Terminally ill patients as customers: the patient's perspective.

Background: Consumerism in health care defines patients as self-determined, rational customers. Yet, it is questionable whether vulnerable patients, such as the terminally ill, also fulfill these criteria. Vulnerable contexts and the patient's perspective on being a customer remain relatively unexplored.

Variations in the presentation of aphasia in patients with closed head injuries.

Impairments of speech and language are important consequences of head injury as they compromise interaction between the patient and others. A large spectrum of communication deficits can occur. There are few reports in the literature of aphasia following closed head injury despite the common presentation of closed head injury.

Inhibition of angiogenesis in lipodermatosclerosis: implication for venous ulcer formation.

Lipodermatosclerosis refers to skin induration of the lower extremities characterized by tortuous, hyperpermeable vessels preceding venous leg ulcerations. Protein ligands and receptor tyrosine kinases that specifically regulate endothelial cell function are mainly involved in physiological as well as in disease-related angiogenesis. These ligand/receptor systems include the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and the angiopoietin (Ang) families and their receptor the tyrosine kinase with immunoglobulin-like domains (Tie-2) as well as the VEGF receptor family (VEGF-R1 and VEGF-R2).