Learning from complex elderly care: a qualitative study on motivating residents in family medicine.

Background: More and more patients need complex care, especially the elderly. For various reasons, this is becoming increasingly difficult. The onus is essentially on family physicians to provide this care and family medicine residency programs should therefore prepare their residents for this task.

Colloidal stability and chemical reactivity of complex colloids containing Fe³⁺.

The reactivity of iron contained within insoluble colloidal metal-pyrophosphate salts was determined and compared to the reactivity of a soluble iron salt (FeCl3). As a model system for the reactivity of iron in food products, the formation of an iron-polyphenol complex was followed with spectrophotometry. Three types of systems were prepared and their colloidal stability and reactivity studied: Fe(3+) pyrophosphate, protein-coated Fe(3+) pyrophosphate and mixed-metal pyrophosphates containing Fe(3+) and a second cation M.

Qualitative interviews on the beliefs and feelings of adults towards their ownership, but non-use of hearing aids.

Objective: Up to a quarter of the adults who own hearing aids never use them. To provide these 'non-users' with the best help, hearing care professionals need to have an in-depth understanding of the non-users' beliefs and feelings with regard to the non-use. This qualitative study explored these beliefs and feelings in order to increase our understanding of hearing aid non-users.

Repeptization by dissolution in a colloidal system of iron(III) pyrophosphate.

Repeptization (redispersion) from an aggregated state is usually only possible in charge-stabilized colloidal systems if the system is either coagulated in the secondary minimum of the interaction potential or if the system cannot settle completely into the primary minimum. In this work, we analyze the zeta potential, conductivity, and long-term stability of colloidal systems of iron(III) pyrophosphate and surprisingly find that the system seems to defy conventional wisdom as it can be repeptized from its coagulated state regardless of aging time and background ions. Moreover, after having been stored for up to a month in 2 M NaCl, dialysis of iron pyrophosphate will yield a colloidal dispersion that is actually stable for a longer period of time than a fresh system with background electrolyte removed.

Stabilization through precipitation in a system of colloidal iron(III) pyrophosphate salts.

The ionic strength of a solution decreases during the precipitation of an insoluble salt, which can cause an initially unstable colloidal system to stabilize during its formation. We show this effect in the precipitation and aging of colloidal iron(III) pyrophosphate, where we observe two distinct stages in the aggregation process. The first stage is the formation of nanoparticles that immediately aggregate into clusters with sizes on the order of 200 nm.