Enhancing Parental Compliance in Managing Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Medication adherence in children is essential in ensuring that treatment approaches are successful and lead to positive health outcomes for the patient. However, with the young child largely dependent on the abilities and drive of parents and caregivers, adherence to the treatment regimen for children diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) can be challenging. A systematic literature review using the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis (PRISMA) model was used to locate, analyze, and synthesize sources to identify current evidence-based strategies used by health care providers for enhancing parental compliance in managing the child with ADHD. Reported in themes, evidence-based strategies for enhancing parental compliance include family engagement, behavioral intervention strategies, pharmacological interventions, and specific healthcare provider strategies. This project will impact positive social change by providing evidence-based guidelines on best practices to help parents whose children are diagnosed with ADHD adhere to their medication and treatment regimen. Parental medication compliance also has the potential for improving ADHD symptoms such as impulsiveness, overactivity, and inattention and as such improve the child’s performance in school. Additionally, improved treatment compliance has the potential for reducing the number of hospital readmissions and visits to the emergency department. Last, if children with ADHD are managed effectively, they will grow to become productive members of society

Proxemics of screen mediation: engagement with reading on screen manifests as diminished variation due to self-control, rather than diminished mean distance from screen

Objective: Burgoon's theory of conversational involvement suggest that when people engage with a person, they will move slightly closer to them, often subtly and subconsciously. However, some studies have failed to extend this to human-computer interaction. Our hypothesis is that during online reading, engagement is associated with an expenditure of effort to hold the head upright, still and centrally. Method: We presented to 27 participants (ages 21.00 ± 2.89, 15 female) seated in front of 47.5x27 cm monitor two reading stimuli in a counterbalanced order, one (interesting) based on a best selling novel and the other (boring) based on European Union banking regulations. The participants were video-recorded during their reading while they wore reflective motion tracking markers. The markers were video-tracked off-line using Kinovea 0.8. Results: Subjective VAS ratings showed that the stimuli elicited the bored and interested states as expected. Video tracking showed that the boring stimulus (compared to the interesting reading) elicited a greater head-to-screen velocity, a greater head-to-screen distance range, a greater head-to-screen distance standard deviation, but not a further away head-to-screen mean distance. Conclusions: The more interesting reading led to efforts to control the head to a more central viewing position while suppressing head fidgeting

Experience design: video without faces increases engagement but not empathy

Counter to prior claims that empathy is required for higher levels of engagement in human-computer interaction, our team has previously found that, in an analysis of 844 stimulus presentations, empathy is sufficient for high engagement, but is not necessary. Here, we ran a carefully controlled study of human-computer interactions with musical stimuli --- with and without visuals, and with and without recognizable people -- to directly test whether we could design an engaging stimulus that did not elicit empathy, by avoiding human faces or personal interaction. We measured subjective responses by visual analogue scale and found that the faceless stimulus was as engaging as the face-containing stimulus, but much less empathy-provoking. Therefore, we propose that empathy and engagement be considered independently during interaction design, because they are not monotonically related

The complex relationship between empathy, engagement and boredom

In human computer interactions — especially gaming — the role of empathy has been mooted as a necessary prerequisite for higher levels of engagement and immersion. More recently other forms of engagement, including intellectual/cognitive engagement, have been proposed. In this study we present a carefully controlled dataset of human-computer interactions with a wide range of stimuli that ranged from highly engaging to boring to test these two theories. Analyzing 844 response sets to visual analogue scales (VAS) for empathy, interest, boredom, and engagement, we found that high empathy was sufficient for high engagement but is not necessary, whilst the converse was not true. We also found that empathy and boredom were incompatible with each other, but low levels of either were permissive rather than causal to the other. We conclude that there is no monotonic relationship between increasing empathy and engagement; either empathy is a sufficient (but not necessary) cause of engagement, or engagement is a necessary precursor to high empathy

Towards an improved dementia care experience in clinical radiography practice: A state-of-the-art review.

INTRODUCTION: The increasing global incidence rate of dementia and associated co/multimorbidity has consequently led to a rise in the number of people with dementia (PwD) requiring clinical radiography care services. This review aims to explore and integrate findings from diverse settings with a focus on the experiences of PwD and stakeholders, towards the development of a holistic approach for dementia care and management within the context of radiography services. METHOD: An electronic search was performed across the following databases: PUBMED, CINAHL, Medline, SCOPUS, and ScienceDirect for articles published from January 2009 and June 2023. Articles were included if they fulfilled a predefined criteria mainly focused on experiences of PwD and/or other stakeholders when using the radiography services. Data obtained from the included studies were analysed using a result-based convergent synthesis. RESULT: Eleven studies from diverse settings met the inclusion criteria. A mix of both positive and negative experiences of PwD and stakeholders were reported following visits to radiology and radiotherapy departments were highlighted across settings. The findings were themed around the need for: person-centred care, effective communication, attitudinal changes of staff, specialised and improved clinical environment and inclusion of caregivers for the care of PwD. DISCUSSION: This study emphasise the critical importance of adopting holistic approaches to caring for PwD. This involves adopting a person-centred approach, actively involving caregivers, effective communication, and adequate training for radiographers to provide quality services, all in dementia-friendly environments. CONCLUSION: The experiences of various stakeholders highlight the need for a more holistic approach and strategy for the care and management of PwD within the context of the radiography services. This calls for an urgent need for a comprehensive strategy that includes awareness creation of staff to enhance the quality of care and the overall experience for PwD using the radiography services

IKKβ regulates essential functions of the vascular endothelium through kinase-dependent and -independent pathways

Vascular endothelium provides a selective barrier between the blood and tissues, participates in wound healing and angiogenesis, and regulates tissue recruitment of inflammatory cells. Nuclear factor (NF)-κB transcription factors are pivotal regulators of survival and inflammation, and have been suggested as potential therapeutic targets in cancer and inflammatory diseases. Here we show that mice lacking IKKβ, the primary kinase mediating NF-κB activation, are smaller than littermates and born at less than the expected Mendelian frequency in association with hypotrophic and hypovascular placentae. IKKβ-deleted endothelium manifests increased vascular permeability and reduced migration. Surprisingly, we find that these defects result from loss of kinase-independent effects of IKKβ on activation of the serine-threonine kinase, Akt. Together, these data demonstrate essential roles for IKKβ in regulating endothelial permeability and migration, as well as an unanticipated connection between IKKβ and Akt signalling

Vitronectin Increases Vascular Permeability by Promoting VE-Cadherin Internalization at Cell Junctions

Cross-talk between integrins and cadherins regulates cell function. We tested the hypothesis that vitronectin (VN), a multi-functional adhesion molecule present in the extracellular matrix and plasma, regulates vascular permeability via effects on VE-cadherin, a critical regulator of endothelial cell (EC) adhesion.Addition of multimeric VN (mult VN) significantly increased VE-cadherin internalization in human umbilical vein EC (HUVEC) monolayers. This effect was blocked by the anti-α(V)β(3) antibody, pharmacological inhibition and knockdown of Src kinase. In contrast to mult VN, monomeric VN did not trigger VE-cadherin internalization. In a modified Miles assay, VN deficiency impaired vascular endothelial growth factor-induced permeability. Furthermore, ischemia-induced enhancement of vascular permeability, expressed as the ratio of FITC-dextran leakage from the circulation into the ischemic and non-ischemic hindlimb muscle, was significantly greater in the WT mice than in the Vn(-/-) mice. Similarly, ischemia-mediated macrophage infiltration was significantly reduced in the Vn(-/-) mice vs. the WT controls. We evaluated changes in the multimerization of VN in ischemic tissue in a mouse hindlimb ischemia model. VN plays a previously unrecognized role in regulating endothelial permeability via conformational- and integrin-dependent effects on VE-cadherin trafficking.These results have important implications for the regulation of endothelial function and angiogenesis by VN under normal and pathological conditions

Comparison of the microbial composition of African fermented foods using amplicon sequencing

Fermented foods play a major role in the diet of people in Africa, where a wide variety of raw materials are fermented. Understanding the microbial populations of these products would help in the design of specific starter cultures to produce standardized and safer foods. In this study, the bacterial diversity of African fermented foods produced from several raw materials (cereals, milk, cassava, honey, palm sap, and locust beans) under different conditions (household, small commercial producers or laboratory) in 8 African countries was analysed by 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing during the Workshop “Analysis of the Microbiomes of Naturally Fermented Foods Training Course”. Results show that lactobacilli were less abundant in fermentations performed under laboratory conditions compared to artisanal or commercial fermentations. Excluding the samples produced under laboratory conditions, lactobacilli is one of the dominant groups in all the remaining samples. Genera within the order Lactobacillales dominated dairy, cereal and cassava fermentations. Genera within the order Lactobacillales, and genera Zymomonas and Bacillus were predominant in alcoholic beverages, whereas Bacillus and Lactobacillus were the dominant genera in the locust bean sample. The genus Zymomonas was reported for the first time in dairy, cereal, cassava and locust bean fermentations

Laryngeal Reinnervation Using Ansa Cervicalis for Thyroid Surgery-Related Unilateral Vocal Fold Paralysis: A Long-Term Outcome Analysis of 237 Cases

To evaluate the long-term efficacy of delayed laryngeal reinnervation using the main branch of the ansa cervicalis in treatment of unilateral vocal fold paralysis (UVFP) caused by thyroid surgery.UVFP remains a serious complication of thyroid surgery. Up to now, a completely satisfactory surgical treatment of UVFP has been elusive.From Jan. 1996 to Jan. 2008, a total of 237 UVFP patients who underwent ansa cervicalis main branch-to-recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) anastomosis were enrolled as UVFP group; another 237 age- and gender-matched normal subjects served as control group. Videostroboscopy, vocal function assessment (acoustic analysis, perceptual evaluation and maximum phonation time), and electromyography were performed preoperatively and postoperatively. The mean follow-up period was 5.2±2.7 years, ranging from 2 to 12 years.>0.05, respectively). Postoperative laryngeal electromyography confirmed successful reinnervation of laryngeal muscle.Delayed laryngeal reinnervation with the main branch of ansa cervicalis is a feasible and effective approach for treatment of thyroid surgery-related UVFP; it can restore the physiological laryngeal phonatory function to the normal or a nearly normal voice quality