The use of functional electrical stimulation cycles in children and adolescents with spinal cord dysfunction: a pilot study.

Background And Methods: Children who experience spinal cord injuries (SCI) may develop many complications, including loss of bone mass, osteoporosis, and pathological fractures. Additionally, patients with SCI often rate their quality of life as poor compared to non-injured peers. We examined the effect of functional electrical stimulation (FES) cycle exercise on bone mineral density (BMD) and quality of life (QOL) in six patients ranging in age from 9 to 20 years.

Reducing bloodstream infections in pediatric rehabilitation patients receiving parenteral nutrition.

Objective: To report our quality improvement efforts to reduce total parenteral nutrition (TPN)-associated bloodstream infections, and the results of those efforts, during the period including the first quarter of 2004 through the third quarter of 2010.

Methods: A variant on failure modes and effect analysis and existing guidelines were used to develop and modify interventions. Effectiveness of the interventions was assessed by using a graphical depiction of interrupted time-series data on TPN-associated infections per 1000 TPN-days, aggregated across quarters within intervention periods.

EEG sedation for children with autism.

Seizures are reported to occur more frequently among children with diagnoses of autism and pervasive developmental disorder (PDD), and some reports indicate a frequency as high as 30%. Sedation is often necessary to perform diagnostic electroencephalograms (EEGs) in these children, who are known to be difficult to sedate with current available pediatric sedating agents, including chloral hydrate. We used clonidine as a sedative agent in children with autism and PDD, and our findings are presented.