The post COVID-19 healthcare landscape and the use of long-acting injectable antipsychotics for individuals with schizophrenia and bipolar I disorder: the importance of an integrated collaborative-care approach

Background Long-acting injectable antipsychotics (LAIs) are an essential maintenance treatment option for individuals with schizophrenia or bipolar I disorder (BP-I). This report summarizes a roundtable discussion on the impact of COVID-19 on the mental healthcare landscape and use of LAIs for individuals with schizophrenia or BP-I. Methods Ten experts and stakeholders from diverse fields of healthcare participated in a roundtable discussion on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, treatment challenges, and gaps in healthcare for individuals with schizophrenia or BP-I, informed by a literature search. Results Individuals with schizophrenia or BP-I are at increased risk of COVID-19 infection and increased risk of mortality after COVID-19 diagnosis. LAI prescriptions decreased early on in the pandemic, driven by a decrease in face-to-face consultations. Mental healthcare services are adapting with increased use of telehealth and home-based treatment. Clinical workflows to provide consistent, in-person LAI services include screening for COVID-19 exposure and infection, minimizing contact, and ensuring mask-wearing by individuals and staff. The importance of continued in-person visits for LAIs needs to be discussed so that staff can share that information with patients, their caregivers, and families. A fully integrated, collaborative-care model is the most important aspect of care for individuals with schizophrenia or BP-I during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusions The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of a fully integrated collaborative-care model to ensure regular, routine healthcare contact and access to prescribed treatments and services for individuals with schizophrenia and BP-I.

On the Imperative of Language for Understanding African Art

I was deeply touched and honored by the roundtable organized at the 2016 African Studies Association Conference to focus on my book, Yoruba Art and Language: Seeking the African in African Art (2014). I want to thank Professor Funṣọ Afọlayan for contacting and bringing together a formidable group of scholars of Yorùbá art and culture to that end. I was gratified that, by and large, all the panelists endorsed my premise on the fundamental importance of language in Yorùbá art studies. The first paper by Moyọ Okediji was a pleasant surprise. Even though this possibility has always existed, as I had taught a course in Yorùbá art entirely in Yorùbá language at the University of Ifẹ (renamed Ọba ̀ ́fẹmi Awo ́ ́lọẃ ọ University) in ̀ the 1980s1 , no one was expecting that his entire contribution to the roundtable discussion would be presented in Yorùbá language. Why not? I realized. The language is as fully developed as any other language in the world and it can, and should be spoken as well as written -- especially when we discuss Yorùbá art. For the benefit of those not literate in Yorùba language, Michael Af ́ ọlayan gave an elegant translation of Okediji’s paper in English. The excellent contents and presentation by Okediji touched on issues that lay at the heart of my book, namely its methodology and its insistence on the need for a Yorùbá voice to be heard literally and metaphorically in art historical discourse.

Expert Roundtable Discussion on Penile Prosthesis Infection Prevention Measures

No abstract.

NIMH Roundtable Discussion - Promissory Notes and Prevailing Norms in Social and Behavioral Sciences Research (1997)

Most workshops convened by the National Institute's of Health are devoted to the puzzle-solving activities of normal science,where the puzzles themselves and the strategies available for solving them are determined largely in advance by the sharedparadigmatic assumptions, frameworks, and priorities of the scientific community's research paradigm. They are designed tofacilitate what Thomas Kuhn referred to as elucidating topological detail within a map whose main outlines are available inadvance. And apparently for good reason. Historical studies by Kuhn and others reveal that science moves fastest and penetratesmost deeply when its practitioners work within well-defined and deeply ingrained traditions and employ the concepts, theories,methods, and tools of a shared paradigm. No paradigm is perfect and none is capable of identifying, let alone solving, all of theproblems relevant to a given domain of inquiry. Thus, the essential day-to-day business of normal science is not to question thelimits or adequacy of a given paradigm, but rather to exploit the presumed virtues for which it was adopted. As Kuhn cautioned inhis discussion of paradigms, re-tooling, in science as in manufacture, as an extravagance to be reserved for the occasion thatdemands it.