Articles: human.
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This paper presents the use of multiple sensors for walking assessment and provision of cognitive feedback during early re-education of incomplete spinal cord injured (SCI) humans. The paper is focused on the swing phase estimation as an important part of the Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) gait re-education system for incomplete spinal cord injured persons. The proposed sensory system comprises four accelerometers, one gyro placed at the shank of the paretic leg, and two goniometers placed at the knee and ankle joints, respectively. ⋯ The results showed that the timing of FES triggering played an important role in sensory-supported FES-assisted walking, that is, the auditory feedback was also a cue to the therapist controlling the FES. The swing quality estimation enabled patients to voluntarily improve their walking, consequently the intensity of FES assistance was decreased. This suggests that the use of an FES multisensor system for cognitive feedback is efficient rehabilitative method in early stage of rehabilitation of walking.
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Informed consent to participation in research is an important protector of potential subjects' rights and autonomy. Ethical research involving critically ill people is challenging because their medical condition often makes obtaining informed consent impossible. ⋯ This article reviews the rationale for the Tri-Council Policy Statement and illustrates some problems with its application in the context of a Canadian prehospital study on continuous positive airway pressure. A new risk analysis model and a national research ethics board are discussed as possible ways to facilitate interpretation and application of the current exception of informed consent policy.
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Surgical therapy for Parkinson's disease (PD) has been a treatment option for over 100 years. Advances in the knowledge of basal ganglia physiology and in techniques of stereotactic neurosurgery and neuroimaging have allowed more accurate placement of lesions or "brain pacemakers" in the sensorimotor regions of target nuclei. This, in turn, has led to improved efficacy with fewer complications than in the past. ⋯ These include embryonic mesencephalic tissue transplantation, human embryonic stem cell transplantation, and gene-derived methods of intracerebral implantation of growth factors and dopamine- producing cell lines. It will be important to determine whether DBS, if performed before the onset of motor response complications to medical therapy, may prevent this stage of disease altogether or delay it for a significant period of time. The same question applies to the future with restorative therapy.
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Discuss and summarize recent published literature related to the use of 'blood substitutes' in cardiac surgery patients. ⋯ One hemoglobin-based oxygen carrier (Hemopure) has been approved for use in humans in South Africa as well as another hemoglobin-based oxygen carrier (Gelenpol) and a perfluorocarbon (Perfluoron) in Russia. Phase III trials in Europe and North America will be concluded very soon. We anticipate seeing one or two products approved in North America and Europe by the year 2003/2004.
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Colonic spirochetosis of colony-raised rhesus macaques associated with Brachyspira and Helicobacter.
Colonic spirochetosis is an inflammatory bowel disease that affects a broad range of hosts, including human and non-human primates. The disease in humans and non-human primates is characterized by intimate attachment of the anaerobic spirochetes Brachyspira aalborgi and B. pilosicoli, and some unclassified flagellated microbes along the apical membrane of colonic enterocytes. Although the presence of spiral-shaped bacteria with single polar flagella and blunted ends in colonic spirochetosis is well established, the identities of many of these organisms is still unknown. ⋯ The presence of flagellated bacteria alone (n=2) or together with spirochetes (n=1) in formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded colons of three rhesus macaques with the naturally occurring disease was demonstrated by immunohistochemical staining and ultrastructural examination. Total DNA extracted from affected and control intestinal specimens was amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using Helicobacter 16S rRNA gene-specific primers. Comparative nucleotide sequence analysis of PCR products cloned from positive reactions indicated that two distinct Helicobacter genomospecies were present either alone or in combination with Brachyspira in the colons of rhesus macaques with microscopic lesions indicative of colonic spirochetosis.