Publications by authors named "H J Abrams"

Mis-sized packaging leads to millions of dollars in drug waste annually. Now is the time to act.

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The past decade has been characterized by significant changes in the distribution and sale of hearing aids. Alternatives to the (i.e.

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Article Synopsis
  • Palliative care (PC) is beneficial for patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), but many patients have limited knowledge about it, with 44.3% reporting unfamiliarity.
  • A study surveyed HSCT recipients and found that while many had positive feelings about PC, a significant portion still lacked understanding, highlighting the importance of education on PC.
  • The results suggest that increased knowledge about PC correlates with more positive perceptions among patients, which counters transplant physicians’ concerns about how patients perceive PC and emphasizes the need for better communication and education.
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Background: Patients with acute heart failure are frequently or systematically hospitalized, often because the risk of adverse events is uncertain and the options for rapid follow-up are inadequate. Whether the use of a strategy to support clinicians in making decisions about discharging or admitting patients, coupled with rapid follow-up in an outpatient clinic, would affect outcomes remains uncertain.

Methods: In a stepped-wedge, cluster-randomized trial conducted in Ontario, Canada, we randomly assigned 10 hospitals to staggered start dates for one-way crossover from the control phase (usual care) to the intervention phase, which involved the use of a point-of-care algorithm to stratify patients with acute heart failure according to the risk of death.

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Speech perception testing, defined as providing standardized speech stimuli and requiring a listener to provide a behavioral and scored response, has been an integral part of the audiologic test battery since the beginning of the audiology profession. Over the past several decades, limitations in the diagnostic and prognostic validity of standard speech perception testing as routinely administered in the clinic have been noted, and the promotion of speech-in-noise testing has been highlighted. This review will summarize emerging and innovative approaches to speech-in-noise testing with a focus on five applications: (1) pediatric considerations promoting the measurement of sensory and cognitive components separately; (2) appropriately serving underrepresented populations with special attention to racial, ethnic, and linguistic minorities, as well as considering biological sex and/or gender differences as variables of interest; (3) binaural fitness for duty assessments of functional hearing for occupational settings that demand the ability to detect, recognize, and localize sounds; (4) utilization of speech-in-noise tests in pharmacotherapeutic clinical trials with considerations to the drug mechanistic action, the patient populations, and the study design; and (5) online and mobile applications of hearing assessment that increase accessibility and the direct-to-consumer market.

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