Risk behaviors in a rural community with a known point-source exposure to chronic wasting disease

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The emergence and continuing spread of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in cervids has now reached 14 U.S. states, two Canadian provinces, and South Korea, producing a potential for transmission of CWD prions to humans and other animals globally. In 2005, CWD spread for the first time from the Midwest to more densely populated regions of the East Coast. As a result, a large cohort of individuals attending a wild game feast in upstate New York were exposed to a deer that was subsequently confirmed positive for CWD.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Eighty-one participants who ingested or otherwise were exposed to a deer with chronic wasting disease at a local New York State sportsman's feast were recruited for this study. Participants were administered an exposure questionnaire and agreed to follow-up health evaluations longitudinally over the next six years.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our results indicate two types of risks for those who attended the feast, a <it>Feast Risk </it>and a G<it>eneral Risk</it>. The larger the number of risk factors, the greater the risk to human health if CWD is transmissible to humans. Long-term surveillance of feast participants exposed to CWD is ongoing.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The risk data from this study provide a relative scale for cumulative exposure to CWD-infected tissues and surfaces, and those in the upper tiers of cumulative risk may be most at risk if CWD is transmissible to humans.</p

Training attention control of very preterm infants: protocol for a feasibility study of the Attention Control Training (ACT)

Background Children born preterm may display cognitive, learning, and behaviour difficulties as they grow up. In particular, very premature birth (gestation age between 28 and less than 32 weeks) may put infants at increased risk of intellectual deficits and attention deficit disorder. Evidence suggests that the basis of these problems may lie in difficulties in the development of executive functions. One of the earliest executive functions to emerge around 1 year of age is the ability to control attention. An eye-tracking-based cognitive training programme to support this emerging ability, the Attention Control Training (ACT), has been developed and tested with typically developing infants. The aim of this study is to investigate the feasibility of using the ACT with healthy very preterm (VP) infants when they are 12 months of age (corrected age). The ACT has the potential to address the need for supporting emerging cognitive abilities of VP infants with an early intervention, which may capitalise on infants’ neural plasticity. Methods/design The feasibility study is designed to investigate whether it is possible to recruit and retain VP infants and their families in a randomised trial that compares attention and social attention of trained infants against those that are exposed to a control procedure. Feasibility issues include the referral/recruitment pathway, attendance, and engagement with testing and training sessions, completion of tasks, retention in the study, acceptability of outcome measures, quality of data collected (particularly, eye-tracking data). The results of the study will inform the development of a larger randomised trial. Discussion Several lines of evidence emphasise the need to support emerging cognitive and learning abilities of preterm infants using early interventions. However, early interventions with preterm infants, and particularly very preterm ones, face difficulties in recruiting and retaining participants. These problems are also augmented by the health vulnerability of this population. This feasibility study will provide the basis for informing the implementation of an early cognitive intervention for very preterm infants. Trial registration Registered Registration ID: NCT03896490. Retrospectively registered at Clinical Trials Protocol Registration and Results System (clinicaltrials.gov)

Behavioural and educational outcomes following extremely preterm birth : current controversies and future directions

As a consequence of improved survival rates for extremely preterm (EP; <28 weeks of gestation) births, there is a growing body of evidence detailing the impact of extreme prematurity on outcomes throughout childhood and adolescence. Historically, attention first focused on documenting rates of sensory impairments and severe neurodevelopmental disabilities. However, over recent years, there has been growing interest in the impact of EP birth on long term mental health and educational outcomes. In this chapter we review literature relating to the impact of EP birth on attention, social and emotional problems, psychiatric disorders and educational outcomes. We also outline current controversies in the field. In particular, we present emergent research exploring developmental trajectories to determine whether the sequelae associated with EP birth represent a developmental delay or persistent deficit, and we consider what approaches to intervention may be most fruitful in improving behavioural and educational outcomes in this population