Music-based interventions have been found to benefit people living with dementia and have positive impacts on cognition and well-being. Most people with dementia live in the community and compared to people with dementia in residential care often have less access to music-based interventions. There are many forms of music interventions and singing has shown particular promise; in the realm of music interventions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVaccines are an indispensable public health measure that have enabled the eradication, near elimination, and prevention of a variety of pathogens. As research continues and our understanding of immunization strategies develops, subunit vaccines have emerged as exciting alternatives to existing whole vaccine approaches. Unfortunately, subunit vaccines often possess weak antigenicity, requiring delivery devices and adjuvant supplementation to improve their utility.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThough crucial for natural bone healing, local calcium ion (Ca) and phosphate ion (P) concentrations can exceed the cytotoxic limit leading to mitochondrial overload, oxidative stress, and cell death. For bone tissue engineering applications, HS can be employed as a cytoprotective molecule to enhance mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) tolerance to cytotoxic Ca/P concentrations. Varied concentrations of sodium hydrogen sulfide (NaSH), a fast-releasing HS donor, were applied to assess the influence of HS on MSC proliferation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF. The diagnosis of young-onset dementia presents significant challenges both for the person and their families, which often differ from the challenges faced with late-onset dementia. Evidence of the experience of service users and carers tends to reveal a negative appraisal of the care received, citing longer diagnosis times, poor clinician knowledge and lack of age-appropriate care.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAs a result of the increasing incidence of cirrhosis in the UK, more patients with chronic liver disease are being considered for elective non-hepatic surgery. A historical reluctance to offer surgery to such patients stems from general perceptions of poor postoperative outcomes. While this is true for those with decompensated cirrhosis, selected patients with compensated early-stage cirrhosis can have good outcomes after careful risk assessment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Too often, dementia research is conducted in research silos without thorough integration and the involvement of people with lived experiences, care professionals and the Third Sector. Research can also get lost in academic publications, without reaching those benefiting most from the evidence. The aim of this methods and evaluation paper was to outline the aims, components and evaluation of the public-facing and -engaging Liverpool Dementia & Ageing Research Forum, to provide a blueprint for setting up similar communities of practice.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To evaluate and synthesize the evidence base on barriers and facilitators to accessing and using community-based social care in dementia.
Design: Mixed-methods systematic review.
Setting: Community-based social care (such as day care, respite care, paid home care, and peer support groups).
Aims: The aim of this study was to explore the impact of the pandemic on the emotional and mental well-being of family carers, care home staff and residents, in light of changing restrictions, increased testing and vaccination rollout in the UK.
Design: Longitudinal, qualitative semi-structured interview study.
Methods: Remote semi-structured interviews were conducted with family carers of care home residents with dementia and care home staff from different care homes across the UK.
Background: Retransplantation candidates are disadvantaged owing to lack of good-quality liver grafts. Strategies that can facilitate transplantation of suboptimal grafts into retransplant candidates require investigation. The aim was to determine whether late liver retransplantation can be performed safely with suboptimal grafts, following normothermic machine perfusion.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Webinars have recently replaced in-person medical conferences, including paediatric cardiology conferences, given the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods: With increasing environmental concerns, we analysed the differences between the environmental footprint of a paediatric cardiology webinar with a hypothetical conference. Travel data was collected, with assumptions made on the amount of computer use, internet use and accordingly the overall use of electricity for both forms of conference.
Objective: This study investigated the impact of the Webinar on deep human learning of CHD.
Materials And Methods: This cross-sectional survey design study used an open and closed-ended questionnaire to assess the impact of the Webinar on deep learning of topical areas within the management of the post-operative tetralogy of Fallot patients. This was a quantitative research methodology using descriptive statistical analyses with a sequential explanatory design.
The carbonyl sulfide (OCS) dimer serves as a prototype system for studying intermolecular forces between nonsymmetrical linear polyatomic molecules. Here, we performed a laser spectroscopic investigation of OCS dimers embedded in helium nanodroplets and found rovibrational bands corresponding to the non-polar "sulfur-in" and parallel polar dimers that have been extensively characterized in the gas phase, as well as a new non-polar "oxygen-in" dimer that has long been predicted by theory. Frequency alternations in the rotational branches along with the absence of a Stark effect provided important clues as to its assignment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOnline learning has become an increasingly expected and popular component for education of the modern-day adult learner, including the medical provider. In light of the recent coronavirus pandemic, there has never been more urgency to establish opportunities for supplemental online learning. Heart University aims to be "the go-to online resource" for e-learning in CHD and paediatric-acquired heart disease.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The life-course model of modifiable risk factors for dementia now recognizes managing hearing loss and addressing social isolation.
Objective: To investigate the contribution and inter-relationship of hearing ability and behaviour change on cognitive ability.
Methods: We present the preliminary findings from a prospective longitudinal study of 35 non-demented participants ages 60-93, recruited from community rehabilitation and acute-care programs of Geriatric Medicine, who underwent baseline hearing, behavioural, and cognitive testing.
Accuracy and timeliness of trauma activations are vital to patient safety. The American College of Surgeons mandates the trauma surgeon's presence within 15 min of the patient's arrival to the emergency department (ED) 80% of the time. In 2015, at this Level II Pediatric Trauma Center, average mean activation times were approximately 16 min and activation accuracy (over- and undertriage) affected 27% of the trauma patient activations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFrailty is associated with increased mortality both before and after liver transplantation (LT). There are no standardized exercise programs, in particular home-based exercise programs (HBEPs), for patients awaiting LT. The aim was to investigate the feasibility of such a program in patients awaiting LT.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVertebral compression fractures are a very common consequence of osteoporosis for which injection of a non-biodegradable, non-bioactive, mechanically-stiff polymer bone cement into the vertebral body is the most common treatment. Recently, there has been growing interest in using bioactive, degradable, and bone biomechanics-matching products as an alternative approach for treating these fractures. In this research, we focused on creating injectable, chitosan-based hydrogels that can convey mechanical strength similar to vertebral bone as well as possess inherent osteoinductivity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHigh-resolution, mid-infrared spectra of methanol isotopologues (CHOH, CHOD, CDOH, and CDOD) embedded in superfluid helium nanodroplets have been obtained. For the normal isotopologue, we observed the CO stretching overtone band, the lines within which are 2× broader than in the fundamental for E species methanol and no different than the fundamental for A species methanol. For CHOD, we observed the CO stretching overtone band for the first time, which was characterized by narrow line widths for both nuclear spin species.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe report high-resolution infrared spectra of OCS isotopologues embedded in helium nanodroplets that were recorded with a newly built spectrometer. For the normal isotopologue, we observed the relatively weak third bending overtone band, in addition to new high J transitions in the C-O stretching fundamental, which has previously been investigated by diode laser spectroscopy [S. Grebenev et al.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Liver disease is the third most common cause of premature mortality in the UK. Liver failure accelerates frailty, resulting in skeletal muscle atrophy, functional decline and an associated risk of liver transplant waiting list mortality. However, there is limited research investigating the impact of exercise on patient outcomes pre and post liver transplantation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDeficiency of β-Glucocerebrosidase (GBA) activity causes Gaucher Disease (GD). GD can be diagnosed by measuring GBA activity (Beutler and Kuhl, 1990). In this study, we assayed dried blood spots from a cohort (n=528) enriched for GBA mutation carriers (n=78) and GD patients (n=18) using both the tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) and fluorescence assays and their respective synthetic substrates.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Pancreatoduodenectomy (PD) typically follows preoperative biliary drainage (PBD) despite PBD being potentially harmful. This study evaluated a pathway to avoid PBD within the framework of the UK's NHS.
Method: A prospective observational study of jaundiced patients undergoing PD for periampullary cancer.
The synchrony and timing of reproductive events are crucially important factors to maximize individual and offspring survival, especially in seasonal environments. To increase our understanding of the physiological basis of seasonality and the influence of associated environmental factors (maximum temperature, day length and rate of day length change associated with different latitudes) on reproduction in Tasmanian devils, we reviewed records and research data from captive facilities throughout Australia in comparison to those from a wild population study (1974-1987). Overall, breeding activity began 2 weeks earlier in the captive than the wild population (week 5.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF