The effect of the intrathecal application of Baclofen on muscular spasticity

The aim of this thesis was to introduce the intrathecal baclofen delivery method and assessment of its efficacy on patients with severe spasticity. It is an invasive spasticity affecting method which uses an abdominally implanted programmable infusion pump connected with a catheter inserted in the spinal canal. The pump delivers baclofen to the cerebrospinal fluid (baclofen is the central myorelaxans). This method reduces adverse effects of the drug, however it is an invasive method, that can bring various complications. In the practical part, I evaluated one patient with spinal spasticity before and after the treatment initiation. The spasm frequency was decreased by 2 points. The muscular tone measured by the Ashworth scale was decreased by 0,5 point, by 0,7 according to the modified Ashworth scale. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org

CFU values (/mL) for <i>S</i>. <i>mutans</i> isolated from biofilms that were either exposed to bare, positively charged or negatively charged SPIONs or were incubated in the absence of SPIONs.

<p>CFU values (/mL) for <i>S</i>. <i>mutans</i> isolated from biofilms that were either exposed to bare, positively charged or negatively charged SPIONs or were incubated in the absence of SPIONs.</p

Zeta potential values of the SPIONs determined before and after incubation with the biofilm.

<p>Zeta potential values of the SPIONs determined before and after incubation with the biofilm.</p

Structure of the charged SPIONs.

<p>The amine and carboxyl functional groups are attached to the silica shell on the surface of the SPIONs.</p

Rawlsian liberal pluralism and political Islam: friends or foes?

In this chapter, I explore what look to be similarities between the Liberal Pluralism of John Rawls’ Theory of Justice and (a very broad ‘Modernist’ construal of) Political Islam. Seeing where there may be points of confluence between the two may help us with how to conceive of a pluralistically inclined Political Islam (where the latter is usually presented as at odds with pluralism). The putative similarities I wish to address are that on both accounts: (i) rational agents, under certain idealised conditions, will come to choose a political structure that aims to guarantee both freedom of expression and freedom of belief; (ii) there will be limitations to those freedoms that the rationally chosen political structure will also oversee; and (iii) those limits are to be understood as protections to the very possibility of the freedoms being implemented. However, I wish to argue that these similarities do not really showcase an accord between Rawlsian Liberal Pluralism and Political Islam, but rather illustrate a problem with Liberalism (as a form of pluralism) per se. First, because they illustrate how a(n even rational) preference for freedom of expression and belief constitutes a “conception of the good” that was supposed to have been left behind Rawls’ famous ‘veil of ignorance’. Second, because they illustrate how Liberal Pluralism (a theory apparently made for settling disputes) has trouble with how to settle disputes involving second-order disagreement: in this case, disagreements as to whether specific instances fall under (iii) above. The issue of second-order disagreement, so I argue, continues to be a problem for public reason accounts of Liberalism, as in Rawls’ political conception of Liberalism articulated in his “later” writings. I end by suggesting how the Medieval Islamic Philosophy (and especially al-Farabi’s) may have given us the intellectual resources to move beyond this impasse and towards articulating a “perfectionist” conception of Liberalism that is true to what the later Rawls calls “the fact of reasonable pluralism.” In short, then, it is from Islamic philosophy where we can find the resources to fixing some of the conceptual problems with pluralism in the Rawlsian tradition