The pandemic toll and post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 in healthcare workers at a Swiss University Hospital.

Healthcare workers have potentially been among the most exposed to SARS-CoV-2 infection as well as the deleterious toll of the pandemic. This study has the objective to differentiate the pandemic toll from post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection in healthcare workers compared to the general population. The study was conducted between April and July 2021 at the Geneva University Hospitals, Switzerland. Eligible participants were all tested staff, and outpatient individuals tested for SARS-CoV-2 at the same hospital. The primary outcome was the prevalence of symptoms in healthcare workers compared to the general population, with measures of COVID-related symptoms and functional impairment, using prevalence estimates and multivariable logistic regression models. Healthcare workers (n=3,083) suffered mostly from fatigue (25.5%), headache (10.0%), difficulty concentrating (7.9%), exhaustion/burnout (7.1%), insomnia (6.2%), myalgia (6.7%) and arthralgia (6.3%). Regardless of SARS-CoV-2 infection, all symptoms were significantly higher in healthcare workers than the general population (n=3,556). SARS-CoV-2 infection in healthcare workers was associated with loss or change in smell, loss or change in taste, palpitations, dyspnea, difficulty concentrating, fatigue, and headache. Functional impairment was more significant in healthcare workers compared to the general population (aOR 2.28; 1.76-2.96), with a positive association with SARS-CoV-2 infection (aOR 3.81; 2.59-5.60). Symptoms and functional impairment in healthcare workers were increased compared to the general population, and potentially related to the pandemic toll as well as post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection. These findings are of concern, considering the essential role of healthcare workers in caring for all patients including and beyond COVID-19

Troubles du rythme liés à l'administration des inhibiteurs de la tyrosine kinase dans la leucémie myéloïde chronique

Le cas présenté dans l'article référencé permet de soupçonner un lien de l'ordre du probable selon l'organisation mondiale de la santé (OMS), entre le dasatinib (Sprycel®) et une arythmie ventriculaire. En complément, cette thèse fait le point sur les connaissances médicales actuelles quant aux arythmies cardiaques potentiellement liées aux inhibiteurs de tyrosine kinases. Selon la base de données mondiale de l'OMS sur les effets secondaires des médicaments, des centaines de cas ont été déclarés en lien avec des arythmies, mais il s'agit uniquement de cas déclarés spontanément sans étude ni mesure du lien de causalité avec les inhibiteurs de tyrosine kinases. Aucun essai randomisé ou étude clinique de phase III n'a été élaboré pour étudier ce type d'effet secondaire. Le présent travail renforce la recommandation d'effectuer un ECG sous traitement d'inhibiteur de tyrosine kinases et suggère un suivi attentif des potentiels effets secondaires arythmogènes

BabelDr: A Web Platform for Rapid Construction of Phrasebook-Style Medical Speech Translation Applications

BabelDr (http://babeldr.unige.ch/) is a joint project of Geneva's Faculty of Translation and Interpretation (FTI) and University Hospitals (HUG), that has been active since July 2015. The goal is to develop methods that allow rapid prototyping of medium-vocabulary web-enabled medical speech translators, with particular emphasis on languages spoken by victims of the current European refugee crisis. A demonstrator system freely available on the project site translates spoken French medical examination questions into four languages

Creating an Online Translation Platform to Build Target Language Resources for a Medical Phraselator

In emergency and immigrant health service departments, medical professionals frequently have no language in common with a patient. When no interpreter is available, doctors need another means of collecting patient anamneses. Machine translation was shown to be dangerous and is not available for all languages. BabelDr, a speech-enabled phraselator, was developed for this purpose in a collaboration of the Geneva University Hospitals (HUG) and the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting of Geneva University. In this paper, we focus on the development of the target language resources for the BabelDr system

Vers une communication médicale adaptée aux personnes sourdes.Le projet BabelDr et les personnages virtuels en langue des signes française de Suisse romande

Nous présentons ici nos recherches dans le développement de technologies de communication accessible en milieu médical, plus précisément de personnages virtuels en langue des signes pour un service d’urgence ambulatoire. L’étude que nous menons se situe dans le cadre du projet d’assistant de communication multilingue BabelDr, qui est le fruit d’une collaboration entre le service ambulatoire des Hôpitaux universitaires de Genève (HUG) et la Faculté de Traduction et d’Interprétation (FTI) de l’Université de Genèv

Enhancing Speech Translation in Medical Emergencies with Pictographs

In emergency care settings, there is a crucial need for automated translation tools. We focus here on the BabelDr system, a speech-enabled fixed-phrase translator used to improve communication in emergency settings between doctors and allophone patients. The aim of the chapter is two-fold. First, we will assess if a bidirectional version of the phraselator allowing patients to answer doctors’ questions by selecting pictures from open-source databases will improve user satisfaction. Second, we wish to evaluate pictograph usability in this context. Our hypotheses are that images will in fact help to improve patient satisfaction and that multiple factors influence pictograph usability. Factors of interest include not only the comprehensibility of the pictographs per se, but also how the images are presented to the user with respect to their number and ordering. We showed that most respondents prefer to use the interface with pictographs and that multiple factors influence participants’ ability to find a pictograph based on a written form, but that the comprehensibility of the individual pictographs is probably the most important

Vaccination de la personne âgée : quelques outils pour mieux communiquer

Elderly people are high risk patients who need specific and tailored monitoring. Prevention is an important part in taking care of their well-being. The utility and efficacy of vaccination against influenza, diphtheria and tetanus are now indisputable for seniors, but coverage is still insufficient. This article will discuss the reasons for insufficient adherence, assuming that the general practitioner or another unit of the health care system has suggested a vaccination plan to the senior patient. With this goal in mind, we explored the various obstacles that may occur during the communication between physician and patient, be it due to old age (sensory loss), linked to cognitive decline or directly in relationship with the myths and beliefs surrounding vaccination, especially the vaccine against influenza

Évaluation de la compréhension de pictogrammes Arasaac et Sclera pour améliorer l'accessibilité du système de traduction médicale BabelDr

Cet article présente une étude préliminaire menée afin d'évaluer la compréhension de pictogrammes pour les réponses des patients dans l'outil de traduction de la parole médicale, BabelDr, un système conçu pour améliorer la communication entre les médecins et les patients allophones (y inclus les patients sourds). Le recours aux pictogrammes dans ce type de systèmes pourrait également permettre de le rendre accessible aux personnes avec une Déficience Intellectuelle (DI). Un premier questionnaire a permis de collecter des données sur la compréhension de pictogrammes Arasaac et Sclera déjà utilisés par les personnes avec une DI dans les outils de Communication Alternative et Améliorée (CAA). Ces résultats serviront à adapter le système BabelDr et proposer une interface de réponses bidirectionnelle adaptée aux besoins de divers patients

Evaluating the comprehension of Arasaac and Sclera pictographs for the BabelDr patient response interface

This paper summarises some of the findings from a preliminary survey conducted to evaluate the comprehension of pictographs for patient responses in the speech-to-speech translation tool BabelDr, a system designed to improve communication between doctors and allophone patients or minority groups. Despite the relatively low number of respondents, the gathered data could serve as a starting point for discussion in future decision-making processes about how to design a bidirectional interface for patients with a range of pictographs and how to evaluate their comprehension

Healthcare Accessibility for the Deaf

Access to healthcare profoundly impacts the health and quality of life of Deaf people. Automatic translation tools are crucial in improving communication between Deaf patients and their healthcare providers. The aim of this chapter is to present the pipeline used to create the Swiss-French Sign Language (LSF-CH) version of BabelDr, a speech-enabled fixed phrase translator that was initially conceived to improve communication in emergency settings between doctors and allophone patients (Bouillon et al., 2021). In order to do so, we start off by explaining how we ported BabelDr in LSF-CH using both human and avatar videos. We first describe the creation of a reference corpus consisting of video translations done by human translators, then we present a second corpus of videos generated with a virtual human. Finally, we relate the findings of a questionnaire on Deaf users’ perspective on the use of signing avatars in the medical context. We showed that, although respondents prefer human videos, the use of automatic technologies associated with virtual characters is not without interest to the target audience and can be useful to them in the medical context