Fall Detection and Motion Analysis Using Visual Approaches

Falls are considered one of the most ubiquitous problems leading to morbidity and disability in the elderly. This paper presents a vision-based approach toward the care and rehabilitation of the elderly by examining the important body symmetry features in falls and activities of daily living (ADL). The proposed method carries out human skeleton estimation and detection on image datasets for feature extraction to predict falls and to analyze gait motion. The extracted skeletal information is further evaluated and analyzed for the fall risk factors in order to predict a fall event. Four critical risk factors are found to be highly correlated to falls, including 2D motion (gait speed), gait pose, 3D trunk angle or body orientation, and body shape (width-to-height ratio). Different variants of deep architectures, including 1D Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) Network, Gated Recurrent Units (GRU) model, and attention-based mechanism, are investigated with several fusion techniques to predict the fall based on human body balance study. A given test gait sequence will be classified into one of the three phases: non-fall, pre-impact fall, and fall. With the attention-based GRU architecture, an accuracy of 96.2% can be achieved for predicting a falling event

Effect of COVID-19 on presentations of decompensated liver disease in Scotland

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: SARS-CoV-2 and consequent pandemic has presented unique challenges. Beyond the direct COVID-related mortality in those with liver disease, we sought to determine the effect of lockdown on people with liver disease in Scotland. The effect of lockdown on those with alcohol-related disease is of interest; and whether there were associated implications for a change in alcohol intake and consequent presentations with decompensated disease. METHODS: We performed a retrospective analysis of patients admitted to seven Scottish hospitals with a history of liver disease between 1 April and 30 April 2020 and compared across the same time in 2017, 2018 and 2019. We also repeated an intermediate assessment based on a single centre to examine for delayed effects between 1 April and 31 July 2020. RESULTS: We found that results and outcomes for patients admitted in 2020 were similar to those in previous years in terms of morbidity, mortality, and length of stay. In the Scotland-wide cohort: admission MELD (Model for End-stage Liver Disease) (16 (12–22) vs 15 (12–19); p=0.141), inpatient mortality ((10.9% vs 8.6%); p=0.499) and length of stay (8 days (4–15) vs 7 days (4–13); p=0.140). In the Edinburgh cohort: admission MELD (17 (12–23) vs 17 (13–21); p=0.805), inpatient mortality ((13.7% vs 10.1%; p=0.373) and length of stay (7 days (4–14) vs 7 days (3.5–14); p=0.525)). CONCLUSION: This assessment of immediate and medium-term lockdown impacts on those with chronic liver disease suggested a minimal effect on the presentation of decompensated liver disease to secondary care

Teacher led school-based surveillance can allow accurate tracking of emerging infectious diseases - evidence from serial cross-sectional surveys of febrile respiratory illness during the H1N1 2009 influenza pandemic in Singapore

10.1186/1471-2334-12-336BMC Infectious Diseases12-BIDM

Fine-mapping of prostate cancer susceptibility loci in a large meta-analysis identifies candidate causal variants

Prostate cancer is a polygenic disease with a large heritable component. A number of common, low-penetrance prostate cancer risk loci have been identified through GWAS. Here we apply the Bayesian multivariate variable selection algorithm JAM to fine-map 84 prostate cancer susceptibility loci, using summary data from a large European ancestry meta-analysis. We observe evidence for multiple independent signals at 12 regions and 99 risk signals overall. Only 15 original GWAS tag SNPs remain among the catalogue of candidate variants identified; the remainder are replaced by more likely candidates. Biological annotation of our credible set of variants indicates significant enrichment within promoter and enhancer elements, and transcription factor-binding sites, including AR, ERG and FOXA1. In 40 regions at least one variant is colocalised with an eQTL in prostate cancer tissue. The refined set of candidate variants substantially increase the proportion of familial relative risk explained by these known susceptibility regions, which highlights the importance of fine-mapping studies and has implications for clinical risk profiling. © 2018 The Author(s).Prostate cancer is a polygenic disease with a large heritable component. A number of common, low-penetrance prostate cancer risk loci have been identified through GWAS. Here we apply the Bayesian multivariate variable selection algorithm JAM to fine-map 84 prostate cancer susceptibility loci, using summary data from a large European ancestry meta-analysis. We observe evidence for multiple independent signals at 12 regions and 99 risk signals overall. Only 15 original GWAS tag SNPs remain among the catalogue of candidate variants identified; the remainder are replaced by more likely candidates. Biological annotation of our credible set of variants indicates significant enrichment within promoter and enhancer elements, and transcription factor-binding sites, including AR, ERG and FOXA1. In 40 regions at least one variant is colocalised with an eQTL in prostate cancer tissue. The refined set of candidate variants substantially increase the proportion of familial relative risk explained by these known susceptibility regions, which highlights the importance of fine-mapping studies and has implications for clinical risk profiling. © 2018 The Author(s).Peer reviewe

Mortality predictors in an acute care geriatric unit in Singapore

Aim: Admission to an acute care geriatric unit may lead to adverse outcomes. It is therefore important to identify high-risk patients early so that appropriate management can be instituted to prevent or delay onset of adverse events. The aim of this study is to evaluate one-year mortality and its associated risk factors among hospitalized patients. Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study on consecutive patients admitted to an acute geriatric ward in a Singapore hospital from March to April 2013.Demographic and clinical information was collected from patient medical records. Linkage with death records from a national registry was performed. Results: Of the 196 patients assessed, 4.6%, 20.9% and 35.7% died during admission, within six months post-admission and within one year post-admission respectively. Pneumonia and cardiovascular diseases accounted for most of the death cases. In the multivariable logistic regression adjusted by age and gender, abbreviated mental test (AMT) score, admission for falls and depression were found to be significantly associated with death within one year post-admission. In the analysis stratified by gender, AMT score and depression were found to be significantly associated with death in males whereas AMT score and admission for falls were significantly associated with death in females. Conclusions: This study offers significant insight into mortality trends and risk factors for clinicians, hence guiding them in individualizing their management plan for acutely ill geriatric patients. Predicting long-term prognosis will enhance rehabilitation goal-setting and advance care-planning

Cell surface alpha 2,3-linked sialic acid facilitates Zika virus internalization

10.1080/22221751.2019.1590130EMERGING MICROBES & INFECTIONS81426-43

The potential impact of an anti-stigma intervention on mental health help-seeking attitudes among university students

Background: The reluctance of young adults to seek mental health treatment has been attributed to poor mental health literacy, stigma, preference for self-reliance and concerns about confidentiality. The purpose of this study was to examine the potential impact of an anti-stigma intervention that includes education about depression, information about help-seeking as well as contact with a person with lived experience, on help seeking attitudes. Methods: A pre-post study design was employed. Changes in help-seeking attitudes were measured using the Inventory of Attitudes towards Seeking Mental Health Services (IASMHS) immediately post-intervention and after 3 months. Sociodemographic data, information on past experiences in the mental health field and contact with people with mental illness were collated. Three hundred ninety university students enrolled in the study. Linear mixed models were used to examine the effects of the intervention. Results: Scores on all subscales of the IASMHS, Psychological Openness (PO), Help-seeking Propensity (HP) and Indifference to Stigma improved significantly post-intervention and at 3-month follow-up compared to pre-intervention, with HP demonstrating the highest effect size. However, a significant decline was observed on all three scales at 3-month follow-up compared to post-intervention. Gender, having friends/family with mental illness, and previous experience in the mental health field moderated the intervention effects for the PO and HP subscales. Conclusions: The study showed that the brief anti-stigma intervention was associated with improvements in help-seeking attitudes among university students with differential effects among certain sub-groups. As the beneficial outcomes appeared to decrease over time, booster sessions or opportunities to participate in mental health-related activities post-intervention may be required to maintain the desired changes in help-seeking attitudes.Published versio

"It Will Lead You to Make Better Decisions about Your Health"-A Focus Group and Survey Study on Women's Attitudes towards Risk-Based Breast Cancer Screening and Personalised Risk Assessments

10.3390/curroncol29120719CURRENT ONCOLOGY29129181-919