Background: Preoperative frailty is associated with increased risk of adverse outcomes. In 2017, McIsaac and colleagues' systematic review found that few interventions improved outcomes in this population and evidence was low-quality. We aimed to systematically review the evidence for multicomponent perioperative interventions in frail patients that has emerged since McIsaac et al.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) allow for the assessment of specific, observable, essential tasks in medical education. Since being developed in non-surgical fields, EPA assessments have been implemented in surgery to explore intraoperative entrustment. However, assessment burden is a significant problem for faculty, and it is unknown whether EPA assessments enable formative technical feedback.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAim: To evaluate the clinical effectiveness and implementation strategies of telecare consultations in post-stroke nurse-led clinics.
Background: Telecare consultations could be an alternative to conventional in-person consultations and improve continuity of care for stroke survivors following their discharge from hospital. Previous studies utilizing telecare consultations only focused on testing their clinical effectiveness on stroke survivors; the appropriateness and feasibility of adopting this new delivery modality in a real-world setting were not examined.
Background: Globally, nurse-led post-acute stroke clinics have been developed to provide secondary care services to stroke survivors. Although synthesized evidence supports the idea that the secondary prevention services delivered by nurses in these clinics can improve the functional ability of stroke survivors and reduce their readmission rates, long travel and waiting times, high costs, and the pandemic have limited the utilization of such clinics. Telecare consultations are a new modality for expanding public access to healthcare services, although how it can be applied in nurse-led clinics has not been reported.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: The ongoing pandemic has accentuated the use of telecare services; however, only limited progress has been made in understanding the barriers and facilitators to using these services. In order to move towards sustaining such essential services, the present study aimed to ascertain the experiences of stroke survivors and healthcare providers regarding the utilization of a post-stroke telecare service in Hong Kong.
Methods: Interpretive description was employed for this study.
Background: Because of the limitation of on-site neurology workforce, telestroke was implemented to overcome this barrier. We explored the efficacy and safety of intravenous (IV) stroke thrombolysis service by telestroke when neurologist was not available on-site.
Methods: From January 2009 to December 2012, we compared patients treated with IV stroke thrombolysis by telestroke in the form of telephone consultation with teleradiology, to patients treated after in-person assessment by the same team of neurologists in a regional hospital.
To fulfill their function in host defense, professional phagocytes such as neutrophils and macrophages exhibit the ability to ingest (phagocytose), kill, and dispose of pathogenic microorganisms. Recent studies have provided strong evidence for the importance of membrane lipids such as polyphosphoinositides in these processes. In turn, reversible phosphorylation events, involving protein and lipid kinases and phosphatases, regulate signaling pathways involving metabolism of membrane lipids.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe characterized the role of protein tyrosine phosphatase (PTP)-alpha in focal adhesion (FA) formation and remodeling using wild-type and PTPalpha-deficient (PTPalpha(-/-)) cells. Compared with wild-type cells, spreading PTPalpha(-/-) fibroblasts displayed fewer leading edges and formed elongated alpha-actinin-enriched FA at the cell periphery. These features suggest the presence of slowly remodeling cell adhesions and were phenocopied in human fibroblasts in which PTPalpha was knocked down using short interfering RNA (siRNA) or in NIH-3T3 fibroblasts expressing catalytically inactive (C433S/C723S) PTPalpha.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDiverse receptors, including Fcgamma receptors and beta(2) integrins (complement receptor-3 [CR3], CD11b/CD18), have been implicated in phagocytosis, but their distinct roles and interactions with other receptors in particle engulfment are not well defined. CD44, a transmembrane adhesion molecule involved in binding and metabolism of hyaluronan, may have additional functions in regulation of inflammation and phagocytosis. We have recently reported that CD44 is a fully competent phagocytic receptor that is able to trigger ingestion of large particles by macrophages.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCD44, a transmembrane adhesion molecule involved in binding and metabolism of hyaluronan, has additional functions in inflammatory and immune responses, contributing to the ingestion and clearance of particles and apoptotic cells. Our goal was to determine the specific role of CD44 in phagocytosis and whether it functions as a primary or accessory phagocytic receptor. Using hyaluronan-coated beads and erythrocytes coated with antiCD44 antibodies as the phagocytic prey, we determined that CD44 mediates efficient phagocytosis in primary murine peritoneal macrophages and in the murine macrophage cell line RAW 264.
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