The Impact of an Educational Program on Medical Students' Knowledge and Awareness of Elder Abuse.

Objective: Approximately 1 in 6 adults 60 and older have experienced a form of abuse in the past year. Many cases remain under-reported due to lack of knowledge and awareness. This study created an educational program on elder abuse for medical students to determine if participation would increase knowledge and awareness of elder abuse.

Paramedic Identification of Pediatric Seizures: A Prospective Cohort Study.

Objective: Pediatric seizures commonly trigger emergency medical services (EMS) activation and account for approximately 5-15% of all pediatric 911-EMS calls. More than 50% of children with active seizure activity do not receive prehospital antiepileptic drugs, potentially because they are not recognized by EMS. The purpose of this study is to evaluate specificity and sensitivity of paramedic identification of pediatric seizures and to describe the characteristics of unrecognized seizures.

Delayed peaks of acetaminophen in overdose patients with concomitant abdominal trauma.

Objective: To present two cases of delayed acetaminophen absorption in abdominal trauma patients with concomitant acetaminophen overdose.

Cases: Case 1. A 25-year-old female arrived to the emergency department with multiple stab wounds.

Is there a safety-net effect with computer-aided detection?

Computer-aided detection (CAD) systems are used to aid readers interpreting screening mammograms. An expert reader searches the image initially unaided and then once again with the aid of CAD, which prompts automatically detected suspicious regions. This could lead to a "safety-net" effect, where the initial unaided search of the image is adversely affected by the fact that it is preliminary to an additional search with CAD and may, therefore, be less thorough.

Falls in the Bathroom: A Mechanism of Injury for All Ages.

Background: When ground-level falls occur in the bathroom, there is particular potential for morbidity and mortality given the high density of hard surfaces. Risk factors are not clearly defined by the existing literature. The objective of this study was to define the epidemiology, injury patterns, and outcomes after falls in the bathroom.

Premenstrual Syndrome: Symptomatic and Diagnosed Prevalence, Dualistic Treatment Approach - A Cross-Sectional Study in Ukraine.

Background: Diagnosing and treatment of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) still pose a challenge in the routine medical practice which usually focuses on single pharmacological therapy. Recent research suggests that the combination of treatments including complementary alternative medicine (CAM) therapies may be more beneficial. The objective of this study was to assess the percentage of diagnosed and nondiagnosed PMS/premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) based on the presence of adequate symptoms and to compare population using hormonal or pharmaceutical agents versus CAM therapies.

Point-of-Care Ultrasound to Diagnose Infantile Parotid Hemangioma.

Soft tissue masses are common in the pediatric population and may represent a broad range of conditions. Point-of-care ultrasound can be used for rapid visualization and assessment of soft tissue masses in the emergency setting. We report a case of a pediatric head and neck mass in which point-of-care ultrasound was used to identify an infantile parotid hemangioma.

Effectiveness of Iyengar yoga in treating spinal (back and neck) pain: A systematic review.

Considerable amount of money spent in health care is used for treatments of lifestyle related, chronic health conditions, which come from behaviors that contribute to morbidity and mortality of the population. Back and neck pain are two of the most common musculoskeletal problems in modern society that have significant cost in health care. Yoga, as a branch of complementary alternative medicine, has emerged and is showing to be an effective treatment against nonspecific spinal pain.

Assessing wave energy effects on biodiversity: the wave hub experience.

Marine renewable energy installations harnessing energy from wind, wave and tidal resources are likely to become a large part of the future energy mix worldwide. The potential to gather energy from waves has recently seen increasing interest, with pilot developments in several nations. Although technology to harness wave energy lags behind that of wind and tidal generation, it has the potential to contribute significantly to energy production.

A small, glutamine-free domain propagates the [SWI(+)] prion in budding yeast.

Yeast prions are self-propagating protein conformations that transmit heritable phenotypes in an epigenetic manner. The recently identified yeast prion [SWI(+)] is an alternative conformation of Swi1, a component of the evolutionarily conserved SWI/SNF chromatin-remodeling complex. Formation of the [SWI(+)] prion results in a partial loss-of-function phenotype for Swi1.

Newly identified prions in budding yeast, and their possible functions.

Yeast prions are atypical genetic elements that are transmitted as heritable protein conformations. [PSI+], [URE3], and [PIN+] are three well-studied prions in the budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. In the last three years, several additional prions have been reported in yeast, including [SWI+], [OCT+], [MCA], [GAR+], [MOT3+], [ISP+], and [NSI+].

Distinct subregions of Swi1 manifest striking differences in prion transmission and SWI/SNF function.

We have recently reported that the yeast chromatin-remodeling factor Swi1 can exist as a prion, [SWI(+)], demonstrating a link between prionogenesis and global transcriptional regulation. To shed light on how the Swi1 conformational switch influences Swi1 function and to define the sequence and structural requirements for [SWI(+)] formation and propagation, we functionally dissected the Swi1 molecule. We show here that the [SWI(+)] prion features are solely attributable to the first 327 amino acid residues (N), a region that is asparagine rich.

Blood fluke exploitation of non-cognate CD4+ T cell help to facilitate parasite development.

Schistosoma blood flukes, which infect over 200 million people globally, co-opt CD4+ T cell-dependent mechanisms to facilitate parasite development and egg excretion. The latter requires Th2 responses, while the mechanism underpinning the former has remained obscure. Using mice that are either defective in T cell receptor (TCR) signaling or that lack TCRs that can respond to schistosomes, we show that naïve CD4+ T cells facilitate schistosome development in the absence of T cell receptor signaling.

New insights into prion biology from the novel [SWI+] system.

Our laboratory recently reported a novel prion [SWI+], in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. [SWI+] is the prion form of Swi1, a component of the SWI/SNF chromatin-remodeling complex. Cells harboring [SWI+] exhibit a partial loss-of-function phenotype for SWI/SNF, which can be easily assayed by poor growth on some non-fermentable carbon sources such as raffinose.

Conservation of CD4+ T cell-dependent developmental mechanisms in the blood fluke pathogens of humans.

Schistosoma blood flukes are trematode parasites with a cosmopolitan distribution that infect over 200 million people globally. We previously showed that Schistosoma mansoni growth and development in the mammalian host is dependent on signals from host CD4+ T cells. To gain insight into the mechanisms that underlie this dependence, we sought to determine the evolutionary origins and limits of this aspect of the host-pathogen relationship.

The common gamma chain cytokines interleukin (IL)-2 and IL-7 indirectly modulate blood fluke development via effects on CD4+ T cells.

The human pathogen Schistosoma mansoni exhibits a highly evolved and intricate relationship with its host, evading immune destruction while co-opting CD4(+) T cell-driven mechanisms to facilitate parasite development and egg excretion. Because the common gamma ( gamma (c)) chain cytokine interleukin (IL)-7 is also implicated in modulating schistosome development, we investigated whether this effect is mediated indirectly through the essential role that IL-7 plays in CD4(+) T cell growth and survival. We demonstrate that attenuated schistosome development in the absence of IL-7 results from dysregulated T cell homeostasis and not from disruption of direct interactions between schistosomes and IL-7.

Sensitized CD8+ T cells fail to control organism burden but accelerate the onset of lung injury during Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia.

While CD8+ cells have been shown to contribute to lung injury during Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), there are conflicting reports concerning the ability of CD8+ cells to kill P. carinii. To address these two issues, we studied the effect of the presence of CD8+ cells in two mouse models of PCP.

A gonococcal efflux pump system enhances bacterial survival in a female mouse model of genital tract infection.

Active efflux of antimicrobial substances is likely to be an important bacterial defense against inhibitory host factors inherent to different body sites. Two well-characterized multidrug resistance efflux systems (MtrCDE and FarAB-MtrE) exist in Neisseria gonorrhoeae, a bacterial pathogen of the human genital mucosae. In vitro studies suggest that the MtrCDE and FarAB-MtrE efflux systems protect the gonococcus from hydrophobic antimicrobial substances that are likely to be present on mucosal surfaces.

Growth of Neisseria gonorrhoeae in the female mouse genital tract does not require the gonococcal transferrin or hemoglobin receptors and may be enhanced by commensal lactobacilli.

Neisseria gonorrhoeae is capable of utilizing a variety of iron sources in vitro, including human transferrin, human lactoferrin, hemoglobin, hemoglobin-haptoglobin complexes, heme, and heterologous siderophores. Transferrin has been implicated as a critical iron store for N. gonorrhoeae in the human male urethra.

Frenchay Aphasia Screening Test: validity and comparability.

The Frenchay Aphasia Screening Test1 is a reliable test which can be used by non-specialists to discriminate between aphasia and normal language. Preliminary studies have shown good test-retest reliability, and the test itself is quick and simple to use. The present investigation examines the validity of the test by comparing the results of this test with those on more structured, detailed and frequently used assessments of aphasia -the Minnesota Test for Differential Diagnosis of Aphasia (MTDDA) and general performance in communication as reflected by the Functional Communication Profile.