Introduction: Transitional-aged youth (TAY) are at a vulnerable stage of their development in which mental health and/or addiction (MHA) issues tend to manifest and/or increase in severity. These youth also tend to find themselves caught in the gap between child and adult MHA services, often resulting in sub-optimal access to and transition through MHA services. Navigation services may be one way to close this and other system gaps and improve service utilization and supports for TAY.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Transitional-aged youth (TAY) are at a vulnerable stage of their development in which mental health and/or addiction (MHA) issues tend to manifest and/or increase in severity. TAY also tend to find themselves subject to multiple care transitions, often resulting in sub-optimal access to MHA services. The objective of this study was to explore the perspectives of TAY, family members, and system providers regarding the supports needed by TAY and their families during transitions through MHA care.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Physical activity (PA) is often the cornerstone in risk-reduction interventions for the prevention and treatment of many chronic health conditions. PA interventions are inherently multi-dimensional and complex in nature. Thus, study designs used in the evaluation of PA interventions must be adaptive to intervention components and individual capacities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFis a human pathogen associated with intestinal conditions including colorectal cancer. Screening for gut-derived strains that exhibit anti-. activity revealed DPC6487 as a strain of interest.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCompetent endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) performance requires a combination of technical, cognitive, and non-technical skills. Direct observation assessment tools can be employed to enhance learning and ascertain clinical competence; however, there is a need to systematically evaluate validity evidence supporting their use. We aimed to evaluate the validity evidence of competency assessment tools for EUS and examine their educational utility.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The human ZFP57 gene is a major regulator of imprinted genes, maintaining DNA methylation marks that distinguish parent-of-origin-specific alleles. DNA methylation of the gene itself has shown sensitivity to environmental stimuli, particularly folate status. However, the role of DNA methylation in ZFP57's own regulation has not been fully investigated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Prenatal detection and genetic diagnosis of congenital upper limb anomalies is particularly challenging due to both anatomical and technological factors. Hereby, we present a cross-sectional description of clinical and genetic findings in a 188-patient cohort.
Method: In this retrospective study, we present 188 cases with prenatally or postnatally detected upper limb anomalies, either isolated, associated with other anomalies, or syndromic.
Pupillometry is a popular method because pupil size is easily measured and sensitive to central neural activity linked to behavior, cognition, emotion, and perception. Currently, there is no method for online monitoring phases of pupil size fluctuation. We introduce rtPupilPhase-an open-source software that automatically detects trends in pupil size in real time.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study aimed to compare objective circadian rest-activity-rhythm (RAR) measures with self-reported circadian behavior and morning-evening preference in cognitively healthy older men and women. A total of 129 participants (ages 65-90) completed the Horne & Ostberg Morning-Eveningness Questionnaire (MEQ) and the Circadian Type Inventory (CTI) to assess their morning-evening preference and circadian traits, including rigidity, vigor, languidness, and flexibility. These subjective measures were compared to objective actigraphy data from a sub-cohort of 70 individuals who wore actigraphy watches for 24 hours a day over a 7-day period.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe brain integrates activity across networks of interconnected neurons to generate behavioral outputs. Several physiological and imaging-based approaches have been previously used to monitor responses of individual neurons. While these techniques can identify cellular responses greater than the neuron's action potential threshold, less is known about the events that are smaller than this threshold or are localized to subcellular compartments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIndividuals' lifestyle behaviours determine health. Improving Early Nutrition and Health in South Africa ("ImpENSA"), an EU Erasmus+ co-funded project, aims to tackle the triple burden of malnutrition in South Africa through equipping healthcare professionals (HCPs) with knowledge and skills to effectively support healthy nutritional choices among pregnant women and mothers/infant caregivers. Healthy Conversation Skills (HCS) is a behaviour change intervention utilising open discovery questions, active listening, reflection on practice and goal-setting support through SMARTER (Specific, Measured, Action-oriented, Realistic, Timed, Evaluated and Reviewed) planning as core competences.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAn attractive strategy for combating antibacterial resistance involves the development of new antibiotics whose mechanisms differ from those of existing ones in the clinic. Elfamycin antibiotics, whose prototypes include kirromycin and aurodox, are illustrative examples based on their ability to target EF-Tu, an essential component for protein translation in bacteria. Our efforts to revisit this antibiotic class were enabled by two developments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable mortality. Both neighborhood- and individual-level socioeconomic status (SES) are inversely associated with smoking. However, their joint effect on smoking behavior has not been evaluated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Adolescents and young adults with cancer (AYAs, ages 15-39 at the time of diagnosis) experience significant adverse health and psychosocial outcomes. AYAs live with emotional distress and health care demands that exceed those of their healthy peers but can have difficulty accessing care. Digitally delivered interventions are an attractive option for AYA survivors, a population that routinely utilizes online resources when seeking health information and support.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTissue-mimicking reference phantoms are indispensable for the development and optimization of magnetic resonance (MR) measurement sequences. Phantoms have greatest utility when they mimic the MR signals arising from tissue physiology; however, many of the properties underlying these signals, including tissue relaxation characteristics, can vary as a function of magnetic field strength. There has been renewed interest in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at field strengths less than 1 T, and phantoms developed for higher field strengths may not be physiologically relevant at these lower fields.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To explore the content (subjective questions, objective tools and outcome measures) and discuss the nature (qualitative elements and wider considerations) of the athlete pain assessment by facilitating shared understandings of athletes and sports physiotherapists.
Design: Qualitative research using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach.
Methods: We carried out focus groups comprising a deliberate criterion sample using a constructivist perspective.
Automated blood vessel segmentation is critical for biomedical image analysis, as vessel morphology changes are associated with numerous pathologies. Still, precise segmentation is difficult due to the complexity of vascular structures, anatomical variations across patients, the scarcity of annotated public datasets, and the quality of images. Our goal is to provide a foundation on the topic and identify a robust baseline model for application to vascular segmentation using a new imaging modality, Hierarchical Phase-Contrast Tomography (HiP-CT).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To explore the priorities and directions of athlete upper and lower limb pain assessment by facilitating shared understandings of athletes and sport physiotherapists.
Design: Qualitative research using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach.
Methods: We carried out focus groups comprising a deliberate criterion sample using a constructivist perspective.
Background: Inflammation promotes atherogenesis. Randomized controlled trials of anti-inflammatory therapies for prevention after stroke have not yet demonstrated clear benefit. IL-6 (interleukin-6) and hsCRP (high-sensitivity C-reactive protein) are independently associated with major adverse cardiovascular events poststroke and may guide patient selection in future randomized controlled trials.
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