Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are secreted nanoparticles composed of a lipid bilayer that carry lipid, protein, and nucleic acid cargo between cells as a mode of intercellular communication. Although EVs can promote tissue repair in mammals, their roles in animals with greater regenerative capacity are not well understood. Planarian flatworms are capable of whole-body regeneration due to pluripotent somatic stem cells called neoblasts that proliferate in response to injury.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: As people living with dementia move into long-term care (LTC), their care partners face a difficult role change from primary caregiver to visitor, losing a significant degree of control and direct care involvement. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated these challenges with health risks, changing care home protocols, and government policies. To help address these challenges, this study aimed to investigate the experiences of care partners who used telepresence robots to maintain contact with and care for their loved ones during the pandemic.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF: Canada's long-term care (LTC) sector is struggling with a significant staffing crisis related to shortages, high-turnover rate, and challenging working conditions. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated these issues and emphasized the need for improved mental health support for LTC staff. Understanding and addressing the wellbeing of staff is important for ensuring quality of care and promoting a positive work environment for a healthy workforce.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: One emerging technology in long-term care (LTC) is virtual reality (VR), an innovative tool that uses head-mounted devices to provide the viewer with an immersive experience. It has been shown that VR has a positive impact on the well-being of residents living with dementia, and staff are essential in the implementation and sustainable use of technology. Currently, there is a lack of inclusion and focus on direct staff perspectives on VR implementation in LTC.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFParoxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH) clones can be identified in a significant proportion of patients with aplastic anemia (AA). Screening for PNH clones at the time of an AA diagnosis is recommended by national and international guidelines. In this report, an expert panel of physicians discusses current best practices and provides recommendations for managing PNH in patients with AA in the Asia-Pacific region.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Research involvement of people with lived experiences is increasing. Few tools are designed to evaluate their engagement in research. The Patient Engagement In Research Scale (PEIRS) is one of the few validated tools.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlthough there is a growing literature on the use of telepresence robots in institutional dementia care settings, limited research focused on the perspectives of frontline staff members who deliver dementia care. Our objective was to understand staff perspectives on using telepresence robots to support residents with dementia and their families. Guided by the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research, we conducted four focus groups and 11 semi-structured interviews across four long-term care (LTC) homes and one hospital in Canada.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFExtracellular vesicles (EVs) are secreted nanoparticles composed of a lipid bilayer that carry lipid, protein, and nucleic acid cargo between cells as a mode of intercellular communication. Although EVs can promote tissue repair in mammals, their roles in animals with greater regenerative capacity are not well understood. Planarian flatworms are capable of whole body regeneration due to pluripotent somatic stem cells called neoblasts that proliferate in response to injury.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo improve the efficacy over antiplatelet monotherapy, dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) has been increasingly adopted in the management of non-cardioembolic stroke. For minor ischemic stroke and high-risk transient ischemic attack, the aspirin-clopidogrel combination is now recommended for acute short-term treatment, whereas aspirin-ticagrelor combination may be considered in selected patients, especially those with resistance to clopidogrel. For long-term stroke prevention, aspirin-dipyridamole combination has been used as an alternative to antiplatelet monotherapy, and aspirin or clopidogrel combined with cilostazole may be prescribed for added protection in high-risk patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Nurses and healthcare providers need practical tools to deliver person-centred care in hospitals and long-term care homes. Few non-pharmacological interventions are designed to meet the needs of people with moderate to severe dementia. Dementia-friendly television videos (TV videos) offer a familiar stimulation with the potential for meaningful engagement in the relational space of technology.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSleep inertia is the brief period of impaired alertness and performance experienced immediately after waking. Little is known about the neural mechanisms underlying this phenomenon. A better understanding of the neural processes during sleep inertia may offer insight into the awakening process.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: Intracranial stenosis is prevalent among Asians and constitutes a common cause of cerebral ischemia. While the best medical therapy carries stroke recurrence rates in excess of 10% per year, trials with intracranial stenting have been associated with unacceptable peri-procedural ischemic events. Cerebral ischemic events are strongly related to the severity of intracranial stenosis, which is high in patients with severe intracranial stenosis with poor vasodilatory reserve.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Microbes in the built environment have been implicated as a source of infectious diseases. Bacterial culture is the standard method for assessing the risk of exposure to pathogens in urban environments, but this method only accounts for <1% of the diversity of bacteria. Recently, full-length 16S rRNA gene analysis using nanopore sequencing has been applied for microbial evaluations, resulting in a rise in the development of long-read taxonomic tools for species-level classification.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTelepresence robots are being increasingly used in long-term care (LTC) homes for virtual visits between families and residents. This study investigated the impacts and experiences of residents and their families using a telepresence robot (Double 3) for 4 to 12 months during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 51 participants were recruited through purposive sampling, including 9 residents, 15 family members, and 27 staff from 4 LTC homes in British Columbia, Canada.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTreatment of paroxysmal nocturnal haemoglobinuria (PNH) includes the monoclonal antibody eculizumab. This randomised, double-blind, multi-national cross-over Phase III study in PNH patients aimed to demonstrate the equivalence of the proposed eculizumab biosimilar SB12 and reference eculizumab (Soliris, ECU). PNH patients with lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) ≥1·5× upper limit of normal were randomised into treatment sequences SB12-ECU or ECU-SB12.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The COVID-19 pandemic has significant impact on long-term care (LTC) residents' health and well-being.
Objectives: This study investigated resident experiences of loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canadian LTC homes to offer lessons learned and implications.
Methods: 15 residents and 16 staff members were recruited from two large urban Canadian LTC homes with large outbreaks and fatalities.
Lipid metabolism plays an instructive role in regulating stem cell state and differentiation. However, the roles of lipid mobilization and utilization in stem cell-driven regeneration are unclear. Planarian flatworms readily restore missing tissue due to injury-induced activation of pluripotent somatic stem cells called neoblasts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSleep inertia is the brief period of performance impairment and reduced alertness experienced after waking, especially from slow-wave sleep. We assessed the efficacy of polychromatic short-wavelength-enriched light to improve vigilant attention, alertness and mood immediately after waking from slow-wave sleep at night. Twelve participants (six female, 23.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHuman error has been implicated as a causal factor in a large proportion of road accidents. Automated driving systems purport to mitigate this risk, but self-driving systems that allow a driver to entirely disengage from the driving task also require the driver to monitor the environment and take control when necessary. Given that sleep loss impairs monitoring performance and there is a high prevalence of sleep deficiency in modern society, we hypothesized that supervising a self-driving vehicle would unmask latent sleepiness compared to manually controlled driving among individuals following their typical sleep schedules.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Music is so widely available and inexpensive in the modern world; it is a common option for stress reduction, comfort and enjoyment. Silent disco headphones are used among young people; however, no study has yet investigated whether it is feasible to use these headphones to support mental health and well-being among older people with dementia in hospital settings.
Objective: The study's main objective is to explore whether music delivered by silent disco headphones was feasible and acceptable to a sample of inpatients staying in an older adult mental health unit of a large urban hospital.