Meghan Murphy-Lee

Murphy-Lee served in Student Senate and so recalls getting to know Myers through Board of Trustee meetings and that he took an interest in her desire to be a contract Russian major. Myers and Dr. Marina Balina helped her achieve her goals and served as models of scholarly behavior for students

When the trial ends: the case for post-trial provisions in clinical psychedelic research

The ethical value—and to some scholars, necessity—of providing trial patients with post-trial access (PTA) to an investigational drug has been subject to significant attention in the field of research ethics. Although no consensus has emerged, it seems clear that, in some trial contexts, various factors make PTA particularly appropriate. We outline the atypical aspects of psychedelic clinical trials that support the case for introducing the provision of PTA within research in this field, including the broader legal status of psychedelics, the nature of the researcher-therapist/participant relationship, and the extended time-frame of the full therapeutic process. As is increasingly understood, the efficacy of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is driven as much by extrapharmacological elements and the cultural therapeutic container as by the drug itself. As such, we also advocate for a refocusing of attention from post-trial access to a broader concept encompassing other elements of post-trial care. We provide an overview of some of the potential post-trial care provisions that may be appropriate in psychedelic clinical trials. Although the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki calls on researchers, sponsors, and governments to make provisions for post-trial access, such provision may feel impracticable or out-of-reach within psychedelic trials that are already constrained by a high resource demand and significant bureaucratic burden. We show how conceiving of post-trial provision as an integral site of the research process, and an appropriate destination for research funding, will serve to develop the infrastructure necessary for the post-legalisation psychedelic medicine ecosystem

The health profile of people living with Parkinson\u27s Disease managed in a comprehensive care setting

Background: Globally there are few reports of the impairments, disabilities and medications used in people living with idiopathic Parkinson’s disease. Caregiver characteristics and caregiver burden have seldom been reported. We examined the health status in a large cohort of people living with Parkinson’s disease and their caregivers managed in a comprehensive health care setting. Methods/Design: A prospective, cross sectional analysis of impairments, disabilities and Parkinson’s disease medication use was conducted in a sample of 100 people with Parkinson’s disease rated I-IV on the modified Hoehn & Yahr scale. Participants were recruited from the Victorian Comprehensive Parkinson Program in Melbourne, Australia. Their caregivers were invited to provide their views on the burden of care, services provided and support received. Results: The severity of impairments and disabilities was strongly associated with disease duration (mean of 5.5 years). Those with long standing disease or more severe disease also used more Parkinson’s disease medications and participated in fewer social roles than people who were newly diagnosed or mildly affected. The severity of impairments was strongly correlated with limitations in performing activities of daily living. Limitations in performing daily activities were also found to be a significant contributing factor for health-related quality of life (PDQ-39 SI β=0.55, p=0.000; EQ-5D SI β=0.43, p=0.001). People with Parkinson’s disease lived at home with relatives. The average caregiver was a spouse or child providing approximately 3.5 hours of care per day, with the capacity to provide 9.4 hours per day and had provided care for four years. Additional support was high (63%) for 2.5 hours per day. Conclusion: The comprehensive care setting of this cohort describes a relatively benign condition despite a wide range of disease duration and severity. This report provides a baseline with which to compare other delivery models

Feasibility, Safety, and Compliance in a Randomized Controlled Trial of Physical Therapy for Parkinson's Disease

Both efficacy and clinical feasibility deserve consideration in translation of research outcomes. This study evaluated the feasibility of rehabilitation programs within the context of a large randomized controlled trial of physical therapy. Ambulant participants with Parkinson's disease (PD) (n = 210) were randomized into three groups: (1) progressive strength training (PST); (2) movement strategy training (MST); or (3) control (“life skills”). PST and MST included fall prevention education. Feasibility was evaluated in terms of safety, retention, adherence, and compliance measures. Time to first fall during the intervention phase did not differ across groups, and adverse effects were minimal. Retention was high; only eight participants withdrew during or after the intervention phase. Strong adherence (attendance >80%) did not differ between groups (P = .435). Compliance in the therapy groups was high. All three programs proved feasible, suggesting they may be safely implemented for people with PD in community-based clinical practice

The Grizzly, February 12, 2004

Spread of Deadly Bird Flu Sparks Fear • Ursinus Club Spotlight: UC Forensics Team is Gaining Recognition Quickly • Buddhist Monks Visit UC • Fellowships Worth up to $24,000 Available for Future Teachers • Opinions: Graduation: Light at the End of the Tunnel or End of the Road?; Janet\u27s Super-boob Incident; Bahama Breeze: Taste of a Caribbean Spring Break; Icy Issues in Letters to the Editor • Stanton Drops 55 Points • Show Me the Money: Should College Athletes be Paid?https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1553/thumbnail.jp

Forest fire management, climate change, and the risk of catastrophic carbon losses

Approaches to management of fireprone forests are undergoing rapid change, driven by recognition that technological attempts to subdue fire at large scales (fire suppression) are ecologically and economically unsustainable. However, our current framework for intervention excludes the full scope of the fire management problem within the broader context of fire−vegetation−climate interactions. Climate change may already be causing unprecedented fire activity, and even if current fires are within the historical range of variability, models predict that current fire management problems will be compounded by more frequent extreme fire-conducive weather conditions (eg Fried et al. 2004)

Cost of living with Parkinson\u27s disease over 12 months in Australia: a prospective cohort study

Background. Parkinson disease (PD) is a costly chronic condition in terms of managing both motor and nonmotor symptoms. The burden of disease is high for individuals, caregivers, and the health system. The aim of this study is to estimate the annual cost of PD from the household, health system, and societal perspectives. Methods. A prospective cohort study of newly referred people with PD to a specialist PD clinic in Melbourne, Australia. Participants completed baseline and monthly health resource use questionnaires and Medicare data were collected over 12 months. Results. 87 patients completed the 12-month follow-up assessments. The mean annual cost per person to the health care system was $32,556 AUD. The burden to society was an additional$45,000 per annum per person with PD. The largest component of health system costs were for hospitalisation (69% of total costs). The costs for people with moderate to severe disease were almost 4 times those with mild PD ($63,569 versus$17,537 p < 0.001 ). Conclusion. PD is associated with significant costs to individuals and to society. Costs escalated with disease severity suggesting that the burden to society is likely to grow with the increasing disease prevalence that is associated with population ageing

On Divestment

Foreword to On Divestment The writings collected here are an online supplement to a class zine title On Divestment. The zine and online archive were conceived, written, and designed by the members of the Spring 2015 Literature and Environment course (ENGL 374) at the University of Puget Sound. Considerations of timeliness and sustainability encouraged us to keep the size of the printed zine compact by including only excerpts of each author’s work; the zine is in a sense an advertisement for the more substantial body of writing that you find here on Sound Ideas, which reproduces student creative work in its entirety. Informed by our study of works of ecocriticism such as Rob Nixon’s Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (Harvard UP, 2011), which explores the role that imaginative writing can play in illuminating ecological issues, our class seized the opportunity of a collaborative final project to see how students’ own writing—whether creative, critical, or some combination of the two—might engage with a topical environmental concern. The selection of a final project was arrived at through a democratic process. Working in groups of five individuals, students presented proposals for a final project, arguing both for the primacy of the environmental concern they selected and the efficacy of the writing task they were asking the class to undertake. All the proposals were excellent, but the class had to settle on a single undertaking; the project that students ultimately selected was the fossil fuel divestment movement, currently a topic of debate on many university campuses, including the University of Puget Sound. Largely led by students, this ongoing environmental movement encourages colleges and universities to divest their endowment holdings from companies whose primary business is fossil fuel. Since we knew from recent reportage in The Trail that UPS’s own ECO Club is advocating for fossil fuel divestment, we invited ECO Club representatives to speak to the class. From their visit, we learned about the broad contours of the divestment movement. Observing that the majority of scientists understand anthropogenic climate change to be the result of burning fossil fuels, the divestment movement argues that colleges and universities should exert pressure on these companies by withdrawing their investments from them. Several universities have already made commitments to divest some component of their endowment, among them Stanford University, Pitzer College, and the University of Glasgow, and campaigns to do so are underway at other institutions of higher learning, as well as many cities and municipalities. In formalizing the class proposal into an assignment, the terms were intentionally crafted to remain open-ended and non-prescriptive. Students were invited simply “to create a work of literature or literary analysis that engages with the issue of university fossil fuel divestment.” (Students could also opt out of the zine and write a more conventional final essay). Here are some excerpts from an email that I sent to the class elaborating on this non-traditional assignment. There\u27s a quotation by W.B. Yeats that strikes me as relevant here: Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry. What I understand Yeats to mean is that honest creative writing explores its subject, rather than argues a pre-established position. (For his word poetry in that quotation, you could equally substitute drama, or fiction, creative nonfiction, etc.) Our goal is to write literature, not propaganda . . . . While the work you create should shed light on some aspect of the divestment issue, it needn\u27t do so directly. In fact, it’s possible to shed light on the issue without even mentioning the word “divestment.” Consider, for example, the first novel we read this semester, Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. That novel engages with a host of environmental topics, among them global climate change, genetic engineering, population growth, the treatment of animals, and environmental justice. It doesn\u27t tell the reader what to do or think about any of these issues; rather, it explores them imaginatively, but it does so in a way that I believe encourages readers to be more reflective about each of those issues than they were before starting the novel. It sheds light on these issues. [K]eep in mind that this assignment does not expect that you will take a particular position. It does not assume that you will create a work of literature or literary criticism that is “for” fossil fuel divestment. (I\u27m not even sure that a work of art can ever be “for” or “against” a particular action. Is Oryx and Crake for or against the human manipulation of the environment? Who knows?—it\u27s a work of imaginative writing that tells a story. Readers can engage their own sense of values based upon the encounter with the imaginative work). I hope that this advice is helpful and that you feel authorized to write freely. I created the opportunity for the assignment because I believe that your voice—both individually and collectively—does matter and I wanted to facilitate a way for it to be heard, in however modest a fashion. What that voice says is entirely up to you. Those twenty voices from the class combine to form the collective voice you encounter here in the Sound Ideas archive On Divestment. On behalf of the writers and critics in ENGL 374, I invite you explore these remarkable poems, short stories, essays, and plays in their entirety. Best wishes, Prof. William Kupinse Department of Englis

The Grizzly, October 9, 2003

Choose to Reuse: Recycling at Ursinus • Volunteer Program Breaks the Bank • Get Registered to Get Out the Vote • Meet the Democratic Candidates for President • A Look at the Response to Rape at Ursinus • Opinions: How Safe do we Feel?; Out of the Middle East: End of a Journey; Text Messaging Behind Your S.O.\u27s Back; New Addiction: AIM; Domo Arigato, Dr. Roboto • Guster: Having Fun Being Young • Halloween Fun Around Collegeville • The Eger Gateway • Field Hockey Still Undefeated in Conference Play • Ursinus XC Takes on Div. 1 and 2 Opponents • Volleyball Splits First C.C Matches • Women\u27s Soccer Continues to Impress • Men\u27s Soccer Trying to Battle • Josh Kemp: Changing the Record Bookshttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1544/thumbnail.jp

The Grizzly, October 2, 2003

Sexual Assault Reported on Campus • Water Worries Burst in Reimert • Senior in the Market for Success • Tough Crowd: Bush Speaks to the United Nations • Opinions: Out of the Middle East, Part 4; Pharming: The Scariest New Drug Fad; To Tan or Not to Tan?; Maples-palooza! • Is Collegeville Boring? • Smart Shopping • CAB Events • The Glory of Ursinus: Bomberger Memorial Hall • Bears Obliterate Mt. Ida, 47-0 • Women\u27s Soccer Take Two • Volleyball Ends Losing Streak • Bears Overtake Quakers in Hockey Season Opener • Japanese Women Wrestlers • UC Field Hockey Team Continues Domination in C.C. Play • Ursinus XC Invades Celtic Fest 2003https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1543/thumbnail.jp