503 research outputs found
Pharmacists' clinical roles and activities in inpatient hospice and palliative care: a scoping review.
BACKGROUND
Pharmacists contribute to medication safety by providing their services in various settings. However, standardized definitions of the role of pharmacists in hospice and palliative care (HPC) are lacking.
AIM
The purpose of this scoping review was to provide an overview of the evidence on the role of pharmacists and to map clinical activities in inpatient HPC.
METHOD
We performed a scoping review according to the PRISMA-ScR extension in CINAHL, Embase, and PubMed. We used the American Society of Hospital Pharmacists (ASHP) Guidelines on the Pharmacist's Role in Palliative and Hospice Care as a framework for standardized categorization of the identified roles and clinical activities.
RESULTS
After screening 635 records (published after January 1st, 2000), the scoping review yielded 23 publications reporting various pharmacy services in HPC. The articles addressed the five main categories in the following descending order: 'Medication order review and reconciliation', 'Medication counseling, education and training', 'Administrative Roles', 'Direct patient care', and 'Education and scholarship'. A total of 172 entries were mapped to the subcategories that were added to the main categories.
CONCLUSION
This scoping review identified a variety of pharmacists' roles and clinical activities. The gathered evidence will help to establish and define the role of pharmacists in inpatient hospice and palliative care
Prescription Trends in Hospice Care: A Longitudinal Retrospective and Descriptive Medication Analysis.
BACKGROUND
In hospice and palliative care, drug therapy is essential for symptom control. However, drug regimens are complex and prone to drug-related problems. Drug regimens must be simplified to improve quality of life and reduce risks associated with drug-related problems, particularly at end-of-life. To support clinical guidance towards a safe and effective drug therapy in hospice care, it is important to understand prescription trends.
OBJECTIVES
To explore prescription trends and describe changes to drug regimens in inpatient hospice care.
DESIGN
We performed a retrospective longitudinal and descriptive analysis of prescriptions for regular and as-needed (PRN) medication at three timepoints in deceased patients of one Swiss hospice.
SETTING/SUBJECTS
Prescription records of all patients ( 18 years) with an inpatient stay of three days and longer (admission and time of death in 2020) were considered eligible for inclusion.
RESULTS
Prescription records of 58 inpatients (average age 71.7 ± 12.8 [37-95] years) were analyzed. The medication analysis showed that polypharmacy prevalence decreased from 74.1% at admission to 13.8% on the day of death. For regular medication, overall numbers of prescriptions decreased over the patient stay while PRN medication decreased after the first consultation by the attending physician and increased slightly towards death.
CONCLUSIONS
Prescription records at admission revealed high initial rates of polypharmacy that were reduced steadily until time of death. These findings emphasize the importance of deprescribing at end-of-life and suggest pursuing further research on the contribution of clinical guidance towards optimizing drug therapy and deprescribing in inpatient hospice care
Emergency Department as an epidemiological observatory of Human Mobility: the experience of the Moroccan population
We conducted a retrospective study of the accesses to the Emergency Department registered from January 2000 to December 2014 in 5 major hospitals in the Metropolitan Area of Rome. We extrapolated data relating to patients of Moroccan origin from about 5 million total accesses, so we compared with Italians data which, in the same period, came to ED.
The Moroccan population is distinguished by a larger number of diagnoses belonging to the ICD-9 code of Infectious Diseases and, more precisely, to Respiratory Infectious Diseases. There are also no differences in the assignment of such diagnoses to Moroccans with Italian citizenship, and this led to think that this could play an important role in the use of the ED and moreover that enrollment to the National Health Service may reduce its inappropriate use.
Regarding to Degenerative Disorders, the result of our analysis is quite emblematic, showing that the accesses to the ED is due to Cardiovascular Diseases: 6.33% of Italians' accesses against 1.81% of Moroccans and 2.36% of Moroccans with Italian citizenship. The main explanation for this difference is, obviously, due to the age of the population: about 60% of Moroccans who accessed to ED was less than 40 years old.
It is interesting how, in the field of ​​Cardiovascular Diseases, Moroccans have a lower percentage of diagnosis compared to Italians for acute diseases and a greater percentage of diagnoses for chronic diseases, suggesting once again that accesses to ED for migrants often is due to the inability to use the general services of the National Health Service.
In conclusion, from the point of view of the Emergency Department, Migration Medicine still has Infectious Diseases as the main reason for access. Degenerative Disorders remain a prerogative of the Italians, but we could certainly assume that the Moroccan population would develop at some point with the aging
Low energy high angular resolution neutral atom detection by means of micro-shuttering techniques: the BepiColombo SERENA/ELENA sensor
The neutral sensor ELENA (Emitted Low-Energy Neutral Atoms) for the ESA
cornerstone BepiColombo mission to Mercury (in the SERENA instrument package)
is a new kind of low energetic neutral atoms instrument, mostly devoted to
sputtering emission from planetary surfaces, from E ~20 eV up to E~5 keV,
within 1-D (2x76 deg). ELENA is a Time-of-Flight (TOF) system, based on
oscillating shutter (operated at frequencies up to a 100 kHz) and mechanical
gratings: the incoming neutral particles directly impinge upon the entrance
with a definite timing (START) and arrive to a STOP detector after a flight
path. After a brief dissertation on the achievable scientific objectives, this
paper describes the instrument, with the new design techniques approached for
the neutral particles identification and the nano-techniques used for designing
and manufacturing the nano-structure shuttering core of the ELENA sensor. The
expected count-rates, based on the Hermean environment features, are shortly
presented and discussed. Such design technologies could be fruitfully exported
to different applications for planetary exploration.Comment: 11 page
Organic electrochemical neurons and synapses with ion mediated spiking
Future brain-machine interfaces, prosthetics, and intelligent soft robotics
will require integrating artificial neuromorphic devices with biological
systems. Due to their poor biocompatibility, circuit complexity, low energy
efficiency, and operating principles fundamentally different from the ion
signal modulation of biology, traditional Silicon-based neuromorphic
implementations have limited bio-integration potential. Here, we report the
first organic electrochemical neurons (OECNs) with ion-modulated spiking, based
on allprinted complementary organic electrochemical transistors. We demonstrate
facile biointegration of OECNs with Venus Flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) to induce
lobe closure upon input stimuli. The OECNs can also be integrated with
all-printed organic electrochemical synapses (OECSs), exhibiting short-term
plasticity with paired-pulse facilitation and longterm plasticity with
retention >1000 s, facilitating Hebbian learning. These soft and flexible OECNs
operate below 0.6 V and respond to multiple stimuli, defining a new vista for
localized artificial neuronal systems possible to integrate with bio-signaling
systems of plants, invertebrates, and vertebrates
Chapter 16 - Cross-cutting investment and finance issues
This is the first time an assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) contains a chapter dedicated to investment and finance to address climate change. This reflects the growing awareness of the relevance of these issues for the design of efficient and effective climate policies
Rational Materials Design for In Operando Electropolymerization of Evolvable Organic Electrochemical Transistors
Organic electrochemical transistors formed by in operando
electropolymerization of the semiconducting channel are increasingly becoming
recognized as a simple and effective implementation of synapses in neuromorphic
hardware. However, very few studies have reported the requirements that must be
met to ensure that the polymer spreads along the substrate to form a functional
conducting channel. The nature of the interface between the substrate and
various monomer precursors of conducting polymers through molecular dynamics
simulations is investigated, showing that monomer adsorption to the substrate
produces an increase in the effective monomer concentration at the surface. By
evaluating combinatorial couples of monomers baring various sidechains with
differently functionalized substrates, it is shown that the interactions
between the substrate and the monomer precursor control the lateral growth of a
polymer film along an inert substrate. This effect has implications for
fabricating synaptic systems on inexpensive, flexible substrates
Synergistic Effect of Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes and Ladder-Type Conjugated Polymers on the Performance of N-Type Organic Electrochemical Transistors
Organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) have the potential to
revolutionize the field of organic bioelectronics. To date, most of the
reported OECTs include p-type (semi-)conducting polymers as the channel
material, while n-type OECTs are yet at an early stage of development, with the
best performing electron-transporting materials still suffering from low
transconductance, low electron mobility, and slow response time. Here, the high
electrical conductivity of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and the large
volumetric capacitance of the ladder-type {\pi}-conjugated redox polymer
poly(benzimidazobenzophenanthroline) (BBL) are leveraged to develop n-type
OECTs with record-high performance. It is demonstrated that the use of MWCNTs
enhances the electron mobility by more than one order of magnitude, yielding
fast transistor transient response (down to 15 ms) and high uC* (electron
mobility x volumetric capacitance) of about 1 F/cmVs. This enables the
development of complementary inverters with a voltage gain of > 16 and a large
worst-case noise margin at a supply voltage of < 0.6 V, while consuming less
than 1 uW of power
A Search for Jet Handedness in Hadronic Decays
We have searched for signatures of polarization in hadronic jets from decays using the ``jet handedness'' method. The polar angle
asymmetry induced by the high SLC electron-beam polarization was used to
separate quark jets from antiquark jets, expected to be left- and
right-polarized, respectively. We find no evidence for jet handedness in our
global sample or in a sample of light quark jets and we set upper limits at the
95% C.L. of 0.063 and 0.099 respectively on the magnitude of the analyzing
power of the method proposed by Efremov {\it et al.}Comment: Revtex, 8 pages, 2 figure
Antipsychotics and Torsadogenic Risk: Signals Emerging from the US FDA Adverse Event Reporting System Database
Background: Drug-induced torsades de pointes (TdP) and related clinical entities represent a current regulatory and clinical burden. Objective: As part of the FP7 ARITMO (Arrhythmogenic Potential of Drugs) project, we explored the publicly available US FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) database to detect signals of torsadogenicity for antipsychotics (APs). Methods: Four groups of events in decreasing order of drug-attributable risk were identified: (1) TdP, (2) QT-interval abnormalities, (3) ventricular fibrillation/tachycardia, and (4) sudden cardiac death. The reporting odds ratio (ROR) with 95 % confidence interval (CI) was calculated through a cumulative analysis from group 1 to 4. For groups 1+2, ROR was adjusted for age, gender, and concomitant drugs (e.g., antiarrhythmics) and stratified for AZCERT drugs, lists I and II (http://www.azcert.org, as of June 2011). A potential signal of torsadogenicity was defined if a drug met all the following criteria: (a) four or more cases in group 1+2; (b) significant ROR in group 1+2 that persists through the cumulative approach; (c) significant adjusted ROR for group 1+2 in the stratum without AZCERT drugs; (d) not included in AZCERT lists (as of June 2011). Results: Over the 7-year period, 37 APs were reported in 4,794 cases of arrhythmia: 140 (group 1), 883 (group 2), 1,651 (group 3), and 2,120 (group 4). Based on our criteria, the following potential signals of torsadogenicity were found: amisulpride (25 cases; adjusted ROR in the stratum without AZCERT drugs = 43.94, 95 % CI 22.82-84.60), cyamemazine (11; 15.48, 6.87-34.91), and olanzapine (189; 7.74, 6.45-9.30). Conclusions: This pharmacovigilance analysis on the FAERS found 3 potential signals of torsadogenicity for drugs previously unknown for this risk
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