Older Adults' Perceptions of Campus Accessibility.

Attention should be devoted to the accessibility of campus facilities to older adults and as a means to increase age-diversity. In this paper, we sought to uncover older adults' perceptions of campus accessibility via an online survey. Participants were recruited through local newsletters, and word of mouth, and included 81 community members ( Age = 71.

Early cytokine modulation after the rapid induction phase of sublingual immunotherapy with mite monomeric allergoids.

The influence of different treatment schedules of sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT) in activating IL-10-producing T-cells, crucial in inducing allergen-specific tolerance, is not completely understood. The present work was designed to evaluate allergen driven interleukin release by mononuclear cells in the early phase of SLIT, after application of different induction schemes. Twenty mite-allergic patients were enrolled, 10 (group A) treated with a traditional 98 day induction scheme and 10 (group B) with a 16 day scheme with monomeric allergoid vaccine.

Allergy and the skin.

Allergic skin disorders include urticaria, angioedema, contact dermatitis and atopic dermatitis, but the model fitting most closely the systemic concept of allergy is atopic dermatitis (AD), the pathogenesis of which is linked to a complex interaction between skin barrier dysfunction and environmental factors such as allergens and microbes. In particular, an important advance was the demonstration that the mutation of the skin barrier protein filaggrin is related strictly to allergen sensitization and to the development of asthma in subjects with AD. The altered skin barrier function, caused by several factors, results in the passage of allergens through the skin and to systemic responses.

Eosinophil recruiting chemokines are down-regulated in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of allergic patients treated with deflazacort or desloratadine.

Chemokines are cytokines with chemotactic properties on leukocyte subsets whose modulation plays a key role in allergic inflammatory processes. To better understand the possible anti-inflammatory effects of histamine-1 receptor antagonists in allergic asthma, we studied the mRNA expression of a set of chemokines known to be involved in the eosinophils-basophils activation as well as recruitment and T-cell signaling events, before and after corticosteroid or antihistamine treatment in PBMCs from allergic-asthmatic patients ex vivo. Twelve patients were enrolled, all of whom were allergic to Parietaria judaica and suffering for mild persistent asthma: six were treated with desloratadine (10 mg/day), and six with deflazacort (12 mg/day).