A Qualitative Investigation of the Self-Perceived Health Behavior Changes in Seniors After Their Transitions Into a Retirement Home.

Purpose/aims: It is important for seniors to engage in positive health behaviors to reduce the incidence of health-related consequences associated with aging. The purpose of this research study was to examine self-perceived changes in physical activity, nutrition, and alcohol consumption behaviors of seniors living in a retirement home through consideration of previous behaviors and self-perceptions of behavior changes.

Design: A qualitative research design was used for this study.

Differences in Access to and Use of Electronic Personal Health Information Between Rural and Urban Residents in the United States.

Purpose: The increase in use of health information technologies (HIT) presents new opportunities for patient engagement and self-management. Patients in rural areas stand to benefit especially from increased access to health care tools and electronic communication with providers. We assessed the adoption of 4 HIT tools over time by rural or urban residency.

Isolation of viable antigen-specific CD8+ T cells based on membrane-bound tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α expression.

Current technology to isolate viable cytokine-producing antigen-specific primary human T cells is limited to bi-specific antibody capture systems, which suffer from limited sensitivity and high background. Here, we describe a novel procedure for isolating antigen-specific human T cells based on their ability to produce tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α. Unlike many cytokines, TNF-α is initially produced in a biologically active membrane-bound form that is subsequently cleaved by TNF-α converting enzyme (TACE) to release the soluble form of TNF-α.

Perforin and IL-2 upregulation define qualitative differences among highly functional virus-specific human CD8 T cells.

The prevailing paradigm of T lymphocyte control of viral replication is that the protective capacity of virus-specific CD8(+) T cells is directly proportional to the number of functions they can perform, with IL-2 production capacity considered critical. Having recently defined rapid perforin upregulation as a novel effector function of antigen-specific CD8(+) T cells, here we sought to determine whether new perforin production is a component of polyfunctional CD8(+) T cell responses that contributes to the control of several human viral infections: cytomegalovirus (CMV), Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), influenza (flu), and adenovirus (Ad). We stimulated normal human donor PBMC with synthetic peptides whose amino acid sequences correspond to defined CTL epitopes in the aforementioned viruses, and then used polychromatic flow cytometry to measure the functional capacity and the phenotype of the responding CD8(+) T cells.