Nursing Home Social Worker Preparedness for Serving BGL&T Residents

Current census data indicates that there are over 38 million Americans over the age of 65 at this time. (U.S. Census, 2010). It is estimated that as many as 3.8 million older adults in the United States identify as bisexual, gay, lesbian, or transgender. Though there is a growing body of literature on the needs and concerns of BGL&T older adults with regards to accessing health care services as they age, there is very little literature on how prepared providers feel to provide culturally competent care to BGL&T people. In an attempt to address this gap, this researcher conducted a survey with nursing home social workers in the state of Minnesota. Items on the survey addressed issues including: comfort working with bisexual, gay, lesbian and transgender residents, feelings about the importance of targeted outreach, and any outreach that was being done by the facility. The data collected indicated that though nursing home social workers feel comfortable working with BGL&T residents and feel that awareness of the unique needs and concerns of BGL&T older adults is important, there is a lack of consensus on the importance of targeted services and outreach. Key findings and recommendations for future research are also discussed

Making Tales: The Poetics of Wordsworth's Narrative Experiments

Informed by a "poetics of speech" developed from the work of the Bakhtin School, this book offers an alternative to the Aristotelian emphasis on narrative as the presentation of plot that highlights narrative as someone's relating of words, deeds, or experiences to someone else. With special attention to reported speech, it offers appreciative readings of Wordsworth's experimental narrative poems that Coleridge denigrated, readings of the poems in which Wordsworth grapples with the expectations of a "tale," and readings of the versions of Wordsworth's encounter with the discharged soldier on the high road

Copper Chaperone for Cu/Zn Superoxide Dismutase is a sensitive biomarker of mild copper deficiency induced by moderately high intakes of zinc

BACKGROUND: Small increases in zinc (Zn) consumption above recommended amounts have been shown to reduce copper (Cu) status in experimental animals and humans. Recently, we have reported that copper chaperone for Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase (CCS) protein level is increased in tissues of overtly Cu-deficient rats and proposed CCS as a novel biomarker of Cu status. METHODS: Weanling male Wistar rats were fed one of four diets normal in Cu and containing normal (30 mg Zn/kg diet) or moderately high (60, 120 or 240 mg Zn/kg diet) amounts of Zn for 5 weeks. To begin to examine the clinical relevance of CCS, we compared the sensitivity of CCS to mild Cu deficiency, induced by moderately high intakes of Zn, with conventional indices of Cu status. RESULTS: Liver and erythrocyte CCS expression was significantly (P < 0.05) increased in rats fed the Zn-60 and/or Zn-120 diet compared to rats fed normal levels of Zn (Zn-30). Erythrocyte CCS expression was the most sensitive measure of reduced Cu status and was able to detect a decrease in Cu nutriture in rats fed only twice the recommended amount of Zn. Liver, erythrocyte and white blood cell CCS expression showed a significant (P < 0.05) inverse correlation with plasma and liver Cu concentrations and caeruloplasmin activity. Unexpectedly, rats fed the highest level of Zn (Zn-240) showed overall better Cu status than rats fed a lower level of elevated Zn (Zn-120). Improved Cu status in these rats correlated with increased duodenal mRNA expression of several Zn-trafficking proteins (i.e. MT-1, ZnT-1, ZnT-2 and ZnT-4). CONCLUSION: Collectively, these data show that CCS is a sensitive measure of Zn-induced mild Cu deficiency and demonstrate a dose-dependent biphasic response for reduced Cu status by moderately high intakes of Zn

Dialogics as an Art of Discourse in Literary Criticism

If a dialogics, inspired by the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, were recognized as an art of discourse on the level of the arts of rhetoric and dialectic, it might shape a critical practice different from those governed by the more familiar arts. Tzvetan Todorov's recent essay on dialogic criticism and Merle Brown's account of F. R. Leavis's "collaborative exchange" in criticism contribute to the invention of such an art; further efforts to rationalize it seem desirable and possible in the present critical conversation