Determinants of caregiving experiences and mental health of partners of cancer patients

BACKGROUND. Research regarding informal caregiving showed considerable individual variation in responses to cancer caregiving. The current longitudinal study examined determinants of caregiver outcomes in terms of caregiver experiences at 3 months and caregiver's mental health at 6 months after hospital discharge. It included both negative and positive dimensions of caregiving outcomes.METHODS. One hundred forty-eight patients with newly diagnosed colorectal carcinoma and their partners were included. Caregiver experiences were assessed by the Caregiver Reaction Assessment Scale, which contains four negative subscales (disrupted schedule, financial problems, lack of family support, and loss of physical strength) and one positive subscale (self-esteem). The mental health of the caregiver was assessed in terms of depression and quality of life. Possible determinants of the caregiver's experiences and mental health were categorized according to characteristics of the caregiver, the patient, and the care situation. Caregiving experiences were studied as a fourth additional category of possible determinants of the caregiver's mental health.RESULTS. Each domain of the caregiving experience was explained by different factors, with total explained variances ranging between 11-46%. Negative caregiver experiences were associated with a low income, living with only the patient, a distressed relationship, a high level of patient dependency, and a high involvement in caregiving tasks. Caregivers with a low level of education and caregivers of patients with a stoma were able to derive more self-esteem from caregiving. Although caregiving may lead to depression, especially in those experiencing loss of physical strength, caregivers may sustain their quality of life by deriving self-esteem from caregiving.CONCLUSIONS. It is important that professionals involved in the ongoing care of cancer patients and their families be aware of the increasing demands made on caregivers and the specific problems and uplifts they perceive in caregiving. Professional caregivers are urged to involve informal caregivers with care explicitly and continuously. However, specific attention to those caregivers who live only with the patient, those with a low income, those with a distressed relationship, and those with a high level of patient dependency and care involvement is warranted. Cancer 1999;86:577-88. (C) 1999 American Cancer Society.</p

Classification of α-synuclein-induced changes in the AAV α-synuclein rat model of Parkinson's disease using electrophysiological measurements of visual processing

Biomarkers suitable for early diagnosis and monitoring disease progression are the cornerstone of developing disease-modifying treatments for neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease (PD). Besides motor complications, PD is also characterized by deficits in visual processing. Here, we investigate how virally-mediated overexpression of α-synuclein in the substantia nigra pars compacta impacts visual processing in a well-established rodent model of PD. After a unilateral injection of vector, human α-synuclein was detected in the striatum and superior colliculus (SC). In parallel, there was a significant delay in the latency of the transient VEPs from the affected side of the SC in late stages of the disease. Inhibition of leucine-rich repeat kinase using PFE360 failed to rescue the VEP delay and instead increased the latency of the VEP waveform. A support vector machine classifier accurately classified rats according to their `disease state' using frequency-domain data from steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEP). Overall, these findings indicate that the latency of the rodent VEP is sensitive to changes mediated by the increased expression of α-synuclein and especially when full overexpression is obtained, whereas the SSVEP facilitated detection of α-synuclein across reflects all stages of PD model progression

Electron paramagnetic resonance signature of point defects in neutron-irradiated hexagonal boron nitride

© 2018 American Physical Society. Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) is an attractive van der Waals material for studying fluorescent defects due to its large band gap. In this work, we demonstrate enhanced pink color due to neutron irradiation and perform electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) measurements. The point defects are tentatively assigned to doubly occupied nitrogen vacancies with (S=1) and a zero-field splitting (D=1.2GHz). These defects are associated with a broad visible optical absorption band and a near-infrared photoluminescence band centered at ∼490 and 820 nm, respectively. The EPR signal intensities are strongly affected by thermal treatments in the temperature range between 600 °C and 800 °C, where also the irradiation-induced pink color is lost. Our results are important for understanding of point defects in h-BN and their deployment for quantum and integrated photonic applications