The Role of Fetuin-A in Tumor Cell Growth, Prognosis, and Dissemination.

Fetuin-A, also known as alpha-2-Heremans-Schmid-glycoprotein (Ahsg), is a multifunctional molecule with diverse roles in biological processes such as mineralization, tumor growth, and inflammation. This review explores the involvement of Ahsg in various cancers, including liver, breast, prostate, colorectal, brain, osteosarcoma, and lung cancers. In many cancer types, Ahsg promotes tumor growth, invasion, and metastasis through various mechanisms, including cellular adhesion, spreading, chemotaxis, and modulation of cell-growth signaling pathways.

Why do they leave? Factors associated with job termination among personal assistant workers in home care.

Recruiting and retaining an adequate number of personal support workers in home care is both challenging and essential to allowing elders to age in place. A mixed-method, longitudinal study examined turnover in a sample of 261 personal support workers in Maine; 70 workers (26.8%) left their employment in the first year of the study.

Change in neurocognition by housing type and substance abuse among formerly homeless seriously mentally ill persons.

Objective: To test the effect of living in group housing rather than independent apartments on executive functioning, verbal memory and sustained attention among formerly homeless persons with serious mental illness and to determine whether substance abuse modifies this effect.

Method: In metropolitan Boston, 112 persons in Department of Mental Health shelters were randomly assigned to group homes ("Evolving Consumer Households", with project facilitator, group meetings, resident decision-making) or independent apartments. All were case managed.

Depression and caregiver burden among rural elder caregivers.

Family caregivers of older adults frequently experience feelings of burden and depression though they may not come to the attention to health and service providers until they are at a point of crisis. Through a simple screening tool, the Maine Primary Partners in Caring (MPPC) project identified individuals providing care to older adults through rural primary care practices, in order to provide upstream interventions before caregivers were in crisis. This paper describes a sample (n=62) of rural family caregivers identified through their physicians' offices.

New constructs and assessments for relapse and continued use potential in the ASAM Patient Placement Criteria.

One area of intensive study in recent years in addiction research is the characterization and prediction of relapse risk. Given the growing list of findings and assessment tools in this area, in preparation for the second edition, revised volume of the Patient Placement Criteria (PPC) of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), a workgroup of the Coalition for National Criteria was assigned the task of creating a revised conceptual organization for Dimension 5: Relapse/Continued Use Potential. The workgroup conducted a review of the previous Dimension 5 constructs and criteria, including a decision analysis of the previous Dimension 5 decision rules.

Predictive validity of the ASAM Patient Placement Criteria for hospital utilization.

We tested the validity of the ASAM Patient Placement Criteria (PPC) using the first complete and reliable computerized implementation of these criteria. Adult U.S.

Determining service variations between and within ASAM levels of care.

The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) Criteria Validity Study at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School randomized patients between programs in two levels of care. It therefore became critical to determine the extent to which programs met ASAM level of care (LOC) descriptions. Quantitative surveys (checklist) and qualitative case studies (field observation, key informant interviews) documented care variation within and between two ASAM LOCs in 12 substance abuse treatment units.

Early intervention screening for family caregivers of older relatives in primary care practices: establishing a community health service alliance in rural America.

The Maine Primary Partners in Caregiving project provides a prime example of how disparate community health, social service, and higher education institutions can build a successful rural service alliance for the purposes of screening for family members experiencing stress during the provision of care to impaired older relatives. Community primary care practices are featured as prime sites for the early identification of elder caregivers experiencing stress and burden. Initial project results and implementation challenges as well as recommended strategies for nurturing such community partnerships are presented.

The effect of housing interventions on neuropsychological functioning among homeless persons with mental illness.

The authors tested the hypotheses that neuropsychological functioning would improve after homeless persons with severe and persistent mental illness were provided with housing and that executive functioning would improve more among those placed in group homes than among those placed in independent apartments. A total of 114 persons with serious and persistent mental illness who were stable residents of homeless shelters completed neuropsychological testing and were randomly assigned to group homes or independent apartments; 91 participants (52 assigned to group homes and 39 assigned to independent apartments) were retested after 18 months. Overall neuropsychological functioning improved significantly across the full study sample.