768 research outputs found
Leadership is the essential non-technical skill in the trauma team - results of a qualitative study
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Trauma is the leading cause of death for young people in Norway. Studies indicate that several of these deaths are avoidable if the patient receives correct initial treatment. The trauma team is responsible for initial hospital treatment of traumatized patients, and team members have previously reported that non-technical skills as communication, leadership and cooperation are the major challenges. Better team function could improve patient outcome. The aim of this study was to obtain a deeper understanding of which non-technical skills are important to members of the trauma team during initial examination and treatment of trauma patients.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted at four different hospitals of various sizes and with different trauma load. At each hospital a nurse, an anaesthesiologist and a team leader (surgeon) were interviewed. The conversations were transcribed and analyzed using systematic text condensation according to the principles of Giorgi's phenomenological analysis as modified by Malterud.</p> <p>Results and conclusion</p> <p>Leadership was perceived as an essential component in trauma management. The ideal leader should be an experienced surgeon, have extensive knowledge of trauma care, communicate clearly and radiate confidence. Team leaders were reported to have little trauma experience, and the team leaders interviewed requested more guidance and supervision. The need for better training of trauma teams and especially team leaders requires further investigation and action.</p
A systematic review investigating fatigue, psychological and cognitive impairment following TIA and minor stroke:protocol paper
Approximately 20,000 people have a transient ischemic attack (TIA) and 23,375 have a minor stroke in England each year. Fatigue, psychological and cognitive impairments are well documented post-stroke. Evidence suggests that TIA and minor stroke patients also experience these impairments; however, they are not routinely offered relevant treatment. This systematic review aims to: (1) establish the prevalence of fatigue, anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and cognitive impairment following TIA and minor stroke and to investigate the temporal course of these impairments; (2) explore impact on quality of life (QoL), change in emotions and return to work; (3) identify where further research is required and to potentially inform an intervention study
Determinants of Fatigue after First-Ever Ischemic Stroke during Acute Phase
© 2014 The Authors. Published by PLOS. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0110037
A correction to the article was made on 19/12/2012: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.011646
Fast and precise map-making for massively multi-detector CMB experiments
Future cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarisation experiments aim to
measure an unprecedentedly small signal - the primordial gravity wave component
of the polarisation field B-mode. To achieve this, they will analyse huge
datasets, involving years worth of time-ordered data (TOD) from massively
multi-detector focal planes. This creates the need for fast and precise methods
to complement the M-L approach in analysis pipelines. In this paper, we
investigate fast map-making methods as applied to long duration, massively
multi-detector, ground-based experiments, in the context of the search for
B-modes. We focus on two alternative map-making approaches: destriping and TOD
filtering, comparing their performance on simulated multi-detector polarisation
data. We have written an optimised, parallel destriping code, the DEStriping
CARTographer DESCART, that is generalised for massive focal planes, including
the potential effect of cross-correlated TOD 1/f noise. We also determine the
scaling of computing time for destriping as applied to a simulated full-season
data-set for a realistic experiment. We find that destriping can out-perform
filtering in estimating both the large-scale E and B-mode angular power
spectra. In particular, filtering can produce significant spurious B-mode power
via EB mixing. Whilst this can be removed, it contributes to the variance of
B-mode bandpower estimates at scales near the primordial B-mode peak. For the
experimental configuration we simulate, this has an effect on the possible
detection significance for primordial B-modes. Destriping is a viable
alternative fast method to the full M-L approach that does not cause the
problems associated with filtering, and is flexible enough to fit into both M-L
and Monte-Carlo pseudo-Cl pipelines.Comment: 16 pages, 14 figures. MNRAS accepted. Typos corrected and computing
time/memory requirement orders-of-magnitude numbers in section 4 replaced by
precise number
CMBPol Mission Concept Study: Prospects for polarized foreground removal
In this report we discuss the impact of polarized foregrounds on a future
CMBPol satellite mission. We review our current knowledge of Galactic polarized
emission at microwave frequencies, including synchrotron and thermal dust
emission. We use existing data and our understanding of the physical behavior
of the sources of foreground emission to generate sky templates, and start to
assess how well primordial gravitational wave signals can be separated from
foreground contaminants for a CMBPol mission. At the estimated foreground
minimum of ~100 GHz, the polarized foregrounds are expected to be lower than a
primordial polarization signal with tensor-to-scalar ratio r=0.01, in a small
patch (~1%) of the sky known to have low Galactic emission. Over 75% of the sky
we expect the foreground amplitude to exceed the primordial signal by about a
factor of eight at the foreground minimum and on scales of two degrees. Only on
the largest scales does the polarized foreground amplitude exceed the
primordial signal by a larger factor of about 20. The prospects for detecting
an r=0.01 signal including degree-scale measurements appear promising, with 5
sigma_r ~0.003 forecast from multiple methods. A mission that observes a range
of scales offers better prospects from the foregrounds perspective than one
targeting only the lowest few multipoles. We begin to explore how optimizing
the composition of frequency channels in the focal plane can maximize our
ability to perform component separation, with a range of typically 40 < nu <
300 GHz preferred for ten channels. Foreground cleaning methods are already in
place to tackle a CMBPol mission data set, and further investigation of the
optimization and detectability of the primordial signal will be useful for
mission design.Comment: 42 pages, 14 figures, Foreground Removal Working Group contribution
to the CMBPol Mission Concept Study, v2, matches AIP versio
Early Life Socioeconomic Circumstance and Late Life Brain Hyperintensities : A Population Based Cohort Study
Funding: Image acquisition and image analysis for this study was funded by the Alzheimer's Research Trust (now Alzheimer's Research UK). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank the participants of the Aberdeen 1936 Birth Cohort (ABC36), without whom this research would not have been possible.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Hunting for health, well-being, and quality of life
Health, well-being, quality of life, and lifestyle are central concepts within health science, although generally accepted definitions are still lacking. Lifestyle can either be seen as an independent variable and the cause of unhealthy behaviour or as a dependent variable, which is affected by conditions in the society. In the first case, the attention is directed on each individual case: maintaining or improving health requires changes in lifestyle and living habits. In this perspective, diet and physical activity are important features for health promotion. In the second case the attention is rather directed on structural conditions in society, for example the food industry, the lunches for children at school, and the “fast food” industry should be influenced to protect human health. The structural perspective has, so far, received restricted impact when it concerns prevention and promotion of health. Processes of individualisation in the society have to an increasing extent viewed health as an affair for the individual. The benefits of physical activity, healthy food and beverage, social support, and joy are documented scientifically. In general, the trend towards increasing responsibility for one's lifestyle and health is positive, but might reinforce the inequality in health. With an even harder climate in society there might be a risk that individual health projects undermine the solidarity and the will to accept costs for medical treatment and care for people who risk their health through an unhealthy and risk-taking lifestyle. However, we argue that peoples’ well-being and quality of life presupposes a society that stands up for all people
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
Detection of the pairwise kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect with BOSS DR11 and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope
We present a new measurement of the kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect using
data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) and the Baryon Oscillation
Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). Using 600 square degrees of overlapping sky area,
we evaluate the mean pairwise baryon momentum associated with the positions of
50,000 bright galaxies in the BOSS DR11 Large Scale Structure catalog. A
non-zero signal arises from the large-scale motions of halos containing the
sample galaxies. The data fits an analytical signal model well, with the
optical depth to microwave photon scattering as a free parameter determining
the overall signal amplitude. We estimate the covariance matrix of the mean
pairwise momentum as a function of galaxy separation, using microwave sky
simulations, jackknife evaluation, and bootstrap estimates. The most
conservative simulation-based errors give signal-to-noise estimates between 3.6
and 4.1 for varying galaxy luminosity cuts. We discuss how the other error
determinations can lead to higher signal-to-noise values, and consider the
impact of several possible systematic errors. Estimates of the optical depth
from the average thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich signal at the sample galaxy
positions are broadly consistent with those obtained from the mean pairwise
momentum signal.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures, 2 table
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