How distressing is it to participate in medical research? A calibration study using an everyday events questionnaire

Objectives: To investigate how distressing participating in medical research is perceived to be, compared to everyday events. Design: Anonymous questionnaire. Setting: Scotland and New Zealand. Participants: One hundred members of the Scottish general public, 94 University of Auckland students, 22 New Zealand Ministry of Health ethics committee members. Main outcome measures: Distress ratings made on a 0-10 scale for everyday events and common medical research procedures. Results: Both general population and student samples generally rated the distress caused by participating in various medical research procedures as low or very low. Most research procedures were rated less than the distress caused by not being able to find a car park at a supermarket. In contrast, the ethics committee members rated the distress caused by most of the medical research procedures at a significantly higher level than the ratings of the student and general population samples. Ethics committee members overestimated the distress caused by interview or questionnaire assessments (M = 203.31%, SE = 11.42, 95% CI [179.79, 226.83]) more than medical testing for research (M = 158.06%, SE = 12.33, 95% CI [132.66, 183.46], p = 0.04) and everyday events (M = 133.10%, SE = 7.80, 95% CI [117.03, 149.16], p < 0.001). Conclusions: Common medical research procedures are not rated as particularly distressing by the general public, and ethics committees may be adopting an over-protective role when evaluating research applications that involve the use of questionnaire or survey methodology

A Scoping Review of Occupational Therapy Approaches to Enable Occupations for People Living with Behavioral Disturbance as a Result of Acquired Brain Injury

Background: Behavioral disturbance impacts almost 50% of people living with acquired brain injury (ABI) and severely impedes occupational participation. Occupational therapists are appropriately qualified and well placed to address behavioral disturbance. This scoping review analyzes the literature to ascertain approaches used by occupational therapists to treat behavioral disturbance. Method: A literature search of three databases revealed 379 papers for consideration, five of which met inclusion criteria. The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) checklists were used for the analysis. This paper employs the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) framework. Results: Sensory modulation interventions, community-based interventions, behavior therapy, and neurofunctional activity of daily living (ADL) retraining were identified as approaches that could be used by occupational therapists to promote participation for people living with behavioral disturbance after an ABI. Conclusion: According to current occupational therapy literature, evidenced-based behavioral interventions to enable participation for almost half of people living with an ABI are lacking. To promote the occupational therapy role in this area of rehabilitation, further empirical research is needed

Розробка модуля Ethernet контролю для дистанційного керування електроживильною установкою

Sound processing in the inner ear involves separation of the constituent frequencies along the length of the cochlea. Frequencies relevant to human speech (100 to 500 Hz) are processed in the apex region. Among mammals, the guinea pig cochlear apex processes similar frequencies and is thus relevant for the study of speech processing in the cochlea. However, the requirement for extensive surgery has challenged the optical accessibility of this area to investigate cochlear processing of signals without significant intrusion. A simple method is developed to provide optical access to the guinea pig cochlear apex in two directions with minimal surgery. Furthermore, all prior vibration measurements in the guinea pig apex involved opening an observation hole in the otic capsule, which has been questioned on the basis of the resulting changes to cochlear hydrodynamics. Here, this limitation is overcome by measuring the vibrations through the unopened otic capsule using phase-sensitive Fourier domain optical coherence tomography. The optically and surgically advanced method described here lays the foundation to perform minimally invasive investigation of speech-related signal processing in the cochlea. (C) The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.Funding Agencies|NIH NIDCD [R01DC000141]; NIH [R01DC004554, R01DC010201, R01DC011796]; Swedish Research Council [K2014-63X-14061-14-5]; Torsten Soderberg Foundation</p

Challenges and opportunities for increasing patient involvement in heart failure self-care programs and self-care in the post–hospital discharge period

Background: People living with heart failure (HF) are particularly vulnerable after hospital discharge. An alliance between patient authors, clinicians, industry, and co-developers of HF programs can represent an effective way to address the unique concerns and obstacles people living with HF face during this period. The aim of this narrative review article is to discuss challenges and opportunities of this approach, with the goal of improving participation and clinical outcomes of people living with HF. Methods: This article was co-authored by people living with HF, heart transplant recipients, patient advocacy representatives, cardiologists with expertise in HF care, and industry representatives specializing in patient engagement and cardiovascular medicine, and reviews opportunities and challenges for people living with HF in the post–hospital discharge period to be more integrally involved in their care. A literature search was conducted, and the authors collaborated through two virtual roundtables and via email to develop the content for this review article. Results: Numerous transitional-care programs exist to ease the transition from the hospital to the home and to provide needed education and support for people living with HF, to avoid rehospitalizations and other adverse outcomes. However, many programs have limitations and do not integrally involve patients in the design and co-development of the intervention. There are thus opportunities for improvement. This can enable patients to better care for themselves with less of the worry and fear that typically accompany the transition from the hospital. We discuss the importance of including people living with HF in the development of such programs and offer suggestions for strategies that can help achieve these goals. An underlying theme of the literature reviewed is that education and engagement of people living with HF after hospitalization are critical. However, while clinical trial evidence on existing approaches to transitions in HF care indicates numerous benefits, such approaches also have limitations. Conclusion: Numerous challenges continue to affect people living with HF in the post–hospital discharge period. Strategies that involve patients are needed, and should be encouraged, to optimally address these challenges

‘You always wanna be sore, because then you are seeing results’: Novel insights into lived experiences of ‘positive pain’ in competitive swimming

Pain has long been associated with sports participation, being analyzed variously as a physical phenomenon, as well as a socio-cultural construct in sport sociological literature. In this article, we employ a sociological-phenomenological approach to generate novel insights into the under-researched domain of ‘lived’ pain in competitive swimming. Analytic attention is paid to specific aspects of pain, including ‘discomfort’ and ‘good pain,’ and how these sensations can be positively experienced and understood by the swimmers, as well as forming an integral part of the everyday routines of competitive swimming. Here, training is seen as ‘work’ in the pursuit of athletic improvement. Discomfort and 'good pain' thus become perceived as by-products of training, providing swimmers with important embodied information on pace, energy levels, and other bodily indicators of performance

Origins of the Ambient Solar Wind: Implications for Space Weather

The Sun's outer atmosphere is heated to temperatures of millions of degrees, and solar plasma flows out into interplanetary space at supersonic speeds. This paper reviews our current understanding of these interrelated problems: coronal heating and the acceleration of the ambient solar wind. We also discuss where the community stands in its ability to forecast how variations in the solar wind (i.e., fast and slow wind streams) impact the Earth. Although the last few decades have seen significant progress in observations and modeling, we still do not have a complete understanding of the relevant physical processes, nor do we have a quantitatively precise census of which coronal structures contribute to specific types of solar wind. Fast streams are known to be connected to the central regions of large coronal holes. Slow streams, however, appear to come from a wide range of sources, including streamers, pseudostreamers, coronal loops, active regions, and coronal hole boundaries. Complicating our understanding even more is the fact that processes such as turbulence, stream-stream interactions, and Coulomb collisions can make it difficult to unambiguously map a parcel measured at 1 AU back down to its coronal source. We also review recent progress -- in theoretical modeling, observational data analysis, and forecasting techniques that sit at the interface between data and theory -- that gives us hope that the above problems are indeed solvable.Comment: Accepted for publication in Space Science Reviews. Special issue connected with a 2016 ISSI workshop on "The Scientific Foundations of Space Weather." 44 pages, 9 figure

GABAA receptor subtype involvement in addictive behaviour

GABAA receptors form the major class of inhibitory neurotransmitter receptors in the mammalian brain. This review sets out to summarise the evidence that variations in genes encoding GABAA receptor isoforms are associated with aspects of addictive behaviour in humans, while animal models of addictive behaviour also implicate certain subtypes of GABAA receptor. In addition to outlining the evidence for the involvement of specific subtypes in addiction, we summarise the particular contributions of these isoforms in control over the functioning of brain circuits, especially the mesolimbic system, and make a first attempt to bring together evidence from several fields to understanding potential involvement of GABAA Receptor Subtypes in addictive behaviour. While the weight of the published literature is on alcohol dependency, the underlying principles outlined are relevant across a number of different aspects of addictive behaviour