Laser action from a terbium beta-ketoenolate at room temperature

Laser activity is achieved in a solution of terbium tris at room temperature in a liquid solvent of acetonitrile or p-dioxane. After precipitation, the microcrystals of hydrated tris chelate are filtered, washed in distilled water, and dried. They show no signs of deterioration after storage

Prioritising target non-pharmacological interventions for research in Parkinson’s Disease: Achieving consensus from key stakeholders

Background: In 2014 Parkinson’s UK conducted a research prioritisation exercise with stakeholders highlighting important clinical research questions. The exercise highlighted the need for effective interventions to be developed and tested to tackle a range of non-motor symptoms including: sleep quality, stress and anxiety, mild cognitive impairment, dementia and urinary problems. The present work set out to build on this exercise by prioritising types of non-pharmacological interventions to be tested to treat the identified non-motor symptoms. Methods: A Patient and Public Involvement Exercise was used to reach consensus on intervention priorities for the treatment on non-motor symptoms. Some Delphi techniques were also used to support the feedback collected. A first-round prioritisation survey was conducted followed by a panel discussion. Nineteen panellists completed the first-round survey (9 people with Parkinson’s and 10 professionals working in Parkinson’s) and 16 participated in the panel discussion (8 people with Parkinson’s and 8 professionals working in Parkinson’s). A second-round prioritization survey was conducted after the panel discussion with 13 people with Parkinson’s. Results: Physical activity, third wave cognitive therapies and cognitive training were rated as priority interventions for the treatment of a range of non-motor symptoms. There was broad agreement on intervention priorities between health care professionals and people with Parkinson’s. A consensus was reached that research should focus on therapies which could be used to treat several different non-motor symptoms. In the context of increasing digitisation, the need for human interaction as an intervention component was highlighted.3 Conclusion: Bringing together Parkinson’s professionals and people with Parkinson’sresulted in a final treatment priority list which should be both feasible to carry out in routine clinical practice and acceptable to both professionals and people with Parkinson’s. The workshop further specified research priorities in Parkinson’s disease based on the current evidence base, stakeholder preferences, and feasibility. Research should focus on developing and testing non-pharmacological treatments which could be effective across a range of symptoms but specifically focusing on tailored physical activity interventions, cognitive therapies and cognitive training

Barriers to reporting non-motor symptoms to health-care providers in people with Parkinson's

Background: Non-motor symptoms (NMS) are common in Parkinson's disease (PD) and cause significant distress. A high rate of non-declaration of NMS by patients to healthcare providers (HCP) means that many NMS remain untreated. Current understanding of the factors preventing disclosure of NMS to HCPs is limited. The present study aimed to i) further assess the prevalence of NMS and associated distress, ii) establish current rates of NMS reporting across a range of sources, and iii) explore overall and any symptom specific barriers to help-seeking for NMS. Methods: 358 PD patients completed a cross-sectional survey of NMS severity, reporting and barriers to help-seeking. A series of Generalised Estimating Equations were used to determine whether barriers were symptom specific. Results: A mean of 10.5 NMS were reported by each patient. Rates of non-reporting of NMS ranged from 15 to 72% of those experiencing distressing symptoms. The most commonly reported barriers to help-seeking were acceptance of symptoms; lack of awareness that a symptom was associated with PD, and belief that no effective treatments were available. Symptom specific barriers were found for sexual dysfunction (embarrassment), unexplained pain and urinary problems (belief about lack of treatment availability). Conclusion: A diverse range of barriers prevent PD patients reporting NMS to HCPs and these barriers differ between NMS. The study provides the foundations for developing interventions to increase reporting by targeting individual NMS. Increasing rates of help-seeking for NMS by patients to their Parkinson's healthcare providers will increase appropriate clinical care which may improve quality of life and well-being

An exploration of worry content and catastrophic thinking in middle-aged and older-aged adults with and without Parkinson's disease

Objective: Worry is a common and distressing problem in Parkinson’s disease(PD). However, little is known about the nature and content of worry in PD and how it might differ to non-PD populations. The study aimed to explore the content and nature of worry in middle and older aged adults with and without PD. Method: 4 groups of participants: 20 PD patients(10 high worry, 10 low worry) 19 middle and older aged adults(10 high worry, 9 low worry) completed the Catastrophising Interview(CI) for three worry topics. Worriers were classified(high/low) based on Penn State Worry Questionnaire scores. Data were analysed using Framework Analysis. Results: High worriers showed a greater diversity of worry topics than low worriers. Health worries differentiated high and low worriers in the non-PD sample but were common across all PD participants. The CI revealed that the root concern of worry was often different to that initially described. In particular, PD high worriers were more likely to express underlying concerns about negative self-perception and death/severe incapacity. Conclusion: The CI was able to identify the root cause of worry, demonstrating the value of this technique in the exploration and treatment of worry and psychological distress. Exploring worry content may help to distinguish patients with problematic worry, with worries about self-perception and death/severe incapacity characteristic of high worriers. Therapeutic interventions designed to alleviate problematic worry and distress in PD need to take account of the realities of living with PD and the potentially realistic nature of worries which may appear catastrophic in a healthy population

Parental decision making and gastrostomy: Professional’s awareness of conflict and strategies for support

Parental decision making regarding children’s need for a gastrostomy is often described as one of ‘decisional conflict’ (Mahant et al. Pediatrics 2011; 127(6):1471-148). Studies investigating parents’ experiences have made various recommendations to improve healthcare professionals’ (HCPs) practice. However there are few studies investigating HCPs’ views and current practice

Implementing effective community-based surveillance in research studies of maternal, newborn and infant outcomes in low resource settings

BACKGROUND: Globally adopted health and development milestones have not only encouraged improvements in the health and wellbeing of women and infants worldwide, but also a better understanding of the epidemiology of key outcomes and the development of effective interventions in these vulnerable groups. Monitoring of maternal and child health outcomes for milestone tracking requires the collection of good quality data over the long term, which can be particularly challenging in poorly-resourced settings. Despite the wealth of general advice on conducting field trials, there is a lack of specific guidance on designing and implementing studies on mothers and infants. Additional considerations are required when establishing surveillance systems to capture real-time information at scale on pregnancies, pregnancy outcomes, and maternal and infant health outcomes. MAIN BODY: Based on two decades of collaborative research experience between the Kintampo Health Research Centre in Ghana and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, we propose a checklist of key items to consider when designing and implementing systems for pregnancy surveillance and the identification and classification of maternal and infant outcomes in research studies. These are summarised under four key headings: understanding your population; planning data collection cycles; enhancing routine surveillance with additional data collection methods; and designing data collection and management systems that are adaptable in real-time. CONCLUSION: High-quality population-based research studies in low resource communities are essential to ensure continued improvement in health metrics and a reduction in inequalities in maternal and infant outcomes. We hope that the lessons learnt described in this paper will help researchers when planning and implementing their studies

Wilson ratio in Yb-substituted CeCoIn5

We have investigated the effect of Yb substitution on the Pauli limited, heavy fermion superconductor, CeCoIn$_5$. Yb acts as a non-magnetic divalent substituent for Ce throughout the entire doping range, equivalent to hole doping on the rare earth site. We found that the upper critical field in (Ce,Yb)CoIn$_5$ is Pauli limited, yet the reduced (H,T) phase diagram is insensitive to disorder, as expected in the purely orbitally limited case. We use the Pauli limiting field, the superconducting condensation energy and the electronic specific heat coefficient to determine the Wilson ratio ($R_{W}$), the ratio of the specific heat coefficient to the Pauli susceptibility in CeCoIn$_5$. The method is applicable to any Pauli limited superconductor in the clean limit.Comment: 5 pages, 1 table, 4 figure

Examining Chemotherapy-Related Cognitive Changes in Colorectal Cancer Patients: A Feasibility Trial

Introduction: Research suggests that chemotherapy may be related to decline in patients’ cognitive functions. Objectives: To assess the feasibility and acceptability of a multi-site study designed to examine the nature and extent of chemotherapy-related cognitive changes in colorectal cancer patients. Method: Data was collected over 8 months using objective and self-reported measures of cognitive functioning and self-reported quality of life, fatigue and mood questionnaires. The assessment battery was administered pre- and mid-chemotherapy treatment to a consecutive sample of colorectal cancer patients across three Londonbased NHS Trusts. Participants included patients who had undergone colorectal surgery and were scheduled to have adjuvant chemotherapy treatment, or no further cancer treatment. Main outcome measures: Recruitment procedures, rate of recruitment, suitability of exclusion/inclusion criteria, acceptability of data collection procedures and the battery, and attrition rates. Results: From 1 April 2014 to 1 December 2014, 42 eligible participants were invited to take part in the trial. Of the 17 that completed pre-chemotherapy assessments, only 1 withdrew at follow-up due to reasons of ill health from disease recurrence. All participants completed the entire battery and indicated that they found the trial acceptable. Conclusions: What went wrong: Strained researcher resources; loss of eligible participants to competing studies, restrictive upper age limit. Possible solutions: Removal of upper age limit, an increased dedicated research team to increase rate of recruitment. The large multi-site study is feasible with suggested amendments and is acceptable to patients and medical teams. Acceptability of trial to medical teams is further evidenced by requests of collaboration from two additional London based NHS Trusts. Lessons learned: This feasibility trial provides evidence to other researchers designing similar studies in this area of an acceptable design and the need for appropriate funding for resources to recruit large enough consecutive samples of patients with solid tumour cancers

Vaccination timing of low-birth-weight infants in rural Ghana: a population-based, prospective cohort study

Objective: To investigate delays in first and third dose diphtheria–tetanus–pertussis (DTP1 and DTP3) vaccination in low-birth-weight infants in Ghana, and the associated determinants. Methods: We used data from a large, population-based vitamin A trial in 2010–2013, with 22 955 enrolled infants. We measured vaccination rate and maternal and infant characteristics and compared three categories of low-birth-weight infants (2.0–2.4 kg; 1.5–1.9 kg; and <1.5 kg) with infants weighing ≥2.5 kg. Poisson regression was used to calculate vaccination rate ratios for DTP1 at 10, 14 and 18 weeks after birth, and for DTP3 at 18, 22 and 24 weeks (equivalent to 1, 2 and 3 months after the respective vaccination due dates of 6 and 14 weeks). Findings: Compared with non-low-birth-weight infants (n=18 979), those with low birth weight (n=3382) had an almost 40% lower DTP1 vaccination rate at age 10 weeks (adjusted rate ratio, aRR: 0.58; 95% confidence interval, CI: 0.43–0.77) and at age 18 weeks (aRR: 0.63; 95% CI: 0.50–0.80). Infants weighing 1.5–1.9 kg (n=386) had vaccination rates approximately 25% lower than infants weighing ≥2.5 kg at these time points. Similar results were observed for DTP3. Lower maternal age, educational attainment and longer distance to the nearest health facility were associated with lower DTP1 and DTP3 vaccination rates. Conclusion: Low-birth-weight infants are a high-risk group for delayed vaccination in Ghana. Efforts to improve the vaccination of these infants are warranted, alongside further research to understand the reasons for the delays

Guided Poster Tour

Objective 1) To identify patient barriers to help-seeking for non-motor symptoms (NMS) from their Parkinson’s healthcare provider, 2) To determine whether barriers are symptom specific (e.g. embarrassment disclosing sexual problems) or patient specific (e.g. misattribution of a range of NMS to old age). Background NMS are common in Parkinson’s disease (PD) and cause significant distress and decreased quality of life. A high rate of non-declaration of NMS by patients to healthcare providers means that many NMS remain unrecognized and untreated, even in specialist clinical services. Current understanding of the factors preventing disclosure of NMS to healthcare professions is limited. Method 358 PD patients completed the Non-motor Symptom Questionnaire and a barriers to help-seeking for NMS questionnaire developed from previous qualitative work. A Generalised Estimating Equation was used to determine whether barriers were symptom or individual specific. Results The sample had a mean age of 66.3 years, mean disease duration of 5.9 years and were 52.5% male. Urinary urgency was the most common NMS (65%) and sexual dysfunction was the symptom most frequently not disclosed (52%). Barriers to symptom disclosure varied dependent on symptom type. Pain and sleep problems were commonly not thought to be symptoms of PD. Bowel and bladder symptoms were often simply accepted as part of daily life and participants were unsure about the availability of effective treatments. Patients experienced embarrassment discussing sexual dysfunction. Conclusion Our results highlight the barriers which prevent PD patients reporting NMS to their Parkinson’s clinical team and the diversity of these barriers between different NMS. Strategies to improve rates of reporting must target individual NMS. For example, effective interventions might provide information regarding treatment efficacy for bowel and bladder symptoms or develop communication skills and normalising information for sexual dysfunction. The study provides the information needed to develop such individualised interventions. Increasing rates of disclosure of NMS by patients to their Parkinson’s healthcare providers will ensure patients receive appropriate clinical care which may increase quality of life and well-being