Goal attainment scaling in post-acute outpatient brain injury rehabilitation.

Therapists continuously strive for efficiency in clinical practice. Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS) is a tool that can provide both a structure for objective documentation of patient progress and a means of program evaluation. This article describes the application of GAS in a comprehensive outpatient brain injury rehabilitation program.

Long-term preservation of segmental pancreas autografts.

Clinical pancreas transplantation is logistically difficult because of uncertainty concerning how long pancreas grafts can be preserved. We studied the viability of canine segmental (tail) pancreatic autografts transplanted after 24 to 72 hours of hypothermic preservation in either modified Collins' solution or modified silica gel filtered dog plasma (SGF). All grafts stored for 24 to 48 hours functioned immediately (plasma glucose less than 140 mg/dl in recipients).

The effect of atropine and duct decompression on the evolution of Diazinon-induced acute canine pancreatitis.

Three groups of eight dogs each were studied to evaluate the early evolution of the hyperamylasemia, hyperlipasemia, and acinar cell pathology at the light and electron microscopic levels during acute Diazinon-induced pancreatitis. Two more groups of five dogs each were evaluated for the effects of cholinergic receptor blockade with atropine and ductal decompression on the evolution of serum enzyme changes and acinar cell pathology. Group I dogs received a secretin infusion of 2 units/kg/hr, and a Diazinon infusion of 75 mg/kg, and demonstrated significant increases in serum amylase and lipase at one, two and three hours.

Remote tumor effects on lactic dehydrogenase of mouse muscle fibers with different glycolytic--oxidative metabolic potentials.

The total lactic dehydrogenase (LD) activity and the isoenzyme pattern were studied in muscles of mice during the progressive growth of a distally transplanted methylcholanthrene-induced tumor. The thigh muscles as a group (a mixture of fibers with different oxidative-glycolytic metabolic potentials), the gastrocnemius muscle (primarily glycolytic), the soleus muscle (predominantly oxidative), the heart (purely oxidative), and the diaphragm (primarily oxidative) were evaluated. The total LD activity increased in muscles with a high glycolytic metabolic potential.

Muscle and serum enzymes and isoenzymes in muscular dystrophies.

Total activity of creatine kinase (CK), lactate dehydrogenase (LD), aldolase (Ald), glutamico-oxaloacetic transaminase (GOT), and LD-isoenzyme distribution was studied in serum and muscle biopsies from normal persons and 117 patients with different types of muscular dystrophy: 82 Duchenne type (DMD), 12 BEcker type, 7 facioscapulohumeral (FSHMD), and 16 limb girdle (LGMD). Total enzyme activity in sera and muscle homogenates was determined by spectrophotometric assays. LD isoenzymes were separated by electrophoresis on agarose gel plates in barbital buffer (pH 8.