS to identify the types of procedures covered, variations in coverage across provinces and territories, and changes in policy over time.

Methods: We conducted a descriptive cross-sectional study using an environmental scan approach.

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Objective: To summarize current knowledge regarding management of hypergranulation in the context of gender-affirming vaginoplasty.

Sources Of Information: There have been no studies to date examining hypergranulation treatment options following vaginoplasty. Evidence from the literature on this complication in other settings and the opinions of authorities and experts in this area were used to inform this review.

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Shared decision-making (SDM) is a collaborative approach to healthcare decision-making that involves patients and healthcare professionals working together to make decisions that are informed by the best available medical evidence, as well as the patient's values, preferences and goals. The importance of SDM and the intricate interplay among parents, children and young people (CYP), and healthcare professionals are increasingly acknowledged as the crucial aspects of delivering high-quality paediatric care. While there is a substantial evidence base for SDM improving knowledge and reducing decisional conflict, the evidence for long-term measures such as improved health outcomes is limited and mainly inconclusive.

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Purpose: Few breast cancer risk assessment models account for the risk profiles of different tumor subtypes. This study evaluated whether a subtype-specific approach improves discrimination.

Methods: Among 3389 women who had a screening mammogram and were later diagnosed with invasive breast cancer we performed multinomial logistic regression with tumor subtype as the outcome and known breast cancer risk factors as predictors.

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Cystinosis is a lysosomal storage disorder usually presenting with renal disease in infancy. As soon as the diagnosis is made, cysteamine (a cystine-depleting medication), is started, significantly improving life expectancy. We describe a young woman taking lifelong cysteamine for nephropathic cystinosis, who became acutely encephalopathic with a spastic tetraparesis secondary to cysteamine toxicity, which was potentially worsened by copper deficiency.

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Background: Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is a burdensome condition that inflicts both physical and psychological impairment on those with the disease, negatively impacting health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Given the abundance of evidence suggesting a role of physical activity (PA) in modulating HRQoL in healthy populations of children, we sought to determine the relationship between HRQoL and PA in children diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Methods And Results: A multicenter prospective observational cohort study was conducted, with patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy aged 10 to 19 years being provided a wrist-worn activity tracker (Fitbit Charge HR) to wear for 14 days.

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