Design considerations for a personalized wheelchair navigation system.

Individuals with mobility impairments such as wheelchair users are often at a disadvantage when traveling to a new place, as their mobility can be easily affected by environmental barriers, and as such, even short trips can be difficult and perhaps impossible. We envision a personalized wheelchair navigation system based on a PDA equipped with wireless Internet access and GPS that can provide adaptive navigation support to wheelchair users in any geographic environment. Requirements, architectures and components of such a system are described in this paper.

Remifentanil compared with alfentanil for ambulatory surgery using total intravenous anesthesia. The Remifentanil/Alfentanil Outpatient TIVA Group.

The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that using a 1:4 ratio of remifentanil to alfentanil, a remifentanil infusion would provide better suppression of intraoperative responses and comparable recovery profiles after ambulatory laparoscopic surgery than an alfentanil infusion, as part of total intravenous anesthesia. Two hundred ASA physical status I, II, or III adult patients participated in this multicenter, double-blind, parallel group study. Patients were randomly assigned 2:1 to either the remifentanil-propofol or alfentanil-propofol regimens.

Ondansetron prevents postoperative nausea and vomiting in women outpatients.

Three doses of intravenous (i.v.) ondansetron, 1 mg, 4 mg, and 8 mg, were compared to placebo for their antiemetic effect and safety.

Cardiovascular stability with rapid intravenous infusion of ondansetron.

The acute cardiovascular effects of rapid iv administration of the antiemetic ondansetron, a selective serotonin (5-HT3) receptor antagonist were determined in a randomized, blinded, placebo-controlled study. Measurements of heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation and respiratory rate were made preoperatively over a five-minute period which followed a two-minute infusion of the medication. Intraoperative and postoperative data were not collected.

Unregulated self-medication in an ambulatory surgery population.

The objective of this study was to determine whether unregulated self-medication in an ambulatory surgery population was a significant problem in terms of the incidence and nature of drugs detected. We asked 67 consecutive patients who presented for elective ambulatory surgery at a university medical center to volunteer for serum and urine testing with the assurance of confidentiality. All patients denied nonprescription drug use.