BACKGROUND: Principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to the ground reaction force (GRF) for evaluating the deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus (DBS-STN) effects in Parkinson's disease (PD) subjects with and without medication. METHODS: Ten subjects who underwent DBS-STN were evaluated under the following four conditions: without treatment (mof-sof), ...

Over the past 30 years, a general consensus has emerged within the medical community regarding the essential role served by grading guidelines in evaluating the quality of evidence produced by a medical research study. Specifically, consensus exists regarding the hierarchy of evidence, where randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are considered the ...

PURPOSE: To determine the psychometric properties of a theoretically based continuing medical education (CME) evaluation instrument examining attitudinal determinants of physicians' changes in medical practices after a CME intervention. The instrument's scales represented constructs from the theory of planned behavior. METHOD: The authors based the template instrument on educational objectives ...

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to develop a method for evaluating accessibility of medical equipment for patients with disabilities. METHODS: The researchers reviewed videotapes of patient-participants with various physical and sensory disabilities using different types of medical equipment. For each of 11 videotapes, four observers independently identified and ...

Our previous article described the principles of conducting an economic evaluation for evidence-based medical decision making. This article provides some tips for reading, critically appraising and applying the findings of an economic evaluation in clinical practice.

Fixed drug eruption (FDE) is an uncommon medication-induced cutaneous reaction. A case of fluconazole-induced FDE is described. A 64-year-old woman presented with eight ovoid hyperpigmented patches on the arms, palm and lower leg that had recurred multiple times at the identical sites at seemingly random intervals over the prior six ...

Objective.?The Medical Assessment and Planning Unit (MAPU) model provides a multidisciplinary and 'front end loading' approach to acute medical care. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of a 10-bed MAPU in Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH) on hospital length of stay.

We herein describe the design and performance evaluation of single-use whole-sterile "plug & play" kits for routine automated production of [(11)C]methionine and [(11)C]choline for human use. Kits were designed for maximal simplicity and ease of using modules from Eckert & Ziegler Modular Lab System. The use of all-disposable sterile medical-grade ...

We are revising the criteria in the Listing of Impairments (the listings) that we use to evaluate claims involving hearing loss under titles II and XVI of the Social Security Act (Act). The revisions reflect our adjudicative experience, advances in medical knowledge, treatment, and methods of evaluating hearing loss, and ...

A program evaluation of a pediatric primary care training clinic was conducted using the criteria of a "medical home" set forth by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). A total of 107 parents completed questionnaires regarding demographics, satisfaction with care, and questions related to the definition of medical home. Medical ...

OBJECTIVE/HYPOTHESIS: To determine whether knowledge of medical diagnosis biases listeners with varied experience levels in their judgments of dysphonia. STUDY DESIGN: Prospective, mixed experimental and comparative design. METHODS: Twenty-six speakers with dysphonia and four normal controls provided speech recordings. Twenty novice and eight experienced clinicians evaluated speech samples for roughness ...

An essential goal of evaluation is to foster learning. Across the medical education spectrum, evaluation of clinical performance is dominated by subjective feedback to learners based on observation by expert supervisors. Research in non-medical settings has suggested that participants' perceptions of evaluation processes exert considerable influence over whether the feedback ...

Norman SP, Song PXK, Hu Y, Ojo AO. Transition from donor candidates to live kidney donors: the impact of race and undiagnosed medical disease states. Clin Transplant 2009 DOI: 10.1111/j.1399-0012.2009.01188.x. (c) 2009 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Abstract: Background: Living kidney donors (LKD) allow for increased access to lifesaving organs ...

The promotion of sport talents in Germany is federally standardised. Apart from the training and management support, annual sports-medical investigations with standardised procedures are mandatory for athletes' health and safety. For the first time, this study evaluates the prevalence ratio of medical findings in Hessian top athletes. The data of ...

Clinical studies on nasal topical medications require the standardization of 'nasosinusal normality' in order to establish control groups through a specific evaluation of the upper airways. AIM: to standardize the evaluation of candidates for control groups in clinical studies on nasal topical medications. MATERIAL AND METHODS: healthy male volunteers of ...

We are revising some of the criteria in the Listing of Impairments (the listings) that we use to evaluate claims involving malignant neoplastic diseases (cancer) under titles II and XVI of the Social Security Act (Act). The revisions reflect our adjudicative experience, advances in medical knowledge, diagnosis, and treatment, and ...

CONTEXT: Assessing medical professionalism among medical residents is of great importance. The Professionalism Mini-Evaluation Exercise (P-MEX) is a tool for assessing professionalism that was developed, tested for reliability and validated in Canada. Prior to the present study, no Japanese version of the P-MEX had been tested. METHODS: We modified the ...

The standard tests for the biological evaluation of biomaterials, as promoted by the International Organisation for Standardisation, have evolved over the years to become an important part of the process for ensuring, as far as is possible, the biological safety of medical devices. There is, however, some scope for improvement, ...

OBJECTIVE: To characterize the clinical and clinicopathologic effects and evaluate outcome associated with oleander toxicosis in New World camelids. DESIGN: Retrospective case series. ANIMALS: 11 llamas and 1 alpaca. PROCEDURES: Medical records from a veterinary medical teaching hospital from January 1, 1995, to December 31, 2006, were reviewed. Records of ...

No previous studies have described how faculty give summative evaluations to learners on the medical wards. The aim of this study was to describe summative evaluations on the medical wards. Participants were students, house staff and faculty at the University of Pittsburgh. Ward rotation evaluative sessions were tape recorded. Feedback ...

BACKGROUND: The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) Outcome Project, endorsed at the 1999 ACGME annual meeting, was intended to shift the focus of residency program requirements and accreditation from process-oriented assessment to an assessment of outcomes. The Outcome Project established six general competencies, each of which is supported ...

Lower Extremities Committee of Korean Academy of Medical Sciences Guideline for Impairment Rating develops new guidelines which are based on McBride method, American Medical Association Guides, Disability evaluation by The Korean Orthopaedic Association, The Korean Neurosurgery Society, and Korean Academy of Rehabilitation Medicine. The committee analyzed and discussed to create ...

The criteria for the evaluation of spinal impairment are diverse, complex, and have no standardized form. This makes it difficult and somewhat troublesome to accurately evaluate spinal impairment patients. A standardized guideline was studied for the evaluation of spinal impairment, based on the American Medical Association (AMA) Guides and the ...

The permanent impairment evaluation for children in developmental stage is very difficult and it is even impossible in some cases. The impairment evaluation for developing children has not yet been included in the guideline of the American Medical Association. Due to frequent medical and social demands in Korea, we developed ...

Within the expanding field of clinical neuropsychology, the subspecialty of forensic neuropsychology has developed. Currently, there is considerable diversity within the discipline as to how practitioners approach test selection, reports, and number of hours billed. How individuals handle these issues is subject to debate, but what is clear is that ...

BACKGROUND: To compare the results of 2 techniques of facial rehabilitation, lengthening temporalis myoplasty and 2 types of hypoglossal-facial (XII-VII) coaptation as evaluated by medical and nonmedical teams and patient self-assessment of quality of life (QOL). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Videos of 42 consecutive patients with complete facial palsy who underwent ...

Different trademarks of green mate and mate tea ( Ilex paraguariensis St. Hil.) were employed in this work, the aim of which was to compare the fractionation of Al from green mate and mate tea (roasted mate) and from their infusions. Using the flame atomic absorption spectrometry technique, contents determined ...

In a previous study on peel adhesion for medical tapes, it was shown that a stainless steel (SS) substrate better discriminated among medical tapes than a high-density polyethylene (HDPE) substrate. The objective of this study was to determine if a SS substrate would also better distinguish among transdermal drug delivery ...

A content analysis of the written responses of 158 shy individuals was performed to investigate the nature of the self-selected strategies they reported using to deal with their shyness. The classification, along with the frequency of their use, of the self-selected strategies by four raters identified 10 separate categories, with ...

Cough is the most common complaint for which patients seek outpatient medical attention. Usually a minor irritant, it can occasionally be caused by a serious underlying process, and healthcare providers should be diligent in their evaluation. Symptom duration and the particular response to treatment options help identify the etiology of ...

This paper presents a method to evaluate medical gestures. The objective is to objectively assess a gesture carried out by novice doctors. The proposed method is based on the study of the curvature of the 3D gesture and provide a global performance index for one manipulation. The study of the ...

BACKGROUND: Faculty evaluations can identify needs to be addressed in effective development programs. Generic evaluation models exist, but these require adaptation to a particular context of interest. We report on one approach to such adaptation in the context of medical education in Iran, which is integrated into the delivery and ...

BACKGROUND: The focus of this review is on methods that are currently being used to evaluate the behavioural effects of medication for individuals with intellectual disabilities. First we describe what has been identified as the ideal criteria for conducting clinical trials and how these criteria may be adapted to do ...

The tolerability of dapoxetine, a short-acting selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor being developed for premature ejaculation, was evaluated when coadministered with tamsulosin. Adult men on a stable dose of tamsulosin were randomized to also receive dapoxetine 30 or 60 mg, or placebo, in a crossover design. Supine and standing vital signs ...

In November 2007 Varian Medical Systems released a new version of ECLIPSE (version 8.1.17), which includes a correction to its Anisotropic Analytical Algorithm affecting monitor unit calculations for Enhanced Dynamic Wedge. The purpose of this study is to evaluate and compare the accuracy of the MU calculations for version 8.1.17 ...

A 31-year-old Army specialist was evaluated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for an acute attack of arthritis in the left hand. After an initial evaluation, the patient was referred to the rheumatology service, and gout was diagnosed on the basis of synovial fluid analysis. This case demonstrates an uncommon ...

Previously applied methods for the evaluation of glenoid version did not use body-surface landmarks; therefore, it is not possible to get information about glenoid version from the outside. The tip of the coracoid and the posterolateral corner of the acromion can easily be found on the body surface. These 2 ...

OBJECTIVE: We compared the intraobserver and interscan variability of carotid atherosclerosis measured using B-mode ultrasound for quantifying intima media thickness (IMT), 3-dimensional ultrasound (3DUS) for quantifying vessel wall volume (VWV) and total plaque volume (TPV), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for measuring VWV. We also evaluated the associations of these ...

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the feasibility, reliability and acceptability of the mini clinical evaluation exercise (mini-CEX) for performance assessment among international medical graduates (IMGs). DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Observational study of 209 patient encounters involving 28 IMGs and 35 examiners at three metropolitan teaching hospitals in New South Wales, Victoria and ...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: To illustrate the steps for clinical management of primary aldosteronism from screening evaluation to surgical and/or medical treatment. RECENT FINDINGS: It is now widely accepted that primary aldosteronism represents the most common form of endocrine hypertension and its early diagnosis is crucial for hypertensive patients who can ...

Medical decisions should be based on good evidence. But this does not mean that health care professionals should practice evidence-based medicine. This dissertation explores how these two positions come apart, why they come apart, and what we should do about it. I begin by answering the descriptive question, what are ...

The sound quality of an organ pipe is mainly influenced by the attack transients. This onset is first dominated by the edge tone, while later the pipe resonator will play a more important role. To understand the physics of a flue organ pipe, it is necessary to analyse the edge ...

The experimental method to evaluate the wavenumber of the acoustic wave propagating in pores media is proposed. The method was applied to four types of stacks composed of square channels and seven types of regenerators consisting of stacked mesh screens. The experimental results of the stacks agreed well with the ...

Epithelial cell monolayers are routinely used to evaluate efficacy of paracellular permeability enhancers (PPEs). The purpose of the present work was to investigate how biorelevant refinements to the Caco-2 cell model impact in vitro efficacy (decrease in transepithelial electrical resistance and increase in mannitol permeability) of PPEs. Standard transport buffer ...

The preoperative evaluation serves several purposes for the gynecologist. Patients with previously undiagnosed, or incompletely managed, medical concerns are identified and appropriate treatment initiated. In women with known medical concerns, the surgeon can anticipate problems and plan for appropriate postoperative care. In certain cases, the preoperative evaluation identifies medical conditions ...

BACKGROUND & AIMS: To evaluate the agreement between resting energy expenditure (REE) estimated by a portable armband and measured by indirect calorimetry. METHODS: One-hundred and twenty-seven women and 42 men with a mean (SD) age of 44 (12) years and a body mass index of 30.2 (5.4) kg/m(2) were studied. ...

This study evaluated the rate and factors influencing male uptake of infertility investigations. Infertility constituted 11.2% of all new gynaecological consultations in the centre during the study period. A total of 61 (70.1%) males consented to seminal fluid studies without much hesitation, 12.4% after much persuasion, while the remainder (17.5%) ...

The reasons underlying parents' decisions to seek medical evaluations for their mildly ill children are not well understood. This cross-sectional study tracked parents' requests for on-site medical evaluations at a sick child care program. A logistic regression model identified factors associated with parents' decisions to seek medical evaluations for their ...

We are revising the criteria in the Listing of Impairments (the listings) that we use to evaluate claims involving immune system disorders. We apply these criteria when you claim benefits based on disability under title II and title XVI of the Social Security Act (the Act). The revisions reflect our ...

OBJECTIVES: To study the current patterns of medication use, assess the extent of off-label parenteral medication use, and evaluate evidence for efficacy and safety of parenteral medications used off-label in neonates. STUDY DESIGN: We collected information on all medications dispensed for infants admitted to an urban tertiary care neonatal intensive ...