The Bromhead Care Home Service: the impact of a service for care home residents with dementia on hospital admission and dying in preferred place of care.

People with dementia have worse outcomes associated with hospital admission, are more likely to have interventions and are less likely to be offered palliative care than people without dementia. Advance care planning for care home residents has been shown to reduce hospital admissions without increasing mortality. Studies have shown that staff confidence in managing delirium, a common reason for admission, improves with training.

Human umbilical cord blood cells induce neuroprotective change in gene expression profile in neurons after ischemia through activation of Akt pathway.

Human umbilical cord blood (HUCB) cell therapies have shown promising results in reducing brain infarct volume and most importantly in improving neurobehavioral function in rat permanent middle cerebral artery occlusion, a model of stroke. In this study, we examined the gene expression profile in neurons subjected to oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD) with or without HUCB treatment and identified signaling pathways (Akt/MAPK) important in eliciting HUCB-mediated neuroprotective responses. Gene chip microarray analysis was performed using RNA samples extracted from the neuronal cell cultures from four experimental groups: normoxia, normoxia+HUCB, OGD, and OGD+HUCB.

A single administration of human umbilical cord blood T cells produces long-lasting effects in the aging hippocampus.

Neurogenesis occurs throughout life but significantly decreases with age. Human umbilical cord blood mononuclear cells (HUCB MNCs) have been shown to increase the proliferation of neural stem cells (NSCs) in the dentate gyrus (DG) of the hippocampus and the subgranular zone of aging rats (Bachstetter et al., BMC Neurosci 9:22, 2008), but it is unclear which fraction or combination of the HUCB MNCs are responsible for neurogenesis.

Exploring the value of an international service-learning experience in Honduras.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of an international service-learning experience in Honduras on the cultural competence of the participants. The study included a quantitative portion in which participants utilized the Cultural Competence Assessment instrument as a pretest-posttest evaluation of change in cultural competence, and a qualitative portion in which students discussed their feelings about the experience. The quantitative portion showed an increase in cultural competence behaviors following the experience.

Administration of a Sigma Receptor Agonist Delays MCAO-Induced Neurodegeneration and White Matter Injury.

Many pharmacological treatments for stroke have afforded protection in rodent models but failed to show efficacy in clinical trials. This discrepancy may be due to the lack of long-term functional studies. Previously, delayed administration of the sigma receptor agonist 1,3-di-o-tolylguanidine (DTG) reduced infarct volume after middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) in rats.

Integration of DNA barcoding into an ongoing inventory of complex tropical biodiversity.

Inventory of the caterpillars, their food plants and parasitoids began in 1978 for today's Area de Conservacion Guanacaste (ACG), in northwestern Costa Rica. This complex mosaic of 120 000 ha of conserved and regenerating dry, cloud and rain forest over 0-2000 m elevation contains at least 10 000 species of non-leaf-mining caterpillars used by more than 5000 species of parasitoids. Several hundred thousand specimens of ACG-reared adult Lepidoptera and parasitoids have been intensively and extensively studied morphologically by many taxonomists, including most of the co-authors.

Blockade of adrenoreceptors inhibits the splenic response to stroke.

Recent studies have highlighted the involvement of the peripheral immune system in delayed cellular degeneration after stroke. In the permanent middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) model of stroke, the spleen decreases in size. This reduction occurs through the release of splenic immune cells.