Insisting on help, facing challenges, and maintaining balance: The lived experiences of caregivers raising a child with developmental delay in the remote islands of Kinmen.

Purpose: To explore the lived experiences of the caregivers of children with developmental delay (DD) on the remote island of Kinmen, Taiwan.

Design And Methods: This descriptive phenomenological study included 14 caregivers of 16 children with DD recruited from Kinmen, Taiwan. Data were collected from September 2020 to February 2021 with face-to-face semi-structured interviews, which were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using thematic analysis.

An Exploration of Factors Related to Quality of Life in Indonesian Care Workers in Home-Based Care Settings.

Background: Indonesians constituted 79% of foreign care workers for long-term care in Taiwan in 2015. Therefore, it is crucial to explore the effect of work stress and quality of life (QoL) on this population.

Purpose: This study aims to explore stress levels, social support requirements, and perceived QoL among Indonesian care workers (ICWs) who work in home care settings.

[The Management of Itching in Burn Patients During the Rehabilitation Stage].

Pruritus, a distressing symptom that affects burn patients, not only interferes with activities of daily living but also causes disturbed sleep, which has been associated with anxiety, depression, and other types of negative moods. Furthermore, the uncontrolled scratching that often accompanies pruritus causes tissue damage and may damage or destroy the skin graft. In this paper, the authors first describe the definition and mechanism of pruritus and next use itching-assessment tools to identify the triggering factors.

A feasible strategy of preimplantation genetic diagnosis for carriers with chromosomal translocation: Using blastocyst biopsy and array comparative genomic hybridization.

Background/purpose: Patients with chromosomal translocation are highly vulnerable to produce unbalanced gametes that result in recurrent miscarriages, affected offspring, or infertility. Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) with blastomere biopsy and fluorescent in-situ hybridization (FISH) has been used to select normal/balanced embryos for transfer. However, FISH is inherent with some technical difficulties such as cell fixation and signal reading.

Blastocyst biopsy and vitrification are effective for preimplantation genetic diagnosis of monogenic diseases.

Study Question: What is the value of a new strategy for preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) of monogenic diseases: blastocyst biopsy, cryopreservation and thawed embryo transfer?

Summary Answer: This strategy is highly effective for PGD of monogenic diseases and merits wide use.

What Is Known Already: PGD of monogenic diseases is conventionally performed on 6- to 8-cell embryos with fresh transfer. The diagnostic time is restricted and is subjected to amplification failure and allele drop-out (ADO).

[Prevention and management of pressure ulcers in critical patients].

The Taiwan Join Commission on Hospital Accreditation identified pressure ulcers as an important clinical care indicator in 2011. Pressure ulcers are a particularly critical medical care issue in hospital intensive care units. Pressure ulcers can influence patient physiology in terms of greater perceived pain, elevated infection and sepsis incidence, increased unplanned surgical treatments, and reduced activities of daily living (ADL).

An update of preimplantation genetic diagnosis in gene diseases, chromosomal translocation, and aneuploidy screening.

Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is gradually widely used in prevention of gene diseases and chromosomal abnormalities. Much improvement has been achieved in biopsy technique and molecular diagnosis. Blastocyst biopsy can increase diagnostic accuracy and reduce allele dropout.

Fasting blood glucose level and prognosis in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients.

Unlabelled: Diabetes has been consistently linked to many forms of cancers, such as liver, colorectal, pancreatic, and breast cancer, however, the role of diabetes in outcome among cancer patients remains unclear. In this study, we retrospectively reviewed electronic medical records of 342 inpatients newly diagnosed with NSCLC referred by a teaching hospital cancer center in southern Taiwan between 2005 and 2007 to examine the effects of fasting glucose levels at time of cancer diagnosis on overall survival in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). All patients were followed up until the end of 2010.

Drinking behaviors: the life narratives of indigenous Bunun women in Taiwan.

Background: Alcohol intoxication is a serious health issue among Taiwan's indigenous Malayo-Polynesian groups. No published studies address the drinking perceptions and behaviors of Bunun women.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to describe the drinking perceptions and behaviors of Bunun women in Taiwan.

Successful application of the strategy of blastocyst biopsy, vitrification, whole genome amplification, and thawed embryo transfer for preimplantation genetic diagnosis of neurofibromatosis type 1.

Objective: Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) offers an alternative for women to carry an unaffected fetus risk of hereditary diseases. Trophectoderm biopsy may provide more cells for accurate diagnosis. However, the time allowed for transportation of the specimens to the laboratory and performance of molecular diagnosis is limited.

Preimplantation genetic diagnosis of beta-thalassemia using real-time polymerase chain reaction with fluorescence resonance energy transfer hybridization probes.

Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is employed increasingly to allow transfer of embryos to the uterus in assisted reproduction procedures. There are three stages of biopsy: polar bodies, one or two blastomeres from the cleavage-stage embryos, and trophectoderm cells ( approximately 5cells) from the blastocyst-stage embryos. Validation of polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based assays are challenging because only limited genetic material can be obtained for PGD.

PGD of beta-thalassaemia and HLA haplotypes using OmniPlex whole genome amplification.

A strategy was developed using the OmniPlex technology of whole genome amplification for preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) of single gene diseases and human leukocyte antigen (HLA) haplotypes. The amplified genomic DNA library was subsequently examined separately for mutation analysis with mini-sequence and for short tandem repeat (STR) markers within the HLA loci. To evaluate the reliability of the protocol prior to PGD, tests of 50 single lymphocytes revealed an amplification efficiency of 92-96% and allele drop-out (ADO) rate of 6-16%.

Embryo quality is more important for younger women whereas age is more important for older women with regard to in vitro fertilization outcome and multiple pregnancy.

Objective: To determine the efficiency of embryo scoring systems for multiple pregnancy in women undergoing IVF procedures.

Design: Retrospective record analysis.

Setting: University hospital, tertiary medical center.

Microsuction of blastocoelic fluid before vitrification increased survival and pregnancy of mouse expanded blastocysts, but pretreatment with the cytoskeletal stabilizer did not increase blastocyst survival.

Objective: To ascertain effects of thermal change, size of blastocoele, artificial shrinkage, and cytoskeletal stabilizer on survival of blastocysts from vitrification.

Design: In vitro and in vivo study.

Setting: University infertility clinic and academic research laboratory.

Observational clinical follow-up of oocyte cryopreservation using a slow-freezing method with 1,2-propanediol plus sucrose followed by ICSI.

Background: The value of oocyte cryopreservation remains controversial. Two major problems exist: poor survival and injury to the oocyte meiotic spindle after freezing and thawing.

Methods: For slow oocyte cryopreservation, we used 1.

Cryopreserved sibling oocytes and intracytoplasmic sperm injection rescue unexpectedly poor fertilization in conventional in vitro fertilization.

Purpose: To report a successful pregnancy from cryopreserved sibling oocytes and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) for an infertile couple with an unexpectedly low fertilization rate in the fresh in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycle.

Methods: The woman had bilateral tubal obstruction and polycystic ovarian syndrome. The man had normal semen parameters.