Therapeutic-Use-of-Self as Relational Pedagogy in Occupational Therapy Education: A Qualitative Description Study.

Amid growing calls for relational teaching approaches in higher education to improve student learning outcomes and student and educator well-being, a need remains for effective relational pedagogies. Therapeutic-use-of-self (TUS) is an occupational therapy skill that centers the client-occupational therapist relationship, yet there is a dearth of research exploring its application as a pedagogy. This presents an opportunity for a widely used occupational therapy skill, TUS, to be adapted as a much-needed relational pedagogy.

Weight Regain following Bariatric Surgery and in vitro Fertilization Outcomes.

Introduction: The aim of this study was to estimate the time to pregnancy and live birth and evaluate the effect of weight regain in women with a history of bariatric surgery (BS) who underwent in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments.

Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study. All patients with previous BS who underwent IVF treatment in a tertiary university-affiliated hospital between 2013 and 2022 were included.

Multi-parametric atlas of the pre-metastatic liver for prediction of metastatic outcome in early-stage pancreatic cancer.

Metastasis occurs frequently after resection of pancreatic cancer (PaC). In this study, we hypothesized that multi-parametric analysis of pre-metastatic liver biopsies would classify patients according to their metastatic risk, timing and organ site. Liver biopsies obtained during pancreatectomy from 49 patients with localized PaC and 19 control patients with non-cancerous pancreatic lesions were analyzed, combining metabolomic, tissue and single-cell transcriptomics and multiplex imaging approaches.

Guideline for the management of conception and pregnancy in thalassaemia syndromes: A British Society for Haematology Guideline.

This comprehensive guideline, developed by a representative group of UK-based medical experts specialising in haemoglobinopathies, addresses the management of conception and pregnancy in patients with thalassaemia. A systematic search of PubMed and EMBASE using specific keywords, formed the basis of the literature review. Key terms included "thalassaemia," "pregnancy," "Cooley's anaemia," "Mediterranean anaemia," and others, covering aspects such as fertility, iron burden and ultrasonography.

Case weighted power priors for hybrid control analyses with time-to-event data.

We develop a method for hybrid analyses that uses external controls to augment internal control arms in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) where the degree of borrowing is determined based on similarity between RCT and external control patients to account for systematic differences (e.g., unmeasured confounders).

Preventing inadvertent drain removal using a novel catheter securement device.

Percutaneous drains have provided a minimally invasive way to treat a wide range of disorders from abscess drainage to enteral feeding solutions to treating hydronephrosis. These drains suffer from a high rate of dislodgement of up to 30% resulting in emergency room visits, repeat hospitalizations, and catheter repositioning/replacement procedures, which incur significant morbidity and mortality. Using ex vivo and in vivo models, a force body diagram was utilized to determine the forces experienced by a drainage catheter during dislodgement events, and the individual components which contribute to drainage catheter securement were empirically collected.

Multinational Study of the Efficacy and Safety of Humanized Anti-HER2 Monoclonal Antibody in Women Who Have HER2-Overexpressing Metastatic Breast Cancer That Has Progressed After Chemotherapy for Metastatic Disease.

Purpose: Overexpression of the HER2 protein occurs in 25% to 30% of human breast cancers and leads to a particularly aggressive form of the disease. Efficacy and safety of recombinant humanized anti-HER2 monoclonal antibody as a single agent was evaluated in women with HER2-overexpressing metastatic breast cancer that had progressed after chemotherapy for metastatic disease.

Patients And Methods: Two hundred twenty-two women, with HER2-overexpressing metastatic breast cancer that had progressed after one or two chemotherapy regimens, were enrolled.

Application of Bayesian approaches in drug development: starting a virtuous cycle.

The pharmaceutical industry and its global regulators have routinely used frequentist statistical methods, such as null hypothesis significance testing and p values, for evaluation and approval of new treatments. The clinical drug development process, however, with its accumulation of data over time, can be well suited for the use of Bayesian statistical approaches that explicitly incorporate existing data into clinical trial design, analysis and decision-making. Such approaches, if used appropriately, have the potential to substantially reduce the time and cost of bringing innovative medicines to patients, as well as to reduce the exposure of patients in clinical trials to ineffective or unsafe treatment regimens.

Clinical trials using molecular stratification of pediatric brain tumors.

Brain cancer is now the leading cause of cancer death in children and adolescents, surpassing leukemia. The heterogeneity and invasiveness of pediatric brain tumors have historically made them difficult to treat. Although surgical intervention and standard of care therapies such as radiation and chemotherapy have improved the outlook for those affected, results are often transient and lend themselves to tumor recurrence or resistance.

Mindfulness-based training with transcranial direct current stimulation modulates neuronal resource allocation in working memory: A randomized pilot study with a nonequivalent control group.

Mindfulness-based training (MBT) and transcranial electrical stimulation (TES) methods such as direct current stimulation (tDCS) have demonstrated promise for the augmentation of cognitive abilities. The current study investigated the potential compatibility of concurrent "electrical" MBT and tDCS (or eMBT) by testing its combined effects on behavioral and neurophysiological indices of working memory (WM) and attentional resource allocation. Thirty-four healthy participants were randomly assigned to either a MBT task with tDCS group (eMBT) or an active control training task with sham tDCS (Control) group.

Modulating affective experience and emotional intelligence with loving kindness meditation and transcranial direct current stimulation: A pilot study.

Positive emotional perceptions and healthy emotional intelligence (EI) are important for social functioning. In this study, we investigated whether loving kindness meditation (LKM) combined with anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) would facilitate improvements in EI and changes in affective experience of visual stimuli. LKM has been shown to increase positive emotional experiences and we hypothesized that tDCS could enhance these effects.

Fusing multiple neuroimaging modalities to assess group differences in perception-action coupling.

In the last few decades, non-invasive neuroimaging has revealed macro-scale brain dynamics that underlie perception, cognition and action. Advances in non-invasive neuroimaging target two capabilities; 1) increased spatial and temporal resolution of measured neural activity, and 2) innovative methodologies to extract brain-behavior relationships from evolving neuroimaging technology. We target the second.

Functional connectivity within and between intrinsic brain networks correlates with trait mind wandering.

Individual differences across a variety of cognitive processes are functionally associated with individual differences in intrinsic networks such as the default mode network (DMN). The extent to which these networks correlate or anticorrelate has been associated with performance in a variety of circumstances. Despite the established role of the DMN in mind wandering processes, little research has investigated how large-scale brain networks at rest relate to mind wandering tendencies outside the laboratory.

Dynamic changes in diffusion measures improve sensitivity in identifying patients with mild traumatic brain injury.

The goal of this study was to investigate patterns of axonal injury in the first week after mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). We performed a prospective cohort study of 20 patients presenting to the emergency department with mTBI, using 3.0T diffusion tensor MRI immediately after injury and again at 1 week post-injury.

Brain dynamics of post-task resting state are influenced by expertise: Insights from baseball players.

Post-task resting state dynamics can be viewed as a task-driven state where behavioral performance is improved through endogenous, non-explicit learning. Tasks that have intrinsic value for individuals are hypothesized to produce post-task resting state dynamics that promote learning. We measured simultaneous fMRI/EEG and DTI in Division-1 collegiate baseball players and compared to a group of controls, examining differences in both functional and structural connectivity.

White matter involvement in chronic musculoskeletal pain.

Unlabelled: There is emerging evidence that chronic musculoskeletal pain is associated with anatomic and functional abnormalities in gray matter. However, little research has investigated the relationship between chronic musculoskeletal pain and white matter. In this study, we used whole-brain tract-based spatial statistics and region-of-interest analyses of diffusion tensor imaging data to demonstrate that patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain exhibit several abnormal metrics of white matter integrity compared with healthy controls.

Effects of pole compliance and step frequency on the biomechanics and economy of pole carrying during human walking.

This study investigates whether a flexible pole can be used as an energy-saving method for humans carrying loads. We model the carrier and pole system as a driven damped harmonic oscillator and predict that the energy expended by the carrier is affected by the compliance of the pole and the ratio between the pole's natural frequency and the carrier's step frequency. We tested the model by measuring oxygen consumption in 16 previously untrained male participants walking on a treadmill at four step frequencies using two loaded poles: one made of bamboo and one of steel.

The use of phase 2 interim analysis to expedite drug development decisions.

Purpose: To expedite drug development, we propose a two-step decision-making process that utilizes interim efficacy results from a comparative phase 2 trial to determine whether to accelerate subsequent phase 3 preparations, and final analysis to ultimately determine whether to conduct phase 3 testing.

Methods: The operational characteristics of this process were evaluated by modeling simulated data of oncology trials and retrospectively analyzing data from historical comparative phase 2 trials. Progression-free survival (PFS) was used as the primary endpoint; the estimated PFS hazard ratios (HRs) of ≤0.

Unlearning chronic pain: A randomized controlled trial to investigate changes in intrinsic brain connectivity following Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Chronic pain is a complex physiological and psychological phenomenon. Implicit learning mechanisms contribute to the development of chronic pain and to persistent changes in the central nervous system. We hypothesized that these central abnormalities can be remedied with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

An industry statistician's perspective on PHC drug development.

In the past decade, the cost of drug development has increased significantly. The estimates vary widely but frequently quoted numbers are staggering-it takes 10-15 years and billions of dollars to bring a drug to patients. To a large extent this is due to many long, expensive and ultimately unsuccessful drug trials.

Interactive voice response technology for symptom monitoring and as an adjunct to the treatment of chronic pain.

Chronic pain is a medical condition that severely decreases the quality of life for those who struggle to cope with it. Interactive voice response (IVR) technology has the ability to track symptoms and disease progression, to investigate the relationships between symptom patterns and clinical outcomes, to assess the efficacy of ongoing treatments, and to directly serve as an adjunct to therapeutic treatment for chronic pain. While many approaches exist toward the management of chronic pain, all have their pitfalls and none work universally.

Clinical development of 2NME-based oncology treatment regimens.

Over the past decade many signaling pathways have been identified and implicated in cancer development. This has lead to rational drug development of many new molecules that target specific nodes on one or more signaling pathways. It is now believed that targeting key parallel or compensatory pathways may require combining two or more new molecular entities (2NMEs).

Cysteine oxidation within N-terminal mutant huntingtin promotes oligomerization and delays clearance of soluble protein.

Huntington disease (HD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder caused by expression of polyglutamine-expanded mutant huntingtin protein (mhtt). Most evidence indicates that soluble mhtt species, rather than insoluble aggregates, are the important mediators of HD pathogenesis. However, the differential roles of soluble monomeric and oligomeric mhtt species in HD and the mechanisms of oligomer formation are not yet understood.