Family practices during life-threatening illness : exploring the everyday.

This thesis explores the experiences of individuals living in a family where a member is dying or has a life-threatening illness. It focuses in particular upon how families are actively produced in the everyday `doing' of day-to-day family life (Morgan, 1996) in circumstances of severe ill-health and when facing death. Using an ethnographic approach combining informal, in-depth interviews with 9 families and participant observation on a hospice ward, the research provides insight into how families experience themselves as family in the `here-and-now' of their daily lives. It will be argued that in both popular culture and theoretical work there is a pervasive tendency to associate death with crisis and that the more ordinary, everyday and mundane aspects of dying experiences are less well understood. Therefore, the analysis of family lives presented here moves away from the more familiar model of emotional crisis and rupture in relation to severe ill-health and dying, to ask new questions about the `everydayness' of people's feelings and experiences during this time. A more nuanced picture of living with life-threatening illness and dying is provided as the data chapters explore the everyday and mundane in relation to families' experiences. Analysing empirical data about various aspects of day-to-day life - including eating practices, spatial dynamics and material objects - the thesis shows how ill-health and dying are not discrete ontological experiences existing outside and separate from everyday life. Rather, in paying attention to the `doing' of being a family day-to-day, this research brings more squarely into view, the everyday as a lived experience (Felski, 1999) within which families come to `know' their experiences of illness and dying

Reliability of the running vertical jump test in female team sport athletes

Injury rates to the lower limb have increased over the past 40 years, coinciding with increases in female sport participation rates. Sport specific tests such as the running vertical jump (RVJ) are utilised for injury risk profiling, however the test-retest reliability is unknown. Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the test-retest reliability of the thorax, pelvis and lower limb joint angular kinematics and kinetics for the RVJ test in female team sport athletes. Design: Three-dimensional motion capture with force plate integration was utilised as participants performed five trials on each limb on three separate days. Setting: Testing occurred in a biomechanics laboratory. Participants: Thirty-four females (Australian Rules Football = 15, Netball = 12, Soccer = 7) participated in this study. Main Outcome Measures: Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC), effect sizes and typical errors (TE) of segment and joint angular kinematics and kinetics were calculated. Results: Poor to excellent reliability (ICC = −0.12 – 0.92), small to large effect sizes (0.00–0.90) and TE (0.02–289.24) were observed across segment and joint angular kinematics and kinetics. Conclusions: The RVJ test is recommended when analysing ground reaction forces and joint angular kinematics in female team sport athletes

APOE4 genotype exerts greater benefit in lowering plasma cholesterol and apolipoprotein B than wild type (E3/E3), after replacement of dietary saturated fats with low glycaemic index carbohydrates

We examined the impact of APOE genotype on plasma lipids and glucose in a secondary analysis of data from a five-arm, randomised controlled, parallel dietary intervention trial ('RISCK' study), to investigate the impact of replacing saturated fatty acids (SFA) with either monounsaturated fat (MUFA) or carbohydrate of high or low glycaemic index (GI) on CVD risk factors and insulin sensitivity. We tested the impact of APOE genotype (carriage of E2 and E4 alleles versus E3/E3), determined retrospectively, on plasma lipids, lipoproteins and glucose homeostasis at baseline (n = 469), and on the change in these variables after 24 weeks of dietary intervention (n = 389). At baseline, carriers of E2 (n = 70), E4 (n = 125) and E3/E3 (n = 274) expressed marked differences in total plasma cholesterol (TC, p = 0.001), low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C, p E3/E3 > E2. Following intervention, there was evidence of a significant diet x genotype interaction with significantly greater decreases in TC (p = 0.02) and apo B (p = 0.006) among carriers of E4 when SFA was replaced with low GI carbohydrate on a lower fat diet (TC -0.28 mmol/L p = 0.03; apo B -0.1 g/L p = 0.02), and a relative increase in TC (in comparison to E3/E3) when SFA was replaced with MUFA and high GI carbohydrates (TC 0.3 mmol/L, p = 0.03). Among carriers of E2 (compared with E3/E3) there was an increase in triacylglycerol (TAG) when SFA was replaced with MUFA and low GI carbohydrates 0.46 mmol/L p = 0.001). There were no significant interactions between APOE genotype and diet for changes in indices of glucose homeostasis. In conclusion, variations in APOE genotype led to differential effects on the lipid response to the replacement of SFA with MUFA and low GI carbohydrates

Association of Vitamin B12 Deficiency with Fatigue and Depression after Lacunar Stroke

Background: In lacunar stroke patients vitamin B12 deficiency is often found and a relationship with the degree of periventricular white matter lesions (pWMLs) is suggested. Given the known relationships between WMLs and depression and between depression and fatigue after stroke, we studied both depression and fatigue in lacunar stroke patients with and without vitamin B12 deficiency. Methods: In 40 first-ever lacunar stroke patients vitamin B12 levels were determined and self-report questionnaires for fatigue and depression were completed three months after stroke. Results: Lacunar stroke patients with vitamin B12 deficiency (N = 13) reported significantly more fatigue (90.7 versus 59.4; p =.001) and depressive symptoms (6.62 versus 3.89; p,.05) than those without (N = 27). In regression analyses, vitamin B12 deficiency was significantly and independently associated with the presence of severe fatigue and clinically significant depression. Conclusions: Our preliminary results suggest a relationship between vitamin B12 deficiency and increased levels of fatigue and depression in lacunar stroke patients. If these findings could be replicated in a larger and general stroke sample, thi

Motivating students and improving engagement in biology units using online QS modules

MathBench biology modules represent one example of how biology educators can incorporate materials to improve quantitative skills and reasoning into introductory courses. The MathBench- Australia project not only aims to ensure that the science and the maths content of MathBench (USA) modules are accurate, but also appropriate to an Australian context, and further aid to minimise students’ negative attitude towards quantitative skills and increase student engagement. Hence, in this ideas exchange we will explore the strategies to embed the contextualised MathBench modules in first and second year science units to improve student engagement and students’ QS

Failure of rapid diagnostic tests in Plasmodium falciparum malaria cases among travelers to the UK and Ireland: Identification and characterisation of the parasites.

OBJECTIVES: Our objective was to systematically investigate false-negative histidine-rich protein 2 rapid diagnostic tests (HRP2-RDT) in imported Plasmodium falciparum malaria cases from travelers to the UK and the Republic of Ireland (RoI). METHODS: Five imported malaria cases in travellers returning to the UK and RoI from East Africa were reported to the PHE Malaria Reference Laboratory as negative according to histidine-rich protein (HRP2)-RDT. The cases were systematically investigated using microscopic, RDT, molecular, genomic, and in in vitro approaches. RESULTS: In each case, HRP2-RDT was negative, whereas microscopy confirmed the presence of P. falciparum. Further analysis revealed that the genes encoding HRP2 and HRP3 were deleted in three of the five cases. Whole-genome sequencing in one of these isolates confirmed deletions in P. falciparum chromosomes 8 and 13. Our study produced evidence that the fourth case, which had high parasitemia at clinical presentation, was a rare example of antigen saturation ('prozone-like effect'), leading to a false negative in the HRP2-RDT, while the fifth case was due to low parasitemia. CONCLUSIONS: False-negative HRP2-RDT results with P. falciparum are concerning. Our findings emphasise the necessity of supporting the interpretation of RDT results with microscopy, in conjunction with clinical observations, and sets out a systematic approach to identifying parasites carrying pfhrp2 and pfhrp3 deletions