Assessing client competence to participate in rehabilitation decision making.

Numerous persons receiving rehabilitation services demonstrate compromised judgmental or cognitive ability which occasionally casts doubt on the validity of their consent to, or refusal of, rehabilitation treatment. A 14-member panel of nationally recognized forensic and neurorehabilitation experts (recruited from physiatry, law and mental health) viewed 21 videotaped competency interviews of cognitively impaired inpatients in an acute care rehabilitation hospital. Each rater offered an opinion on whether the interviewee was competent or not based on background history and the interview format presented here.

Urinary copper losses in infants receiving free amino acid solutions.

Plasma amino acids and the 24-h urinary excretion of copper and amino acids were measured in 18 infants receiving 0.4 g N/kg/day as free amino acids as part of a total parenteral nutrition regimen. Urinary copper excretion correlated positively with total excretion of alpha-amino nitrogen, in general, and the excretion of glycine, methionine, histidine, and lysine, in particular.