The economics of medical procedure innovation

Written texts, especially sacred texts, can be handled in different ways. They can be read for semantic content; or they can be materially experienced, touched, or even be inhaled or drunk. I argue that literacy ideologies regulate social acceptability of specific semantic and somatic text practices. Drinking or fumigating the Qurʾan as a medical procedure is a highly contested literacy event in which two different ideologies are drawn upon simultaneously. I employ the linguistic model of codeswitching to highlight central aspects of this event: a more somatic ideology of literacy enables the link to medicine, while a more semantic ideology connects the practice to theological discourses on the sacredness of the Qurʾan as well as to the tradition of Prophetic medicine. Opposition to and ridicule of the practice, however, comes from representatives of an ideology of semantic purity, including some Islamic theologians and most Western scholars of Islam. Qurʾanic potions thus constitute an ideal point of entry for analyzing different types of literacy ideologies being followed in religious traditions.

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How prevalent are symptoms and risk factors of pelvic inflammatory disease in a sexually conservative population

Reproductive Health ◽

10.1186/s12978-021-01155-2 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Oqba Al-kuran ◽

Lama Al-Mehaisen ◽

Hamza Alduraidi ◽

Naser Al-Husban ◽

Balqees Attarakih ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Risk Factors ◽

Pelvic Inflammatory Disease ◽

Symptom Score ◽

Pelvic Pain ◽

Inflammatory Disease ◽

Scoring System ◽

Chronic Pelvic Pain ◽

Medical Procedure ◽

Adult Women ◽

Jordanian Population

Abstract Background Pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) is the inflammation of the adnexa of the uterus, that mainly manifests in a subclinical/chronic context and goes largely underreported. However, it poses a major threat to women’s health, as it is responsible for infertility and ectopic pregnancies, as well as chronic pelvic pain. Previous studies in Jordan have not reported PID, attributed mainly to the social structure of the country which largely represents a sexually conservative population. Our study aims to report the clinical symptoms that point towards PID and investigate the major risk determinants for the Jordanian population, in a cross-sectional study, using our scoring system based only on clinical data and examination. Methods One hundred sixty-eight consecutive adult women that came in the Outpatient Clinics of Gynaecological Department of the Jordan University Hospital were interviewed and their medical history and symptoms were registered and analysed. A Score for PID symptoms, we developed, was given to each woman. Results and correlations were then statistically tested. Results Our study population consisted of relatively young women (37.7 ± 11) that had their first child at an average age of 24.1 (± 4.8) and a mean parity of 3.1 (± 2.2). Fifty-eight women (34.5%) reported having undergone at least one CS, while the mean PID Symptom Score was 3.3 (± 2.3). The women in our study exhibited 8 symptoms of PID, namely dysmenorrhea and vaginal discharge; being the commonest (45.2% and 44.6% respectively), in addition to chronic pelvic pain, pelvic heaviness, menorrhagia, dyspareunia, urinary symptoms, and smelly urine. They also reported history of 3 conditions that can be attributed to PID, that is infertility, preterm labour, and miscarriages. Conclusions Our PID Scoring System seems to identify the risk factors of PID and predict well the PID likelihood. This score predicts that women with higher parity, who used contraceptives and underwent any invasive medical procedure are expected to score higher in the PID Symptom Score. Our data also suggest that PID should not be ruled out in the Jordanian population when symptoms are compatible to this diagnosis.

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The Effects of an Immersive Virtual Reality Application in First Person Point-of-View (IVRA-FPV) on The Learning and Generalized Performance of a Lumbar Puncture Medical Procedure

Educational Technology Research and Development ◽

10.1007/s11423-021-10003-w ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Maxime Ros ◽

Lorenz S. Neuwirth ◽

Sam Ng ◽

Blaise Debien ◽

Nicolas Molinari ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Virtual Reality ◽

Lumbar Puncture ◽

Point Of View ◽

First Person ◽

Medical Procedure ◽

Immersive Virtual Reality ◽

Virtual Reality Application

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Mitigating Children’s Pain and Anxiety during Blood Draw Using Social Robots

Electronics ◽

10.3390/electronics10101211 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (10) ◽

pp. 1211

Author(s):

Matthijs H. J. Smakman ◽

Koen Smit ◽

Lotte Buser ◽

Tom Monshouwer ◽

Nigel van Putten ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Healthcare Professionals ◽

Young Patients ◽

Hospital Setting ◽

Social Robots ◽

Social Robot ◽

Blood Collection ◽

Medical Procedure ◽

Blood Draw ◽

The Social ◽

Children's Pain

Young pediatric patients who undergo venipuncture or capillary blood sampling often experience high levels of pain and anxiety. This often results in distressed young patients and their parents, increased treatment times, and a higher workload for healthcare professionals. Social robots are a new and promising tool to mitigate children’s pain and anxiety. This study aims to purposefully design and test a social robot for mitigating stress and anxiety during blood draw of children. We first programmed a social robot based on the requirements expressed by experienced healthcare professionals during focus group sessions. Next, we designed a randomized controlled experiment in which the social robot was applied as a distraction method to measure its capacity to mitigate pain and anxiety in children during blood draw in a children’s hospital setting. Children who interacted with the robot showed significantly lower levels of anxiety before actual blood collection, compared to children who received regular medical treatment. Children in the middle classes of primary school (aged 6–9) seemed especially sensitive to the robot’s ability to mitigate pain and anxiety before blood draw. Children’s parents overall expressed strong positive attitudes toward the use and effectiveness of the social robot for mitigating pain and anxiety. The results of this study demonstrate that social robots can be considered a new and effective tool for lowering children’s anxiety prior to the distressing medical procedure of blood collection.

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Finite Element Analysis of the Microwave Ablation Method for Enhanced Lung Cancer Treatment

Cancers ◽

10.3390/cancers13143500 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (14) ◽

pp. 3500

Author(s):

Marija Radmilović-Radjenović ◽

Martin Sabo ◽

Marta Prnova ◽

Lukaš Šoltes ◽

Branislav Radjenović

Keyword(s):

Dielectric Properties ◽

Cancer Cells ◽

Microwave Ablation ◽

Absorption Rate ◽

Specific Absorption Rate ◽

Surrounding Tissue ◽

Physical Parameters ◽

Medical Procedure ◽

Ablation Zone ◽

Specific Absorption

Knowledge of the frequency dependence of the dielectric properties of the lung tissues and temperature profiles are essential characteristics associated with the effective performance of microwave ablation. In microwave ablation, the electromagnetic wave propagates into the biological tissue, resulting in energy absorption and providing the destruction of cancer cells without damaging the healthy tissue. As a consequence of the respiratory movement of the lungs, however, the accurate prediction of the microwave ablation zone has become an exceptionally demanding task. For that purpose, numerical modeling remains a primordial tool for carrying out a parametric study, evaluating the importance of the inherent phenomena, and leading to better optimization of the medical procedure. This paper reports on simulation studies on the effect of the breathing process on power dissipation, temperature distribution, the fraction of damage, and the specific absorption rate during microwave ablation. The simulation results obtained from the relative permittivity and conductivity for inflated and deflated lungs are compared with those obtained regardless of respiration. It is shown that differences in the dielectric properties of inflated and deflated lungs significantly affect the time evolution of the temperature and its maximum value, the time, the fraction of damage, and the specific absorption rate. The fraction of damage determined from the degree of tissue injury reveals that the microwave ablation zone is significantly larger under dynamic physical parameters. At the end of expiration, the ablation lesion area is more concentrated around the tip and slot of the antenna, and the backward heating effect is smaller. The diffuse increase in temperature should reach a certain level to destroy cancer cells without damaging the surrounding tissue. The obtained results can be used as a guideline for determining the optimal conditions to improve the overall success of microwave ablation.

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Characterizing Physical Resilience in Older Adults: Insights From Secondary Analyses in Three Clinical Groups

Innovation in Aging ◽

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.2712 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽

pp. 752-753

Author(s):

Brian Buta ◽

Anne Newman

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Bone Marrow ◽

Bone Marrow Transplantation ◽

Marrow Transplantation ◽

Adverse Outcomes ◽

Clinical Population ◽

Medical Procedure ◽

Main Study ◽

Secondary Analyses ◽

Existing Data

Abstract Resilience is defined as the ability of a physiologic system to recover from a stressor that has pushed the system into a state far from its original state of equilibrium. The level of resilience can be understood by whether or not the system’s essential identity and function are retained following the stressor. The study of resilience in older adults has potential to provide clinically relevant insights into our understanding of who will or will not recover when encountering a stressful medical procedure, especially those common to older patients. The main Study of Physical Resilience and Aging (SPRING) at Johns Hopkins includes prospective data collection of determinants, phenotypes, surrogates, dynamic stimulation measures, and outcomes of resiliency among older persons undergoing knee replacement surgery, or the initiation of hemodialysis, or bone marrow transplantation. SPRING also includes analyses of existing data sources to inform these prospective studies. This symposium briefly presents the conceptual framework and design of SPRING, and focuses on the results of secondary analyses from three existing data sets that mirror the ongoing stressor studies: FORCE-TKR (knee/joint replacement, N=9006), CHOICE (dialysis initiation, N=487), and a database of patients undergoing treatment for hematologic malignancies (bone marrow transplantation, N=1011). For each clinical population, we present results on phenotypic and/or biomarker trajectories, as well as the factors associated with resilience phenotypes and how these are predictive of clinical outcomes. These analyses display the utility of resilience phenotypes for predicting risk of adverse outcomes and complement the new data being collected in our main study.

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Exploiting a Crisis: Abortion Activism and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Perspectives on Politics ◽

10.1017/s1537592720004673 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-16

Author(s):

Kate Hunt

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Social Movement ◽

Media Coverage ◽

The United States ◽

Social Movement Organizations ◽

Medical Procedure ◽

Political Debate ◽

Global Crisis ◽

Opportunity Structures ◽

Movement Organizations

How do social movement organizations involved in abortion debates leverage a global crisis to pursue their goals? In recent months there has been media coverage of how anti-abortion actors in the United States attempted to use the COVID-19 pandemic to restrict access to abortion by classifying abortion as a non-essential medical procedure. Was the crisis “exploited” by social movement organizations (SMOs) in other countries? I bring together Crisis Exploitation Theory and the concept of discursive opportunity structures to test whether social movement organizations exploit crisis in ways similar to elites, with those seeking change being more likely to capitalize on the opportunities provided by the crisis. Because Twitter tends to be on the frontlines of political debate—especially during a pandemic—a dataset is compiled of over 12,000 Tweets from the accounts of SMOs involved in abortion debates across four countries to analyze the patterns in how they responded to the pandemic. The results suggest that crisis may disrupt expectations about SMO behavior and that anti- and pro-abortion rights organizations at times framed the crisis as both a “threat” and as an “opportunity.”

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General medical procedure packs

BDJ ◽

10.1038/sj.bdj.4813173 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 200 (1) ◽

pp. 55-55

Keyword(s):

Medical Procedure

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