Exploring the Effects of Using an Oral Appliance to Reduce Movement Dysfunction in an Individual With Parkinson Disease: A Single-Subject Design Study.

Background And Purpose: Clinical reports suggest that wearing an oral appliance can improve the gait and balance of an individual with Parkinson disease (PD). Our primary purpose was to systematically explore this effect using a single-subject study design and quantitative motion analysis. Secondarily, we sought to examine the quality-of-life outcomes following 1-month of routine oral appliance wear.

Long-term burden of care and radiation exposure in survivors of esophageal atresia.

Background: Patients with esophageal atresia with or without tracheoesophageal fistula (EA/TEF) historically have had a high risk of neonatal mortality but the majority of patients are now expected to live into adulthood. However, the long-term burden of care among recent EA/TEF survivors has not been documented.

Methods: A single-institution retrospective review of newborns with EA/TEF treated from 2001-2005 was conducted, including initial and total hospitalization length of stay, and number of clinic visits and procedures requiring general anesthesia in the first three years of life.

Shell hardness and compressive strength of the Eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica, and the Asian oyster, Crassostrea ariakensis.

The valves of oysters act as a physical barrier between tissues and the external environment, thereby protecting the oyster from environmental stress and predation. To better understand differences in shell properties and predation susceptibilities of two physiologically and morphologically similar oysters, Crassostrea virginica and Crassostrea ariakensis, we quantified and compared two mechanical properties of shells: hardness (resistance to irreversible deformation; GPa) and compressive strength (force necessary to produce a crack; N). We found no differences in the hardness values between foliated layers (innermost and outermost foliated layers), age class (C.