Telephone-delivered nutrition and exercise counselling after auto-SCT: A pilot, randomised controlled trial

Adverse changes in nutrition-related outcomes including quality of life (QoL) occur after PBSC transplantation. This randomised controlled trial aims to evaluate the impact of nutrition and exercise counselling provided at hospital discharge on nutritional status, body composition and QoL post transplantation. Usual care (UC) (n=19) received no intervention after discharge; extended care (EC) (n=18) received fortnightly telephone counselling from a dietitian and exercise physiologist up to 100 days post transplantation. Nutritional status (patient-generated subjective global assessment, and diet history), QoL (EORTC QLQ-C30 version 3) and body composition (air displacement plethysmography) were assessed at pre-admission, discharge and 100 days post transplantation. Intervention groups were compared using two-sample t-tests of changes in the outcomes; results were adjusted using analysis of covariance. EC exhibited clinically important but not statistically significant increases in protein intake (14.7 g; confidence interval (CI) 95%-6.5, 35.9, P=0.165), cognitive functioning (7.2; CI 95%-7.9, 22.2, P=0.337) and social functioning (16.5; CI 95%-7.3, 40.3, P=0.165) compared with UC. Relative to pre-admission, EC experienced less weight loss than UC (-3.3 kg; CI 95%-6.7, 0.2, P=0.062). Physical activity was not significantly different between the groups. Ongoing nutrition and exercise counselling may prevent further weight loss and improve dietary intake and certain QoL components in autologous PBSC transplantation patients following hospitalisation

Global teacher recruitment as a challenge to the goal of universal primary education

The second of the Millennium Goals agreed to by the United Nations General Assembly in 2000 was universal, high-quality primary education for all children. The inclusion of universal primary education is a recognition that education plays a crucial role in the alleviation of poverty and the promotion of peace and security; however, the UN Millennium Project team estimates that there are more than 100 million primary age children not attending school for a variety of reasons (UN Millennium Project 2005). In most cases their families are too poor to afford the costs involved, in many cases their labour or their income is needed at home, in others there is no school available, but increasingly children are prevented from attaining full primary education because there are insufficient teachers to staff schools adequately (see also Zajda et al. 2008). The implications of the projected shortage are very serious as an inability to provide appropriate education will prevent many of the poorest nations from implementing poverty reduction strategies and exacerbate the gap between the developed and less-developed nations (Zajda 2005). Moreover, as poverty increases social and political instabilities are likely to increase as the most vulnerable citizens of the poorest nations see any hope of a solution to their distress receding