108 research outputs found
Pre-hospital emergency nurse specialist's experiences in caring for patients with non-specific chief complaints in the ambulance - A qualitative interview study
Background: Pre-hospital emergency nurse (PEN) specialists are faced with patients presenting with non-specific chief complaints (NSC) to the emergency medical service (EMS) on a daily basis. These patients are often elderly and one in three has a serious condition and their acuity is not recognized. Objective: The aim of the current study was to explore PEN specialists' experiences in caring for patients presenting with non-specific chief complaints. Design: A qualitative study design with eleven individual interviews of PENs, between 2018 and 2020. Qualitative content analysis was used. Results: The analyses generated three categories including subcategories. The categories were "Unexplained suffering". "Systematic approach and experience enhances medical safety". "Organizational processes can be optimized". The relation between the categories compiled as 'In-depth systematic assessment is perceived to reduce suffering and increases patient safety. Conclusion: The PENs experiences in caring for patients presenting with non-specific chief complaints show that an in-depth systematic assessment may lead to a meaningful caring encounter which enables the identification of the cause of the chief complaint. Experience and a systematic approach were considered as essential to enhance medical safety. This could be strengthened through feedback on the nurse's care provided by care managers and employers. To optimize organizational processes, the development of the opportunity to convey the patient to different levels of care can be an important component.Peer reviewe
GHRH secretion from a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor causing gigantism in a patient with MEN1.
Summary: A male patient with a germline mutation in MEN1 presented at the age of 18 with classical features of gigantism. Previously, he had undergone resection of an insulin-secreting pancreatic neuroendocrine tumour (pNET) at the age of 10 years and had subtotal parathyroidectomy due to primary hyperparathyroidism at the age of 15 years. He was found to have significantly elevated serum IGF-1, GH, GHRH and calcitonin levels. Pituitary MRI showed an overall bulky gland with a 3 mm hypoechoic area. Abdominal MRI showed a 27 mm mass in the head of the pancreas and a 6 mm lesion in the tail. Lanreotide-Autogel 120 mg/month reduced GHRH by 45% and IGF-1 by 20%. Following pancreaticoduodenectomy, four NETs were identified with positive GHRH and calcitonin staining and Ki-67 index of 2% in the largest lesion. The pancreas tail lesion was not removed. Post-operatively, GHRH and calcitonin levels were undetectable, IGF-1 levels normalised and GH suppressed normally on glucose challenge. Post-operative fasting glucose and HbA1c levels have remained normal at the last check-up. While adolescent-onset cases of GHRH-secreting pNETs have been described, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first reported case of ectopic GHRH in a paediatric setting leading to gigantism in a patient with MEN1. Our case highlights the importance of distinguishing between pituitary and ectopic causes of gigantism, especially in the setting of MEN1, where paediatric somatotroph adenomas causing gigantism are extremely rare. Learning points: It is important to diagnose gigantism and its underlying cause (pituitary vs ectopic) early in order to prevent further growth and avoid unnecessary pituitary surgery. The most common primary tumour sites in ectopic acromegaly include the lung (53%) and the pancreas (34%) (1): 76% of patients with a pNET secreting GHRH showed a MEN1 mutation (1). Plasma GHRH testing is readily available in international laboratories and can be a useful diagnostic tool in distinguishing between pituitary acromegaly mediated by GH and ectopic acromegaly mediated by GHRH. Positive GHRH immunostaining in the NET tissue confirms the diagnosis. Distinguishing between pituitary (somatotroph) hyperplasia secondary to ectopic GHRH and pituitary adenoma is difficult and requires specialist neuroradiology input and consideration, especially in the MEN1 setting. It is important to note that the vast majority of GHRH-secreting tumours (lung, pancreas, phaeochromocytoma) are expected to be visible on cross-sectional imaging (median diameter 55 mm) (1). Therefore, we suggest that a chest X-ray and an abdominal ultrasound checking the adrenal glands and the pancreas should be included in the routine work-up of newly diagnosed acromegaly patients
The trace left by signature-change-induced compactification
Recently, it has been shown that an infinite succession of classical
signature changes (''signature oscillations'') can compactify and stabilize
internal dimensions, and simultaneously leads, after a coarse graining type of
average procedure, to an effective (''physical'') space-time geometry
displaying the usual Lorentzian metric signature. Here, we consider a minimally
coupled scalar field on such an oscillating background and study its effective
dynamics. It turns out that the resulting field equation in four dimensions
contains a coupling to some non-metric structure, the imprint of the
''microscopic'' signature oscillations on the effective properties of matter.
In a multidimensional FRW model, this structure is identical to a massive
scalar field evolving in its homogeneous mode.Comment: 15 pages, LaTeX, no figure
Dilaton Contributions to the Cosmic Gravitational Wave Background
We consider the cosmological amplification of a metric perturbation
propagating in a higher-dimensional Brans-Dicke background, including a non
trivial dilaton evolution. We discuss the properties of the spectral energy
density of the produced gravitons (as well as of the associated squeezing
parameter), and we show that the present observational bounds on the graviton
spectrum provide significant information on the dynamical evolution of the
early universe.Comment: 26 pages, plain tex (to appear in Phys.Rev.D, 1 fig available from
the authors upon req.
Fast Algorithms For Josephson Junction Arrays : Bus--bars and Defects
We critically review the fast algorithms for the numerical study of
two--dimensional Josephson junction arrays and develop the analogy of such
systems with electrostatics. We extend these procedures to arrays with
bus--bars and defects in the form of missing bonds. The role of boundaries and
of the guage choice in determing the Green's function of the system is
clarified. The extension of the Green's function approach to other situations
is also discussed.Comment: Uuencoded 1 Revtex file (11 Pages), 3 Figures : Postscript Uuencode
Accelerating Universes in String Theory via Field Redefinition
We study cosmological solutions in the effective heterotic string theory with
-correction terms in string frame. It is pointed out that the
effective theory has an ambiguity via field redefinition and we analyze
generalized effective theories due to this ambiguity. We restrict our analysis
to the effective theories which give equations of motion of second order in the
derivatives, just as "Galileon" field theory. This class of effective actions
contains two free coupling constants. We find de Sitter solutions as well as
the power-law expanding universes in our four-dimensional Einstein frame. The
accelerated expanding universes are always the attractors in the present
dynamical system.Comment: 22 pages, 3 figures, some additional formulae adde
Scalar and Tensor Inhomogeneities from Dimensional Decoupling
We discuss some perturbative techniques suitable for the gauge-invariant
treatment of the scalar and tensor inhomogeneities of an anisotropic and
homogeneous background geometry whose spatial section naturally decomposes into
the direct product of two maximally symmetric Eucledian manifolds, describing a
general situation of dimensional decoupling in which external dimensions
evolve (in conformal time) with scale factor and internal
dimensions evolve with scale factor . We analyze the growing mode
problem which typically arises in contracting backgrounds and we focus our
attention on the situation where the amplitude of the fluctuations not only
depends on the external space-time but also on the internal spatial
coordinates. In order to illustrate the possible relevance of this analysis we
compute the gravity waves spectrum produced in some highly simplified model of
cosmological evolution and we find that the spectral amplitude, whose magnitude
can be constrained by the usual bounds applied to the stochastic gravity waves
backgrounds, depends on the curvature scale at which the compactification
occurs and also on the typical frequency of the internal excitations.Comment: 31 pages, Latex, DAMTP 96-92, UCM 96-04, to appear in Phys. Rev. D 55
(1997
Dynamical Compactification, Standard Cosmology and the Accelerating Universe
A cosmological model based on Kaluza-Klein theory is studied. A metric, in
which the scale factor of the compact space evolves as an inverse power of the
radius of the observable universe, is constructed. The
Freedmann-Robertson-Walker equations of standard four-dimensional cosmology are
obtained precisely. The pressure in our universe is an effective pressure
expressed in terms of the components of the higher dimensional energy-momentum
tensor. In particular, this effective pressure could be negative and might
therefore explain the acceleration of our present universe. A special feature
of this model is that, for a suitable choice of the parameters of the metric,
the higher dimensional gravitational coupling constant could be negative.Comment: 11 pages, uses revte
Metric Perturbations in Dilaton-Driven Inflation
We compute the spectrum of scalar and tensor metric perturbations generated,
as amplified vacuum fluctuations, during an epoch of dilaton-driven inflation
of the type occurring naturally in string cosmology. In the tensor case the
computation is straightforward while, in the scalar case, it is made delicate
by the appearance of a growing mode in the familiar longitudinal gauge. In
spite of this, a reliable perturbative calculation of perturbations far outside
the horizon can be performed by resorting either to appropriate gauge invariant
variables, or to a new coordinate system in which the growing mode can be
"gauged down". The simple outcome of this complicated analysis is that both
scalar and tensor perturbations exhibit nearly Planckian spectra, whose common
"temperature" is related to some very basic parameters of the string-cosmology
background.Comment: 34 pages, latex, no figure
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