Publications by authors named "UElle Saks"

Objective: Patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) are commonly collected in melanoma research. However, they are not used to guide immediate clinical care in Australia. This study explored the views and experiences of patients with Stage III melanoma and clinic staff during implementation of an electronic Patient-Reported Outcome Measures in melanoma (ePROMs-MEL) pilot to assess distress and quality of life.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

There are few studies of impacts of arts on recovery in schizophrenia, on audience and cast responses. We developed a formative qualitative evaluation of audience and cast discussions after viewing live performances in a university setting of an opera based on Elyn Saks' journey from psychosis, teaching law and falling in love, coupled with pre-opera workshop on community approaches to resilience. Live discussions were conducted with audience, cast members, and workshop presenters after performance of the opera, with recording and transcription, and reflexive thematic qualitative analysis sequentially conducted by 3 investigators/2 event leaders).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with the t(7;12) translocation is common in infants and has been recognized by the WHO, although the exact mechanism behind its development is unclear.
  • A study of 12 pediatric AML cases with this translocation found no significant difference in survival rates compared to other AML types, but noted a consistent high expression of MNX1 across all cases.
  • Whole transcriptome and genome sequencing revealed various fusion transcripts, primarily involving NOM1, but emphasized the importance of MNX1's overexpression as the key driving factor in this AML subtype.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Of the twelve cranial nerves, nine supply motor innervation to the muscles of the head and neck. Loss of this motor nerve supply, or denervation, follows a series of predictable chronologic changes in the affected muscles. Although the length of time between each change is markedly variable, denervation is typically classified into three distinct time points: acute, subacute, and chronic.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Historically, the requirement to produce scholarship for advancement has challenged health professions educators heavily engaged in teaching. As biomedical scientists or healthcare practitioners, few are trained in educational scholarship, and related faculty development varies in scope and quality across institutions. Currently, there is a need for faculty development and mentoring programs to support the development of these skills.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) pathways represent a comprehensive approach to optimizing perioperative management and reducing hospital stay and cost. In living donor kidney transplantation, key impediments to postoperative discharge include pain, and opioid associated complications such as nausea, vomiting, and the return of gastrointestinal function.

Methods: In this randomized controlled trial, living kidney transplantation donors were assigned to either the ERAS or control group.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • * Researchers analyzed data from 108 older individuals without dementia, finding that those with the Met allele had significantly lower volumes in key brain areas related to memory and cognition compared to those with the Val/Val genotype.
  • * While the study found some correlations between visual and cognitive metrics, it concluded that the BDNF polymorphism specifically influences certain brain regions linked to aging but did not significantly affect overall cognitive performance or other brain measures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Cerebral Autosomal Dominant Arteriopathy with Subcortical Infarcts and Leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL) is a rare genetic condition with a broad phenotypic presentation. This study aims to establish the first Australian cohort of individuals affected by CADASIL (AusCADASIL) and examine its clinical features and longitudinal course, and to investigate neuroimaging and blood biomarkers to assist in early diagnosis and identify disease progression.

Methods: Participants will be recruited from six study centres across Australia for an observational study of CADASIL.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Hyperleukocytosis in pediatric acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is associated with severe complications and an inferior outcome. We report results on patients with hyperleukocytosis included in the NOPHO-DBH AML 2012 study. We recommended immediate initiation of full-dose chemotherapy (etoposide monotherapy for 5 days as part of the first course), avoiding leukapheresis and prephase chemotherapy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) causes heightened fight-or-flight responses to traumatic memories (i.e., hyperarousal).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Numerous motivational research have clearly demonstrated the critical role of self-processes in goal setting, self-regulated learning, and learning outcomes. However, studies have emerged that present conflicting findings regarding the relationship between goal setting and self-efficacy and how it affects academic performance. Based on the theories of goal setting and self-efficacy, the purpose of this paper is to assess the predictive power of self-efficacy and the mediating effect of self-set grade goals on learning outcomes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: Measurable residual disease (MRD) by using flow cytometry after induction therapy is strongly prognostic in pediatric AML, and hematopoietic stem-cell transplant (hSCT) may counteract a poor response. We designed a phase III study with intensified response-guided induction and MRD-based risk stratification and treated poor induction response with hSCT. The efficacy of liposomal daunorubicin (DNX) in induction was compared with mitoxantrone.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

There are few studies of impacts of arts on recovery in schizphrenia, on audience mood and social connection. We developed a pilot evaluation of opera performances in a university setting on Elyn Saks' journey from psychosis, teaching law and falling in love, coupled with pre-opera workshop on approaches to resilience. Using surveys, primary outcomes were pre and post affect (PANAS-X positive, negative; visual "affect grid" touchscreen for affective valence and arousal) and social connectedness with secondary outcomes of increasing understanding, reducing stigma and willingness to socialize or serve persons with mental illness.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

An 89-year-old man presented with progressive gait disturbance, diplopia, and ataxia. Initial brain MRI demonstrated T2/FLAIR hyperintense signal abnormality in the pons extending along the middle cerebellar peduncles into the cerebellum, with associated punctate, patchy, and linear enhancement on postcontrast imaging. Initially, this was attributed to brainstem encephalitis; however, sarcoidosis, histiocytosis, and paraneoplastic/autoimmune encephalitis remained on the differential.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Polycythemia vera is a chronic blood disorder leading to high red blood cell counts, and rusfertide is a treatment that mimics a hormone controlling iron levels, but its safety and effectiveness in these patients were previously unknown.
  • The REVIVE trial tested rusfertide in two parts: a 28-week dose-finding phase involving 70 patients, followed by a 12-week phase where participants received either rusfertide or a placebo.
  • Results showed that patients treated with rusfertide had significantly fewer annual phlebotomies (0.6 vs. 8.7) and a better response rate (60% vs. 17%) compared to the placebo group, along with improvements
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Cerebrovascular disease is the second most common cause of cognitive disorders, usually referred to as vascular contributions to cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID) and makes some contribution to about 70 % of all dementias. Despite its importance, research into VCID has lagged as compared to cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer's disease. There is an increasing appreciation that closing this gap requires large national and international collaborations.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

From the lumbar spine to foot, the joints of the lower extremity are all intimately connected. Their movements are synchronized in a complex biomechanical dance. Pain in one joint tends to affect the joint above and joint below.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The dynamics of excited electronic states in self-assembled structures formed between silver(I) ions and cytosine-containing DNA strands or monomeric cytosine derivatives were investigated by time-resolved infrared (TRIR) spectroscopy and quantum mechanical calculations. The steady-state and time-resolved spectra depend sensitively on the underlying structures, which change with pH and the nucleobase and silver ion concentrations. At pH ∼ 4 and low dC strand concentration, an intramolecularly folded i-motif is observed, in which protons, and not silver ions, mediate C-C base pairing.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Recent reviews of student-as-teacher programs call for early, longitudinal, and timely training in both learning principles and applied teaching skills. We describe a longitudinal elective for pre-clerkship students that includes interactive meetings addressing a range of theoretical and practical teaching topics and the tools needed to conduct medical education research.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) is an escalating public health problem with over 100,000 drug overdose-related deaths last year most of them related to opioid overdose, yet treatment options remain limited. Non-invasive Vagal Nerve Stimulation (nVNS) can be delivered via the ear or the neck and is a non-medication alternative to treatment of opioid withdrawal and OUD with potentially widespread applications.

Methods: This paper reviews the neurobiology of opioid withdrawal and OUD and the emerging literature of nVNS for the application of OUD.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

People with serious mental illness (SMI) diagnoses who become pregnant are particularly vulnerable to symptom recurrence and resulting potential lack of decision-making capacity (Taylor et al. J Psychiatr Res 104:100-107, 2018; Bagadia et al. Int J Soc Psychiatry 66:792-798, 2020).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Wild animals have been increasingly exposed to a wide range of stressors, mainly due to the intensification of human activities and habitat modifications. Consequently, new tools in order to assess the physiological and health status of wild animals have been developed. In particular, glucocorticoids have received a special attention.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: To investigate the relationship between the apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4 allele and retinal structural and vascular characteristics in older adult participants from several research studies. We also studied the relationship between these structural and vascular characteristics with multifocal visual evoked potential (mfVEP) indices, neuropsychological parameters and MRI brain volumes in these participants.

Methods: In this study, 109 participants with a mean (SD) age of 67.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to assess how genetic risk factors for glaucoma and cardiovascular disease are linked to localised vascular and retinal nerve fibre layer (RNFL) loss in individuals with early stages of glaucoma.
  • A total of 858 eyes from 455 patients were analyzed using advanced imaging techniques, revealing significant associations between higher glaucoma genetic risk scores and the presence of vascular and RNFL defects.
  • The findings suggest that individuals with a higher genetic risk for glaucoma are likely to have retinal vascular issues without a corresponding link to cardiovascular risk, indicating that these vascular defects may have independent local pathophysiological causes relevant to glaucoma's early diagnosis and management.*
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Forensic science is undergoing an evolution in which a long-standing "trust the examiner" focus is being replaced by a "trust the scientific method" focus. This shift, which is in progress and still partial, is critical to ensure that the legal system uses forensic information in an accurate and valid way. In this Perspective, we discuss the ways in which the move to a more empirically grounded scientific culture for the forensic sciences impacts testing, error rate analyses, procedural safeguards, and the reporting of forensic results.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF