Integrated child nutrition, parenting, and health intervention in rural Liberia: A mixed-methods feasibility study.

In Liberia, children are exposed to multiple forms of adversity which can negatively impact their health and development. Research is needed to examine the feasibility and benefits of integrated interventions that can be incorporated into existing health delivery programs to simultaneously address low responsive stimulation, undernutrition, and infection. This study assessed the feasibility of an integrated intervention promoting psychosocial stimulation and improved child feeding by the provision of eggs and fish.

Human Brain/Cloud Interface.

The Internet comprises a decentralized global system that serves humanity's collective effort to generate, process, and store data, most of which is handled by the rapidly expanding cloud. A stable, secure, real-time system may allow for interfacing the cloud with the human brain. One promising strategy for enabling such a system, denoted here as a "human brain/cloud interface" ("B/CI"), would be based on technologies referred to here as "neuralnanorobotics.

Level of Effort and 3 Hour Rule Compliance.

Objective: To determine if patients' level of effort (LOE) in therapy sessions during traumatic brain injury (TBI) rehabilitation modifies the effect of compliance with the 3-Hour Rule of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Design: Propensity score methodology applied to the TBI Practice-Based Evidence database, consisting of multisite, prospective, longitudinal observational data.

Setting: Acute inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRF).

Quality of primary care by advanced practice nurses: a systematic review.

Purpose: To conduct a systematic review of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of the safety and effectiveness of primary care provided by advanced practice nurses (APNs) and evaluate the potential of their deployment to help alleviate primary care shortages.

Data Sources: PubMed, Medline and the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature.

Study Selection: RCTs and their follow-up reports that compared outcomes of care provided to adults by APNs and physicians in equivalent primary care provider roles were selected for inclusion.

Does diabetes self-management education in conjunction with primary care improve glycemic control in Hispanic patients? A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Purpose: The purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to evaluate the effectiveness of diabetes self-management education (DSME) interventions delivered in conjunction with primary care among Hispanic adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).

Methods: A systematic search of PubMed, Cochrane Library, and the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature identified randomized controlled trials (RCT) that tested the effect of DSME interventions in Hispanic adults with T2DM. Studies reporting hemoglobin A1C (A1C) pre and post intervention or change in A1C were eligible for inclusion in the meta-analysis.

Systematic evaluation of personal genome services for Japanese individuals.

Disease risk prediction (DRP) is one of the most important challenges in personal genome research. Although many direct-to-consumer genetic test (DTC) companies have begun to offer personal genome services for DRP, there is still no consensus on what constitutes a gold-standard service. Here, we systematically evaluated the distributions of DRPs from three DTC companies, that is, 23andMe, Navigenics and deCODEme, for 22 diseases using three Japanese samples.

The Quantified Self: Fundamental Disruption in Big Data Science and Biological Discovery.

A key contemporary trend emerging in big data science is the quantified self (QS)-individuals engaged in the self-tracking of any kind of biological, physical, behavioral, or environmental information as n=1 individuals or in groups. There are opportunities for big data scientists to develop new models to support QS data collection, integration, and analysis, and also to lead in defining open-access database resources and privacy standards for how personal data is used. Next-generation QS applications could include tools for rendering QS data meaningful in behavior change, establishing baselines and variability in objective metrics, applying new kinds of pattern recognition techniques, and aggregating multiple self-tracking data streams from wearable electronics, biosensors, mobile phones, genomic data, and cloud-based services.

Complex regional pain syndrome: practical diagnostic and treatment guidelines, 4th edition.

Objective: This is the fourth edition of diagnostic and treatment guidelines for complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS; aka reflex sympathetic dystrophy).

Methods: Expert practitioners in each discipline traditionally utilized in the treatment of CRPS systematically reviewed the available and relevant literature; due to the paucity of levels 1 and 2 studies, less rigorous, preliminary research reports were included. The literature review was supplemented with knowledge gained from extensive empirical clinical experience, particularly in areas where high-quality evidence to guide therapy is lacking.

Crowdsourced health research studies: an important emerging complement to clinical trials in the public health research ecosystem.

Background: Crowdsourced health research studies are the nexus of three contemporary trends: 1) citizen science (non-professionally trained individuals conducting science-related activities); 2) crowdsourcing (use of web-based technologies to recruit project participants); and 3) medicine 2.0 / health 2.0 (active participation of individuals in their health care particularly using web 2.

Scaling crowdsourced health studies: the emergence of a new form of contract research organization.

Accessing crowdsourced cohorts for health studies is a significant emerging opportunity that could have a positive impact on public health research, particularly as outcomes shift to the personalized, preventive medicine of the future. Health social networks have grown to become some of the largest aggregate patient registries and offer cost and efficiency benefits for study recruitment and operation by both traditional researchers and citizen scientists. Here, a model is proposed for extending crowdsourced studies beyond small-group experimentation to large-scale intervention-based research studies that are professionally run and scientifically rigorous, in effect creating a new form of contract research organization.

Health 2050: The Realization of Personalized Medicine through Crowdsourcing, the Quantified Self, and the Participatory Biocitizen.

The concepts of health and health care are moving towards the notion of personalized preventive health maintenance and away from an exclusive focus on the cure of disease. This is against the backdrop of contemporary public health challenges that include increasing costs, worsening outcomes, 'diabesity' epidemics, and anticipated physician shortages. Personalized preventive medicine could be critical to solving public health challenges at their causal root.

Steady advance of stem cell therapies: report from the 2011 World Stem Cell Summit, Pasadena, California, October 3-5.

Stem cell research and related therapies (including regenerative medicine and cellular therapies) could have a significant near-term impact on worldwide public health and aging. One reason is the industry's strong linkage between policy, science, industry, and patient advocacy, as was clear in the attendance and programming at the 7(th) annual World Stem Cell Summit held in Pasadena, California, October 3-5, 2011. A special conference session sponsored by the SENS Foundation discussed how stem cell therapies are being used to extend healthy life span.

Meeting report: American Aging Association 40th Annual Meeting, Raleigh, North Carolina, June 3-6, 2011.

The focus of the 2011 American Aging Association meeting was emerging concepts in the mechanisms of aging. Many of the usual topics in aging were covered, such as dietary restriction (DR), inflammation, stress resistance, homeostasis and proteasome activity, sarcopenia, and neural degeneration. There was also discussion of newer methods, such as microRNAs and genome sequencing, that have been employed to investigate gene expression variance with aging and genetic signatures of longevity.

Multigenic condition risk assessment in direct-to-consumer genomic services.

Purpose: Gene carrier status and pharmacogenomic data may be detectable from single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), but SNP-based research concerning multigenic common disease such as diabetes, cancers, and cardiovascular disease is an emerging field. The many SNPs and loci that may relate to common disease have not yet been comprehensively identified and understood scientifically. In the interim, direct-to-consumer (DTC) genomic companies have forged ahead in developing composite risk interpretations for multigenic conditions.

Emerging patient-driven health care models: an examination of health social networks, consumer personalized medicine and quantified self-tracking.

A new class of patient-driven health care services is emerging to supplement and extend traditional health care delivery models and empower patient self-care. Patient-driven health care can be characterized as having an increased level of information flow, transparency, customization, collaboration and patient choice and responsibility-taking, as well as quantitative, predictive and preventive aspects. The potential exists to both improve traditional health care systems and expand the concept of health care though new services.

Treatment of complex regional pain syndrome: functional restoration.

In this review, the authors discuss the development of consensus-based treatment guidelines in 1997. They also synthesize the recommendations of a closed workshop held in Budapest in late 2004 that reexamined these treatment guidelines and made further and more detailed recommendations. They explore and develop the rationale for making functional restoration the pivotal treatment algorithm in the management of complex regional pain syndrome, around which all other treatments, such as psychotherapy, drugs, and interventions, revolve.