[Effects of a training of power and balance on the use of mechanical restraint among in-patients with dementia].

Background: Patients with dementia are most frequently affected by mechanical restraint in psychiatric hospitals, most frequently due to falls. There is evidence for beneficial effects of a training of power and balance on the frequency of falls in residential homes.

Methods: An adapted training of power and balance was developed by specialists of training in sports.

Diagnosis-related frequency of compulsory measures in 10 German psychiatric hospitals and correlates with hospital characteristics.

Objective: To investigate the incidence of coercive measures in standard psychiatric care in different psychiatric hospitals.

Methods: We developed a common documentation of mechanical restraint, seclusion, and medication by coercion, and introduced it in 10 participating hospitals. We developed software able to process the data and to calculate four key indicators for routine clinical use.

[Incidence of coercive measures as an indicator of quality in psychiatric hospitals. Problems of data recording and processing, preliminary results of a benchmarking study].

Objective: The clinical practice concerning the use of coercive measures in psychiatry should be compared.

Method: A common documentation of physical restraint, seclusion, and medication by coercion was introduced among 10 hospitals.

Results: 8.

Evidence against a pivotal role of preformed antibodies in delayed rejection of a guinea pig-to-rat heart xenograft.

Introduction: Whereas the involvement of elicited xenoantibodies in delayed xenograft rejection is currently being substantiated, this study focuses on the role of the preformed fraction of xenoantibodies.

Methods: To check the influence of the latter, we combined pretransplant complement inactivation (cobra venom factor) and antibody reduction (plasmapheresis) in a guinea pig-to-rat heart transplant model.

Results: Antibody reduction on plasmapheresis before xenografting did not prolong delayed xenorejection in decomplemented rats, although the immunohistologic pattern lacked the immunoglobulin deposits along endothelial walls found in xenografts of merely decomplemented recipients.