A community education program on atrial fibrillation: implications of pulse self-examination on awareness and behavior.

Objectives: We postulated that community groups with older demographics could be taught to find and characterize their pulse rhythm for the presence of an irregular pulse (IP), which may indicate atrial fibrillation, a major risk factor for stroke.

Methods: We conducted 281 community group education sessions involving 6203 attendees. Awareness objectives were to demonstrate that: (1) group education was effective in establishing awareness that an IP may indicate atrial fibrillation; and (2) this message was retained at follow-up.

A multifactorial intervention to reduce prevalence of delirium and shorten hospital length of stay.

Objectives: To improve outcomes for cognitively impaired and delirious older adults.

Design: Pretest, posttest.

Setting: A university-affiliated hospital.

Construct validity and frequency of euphoria sclerotica in multiple sclerosis.

Using the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI), we studied euphoria and other behavioral changes in 75 consecutive, unselected multiple sclerosis (MS) patients and 25 healthy controls. We also assessed disease duration, clinical course, physical disability, personality, depression, insight, cognition, and caregiver distress. Factor analysis identified a cluster of symptoms--labeled euphoria/disinhibition--similar to the euphoria sclerotica syndrome originally described by Charcot and others.

The effects of Escherichia coli capsule, O-antigen, host neutrophils, and complement in a rat model of Gram-negative pneumonia.

Gram-negative enteric bacilli are agents of life-threatening pneumonia. The role of the bacterial capsule and O-antigen moiety of lipopolysaccharide in the pathogenesis of Gram-negative pneumonia was assessed. In a rat model of pneumonia the LD(50) of a wild-type extraintestinal pathogenic Escherichia coli strain (CP9) was significantly less than its isogenic derivatives deficient in capsule (CP9.

Prognostic significance of p53 mutation and p53 overexpression in advanced epithelial ovarian cancer: a Gynecologic Oncology Group Study.

Purpose: The prognostic significance of p53 mutations and overexpression in advanced epithelial ovarian cancers was examined in primary tumors from 125 patients participating in a Gynecologic Oncology Group randomized phase III treatment protocol.

Patients And Methods: Mutational analysis of p53 was performed in RNA or genomic DNA extracted from frozen tumor. An immunohistochemistry assay was used to detect p53 overexpression in fixed tumor.

Follicular response and pregnancy among infertile women undergoing ovulation induction and intrauterine insemination.

Objective: To determine the relationship between ovarian follicular response (number and diameter of follicles) to ovulation induction agents and pregnancy.

Design: Retrospective cohort study.Hospital-based center of reproductive medicine.

Impact of losses to follow-up on diet/alcohol and lung cancer analyses in the New York State Cohort.

The main objective of the study was to evaluate whether passive surveillance methods can be used in cohort studies without a significant distortion of risk estimates when the active follow-up of every participant is not possible. A nested case-control study including 525 lung cancer cases and 525 controls was conducted among participants of the New York State Cohort Study (n = 57,968 men and women), which allowed the active follow-up of a sample of the cohort and the assessment of the effect of losses to follow-up. Although there were some differences with respect to dietary intake between controls lost to follow-up and those located, the results of the nested case-control study including and excluding losses to follow-up were comparable.

Frontal cortex atrophy predicts cognitive impairment in multiple sclerosis.

The association between regional measures of cortical atrophy and neuropsychological (NP) dysfunction was studied in 35 multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. Patients underwent neurological examination, MRI, and NP testing. Blind quantitative MRI analysis yielded total T(2) lesion area (TLA) and third ventricle width (3VW).