Relationship between patient activation measurement and self-rated health in patients with chronic diseases

Background In the aging population, chronic diseases and multimorbidity are common. Therefore, it is important to engage patients in their self-care. The aim of this study was to analyze the relationship between activity in self-care and self-rated health among primary care patients with chronic diseases. Methods The data of the present study were derived from a research project on the Participatory Patient Care Planning in Primary Care (4PHC). A total of 605 patients were recruited in the Siilinjärvi Health Center from those patients who were being monitored due to the treatment of hypertension, ischemic heart disease or diabetes. We evaluated the level of patient’s activity in self-care with the Patient Activation Measurement (PAM). Self-rated health (SRH) was measured with the 5-item Likert scale. An adjusted hypothesis of linearity across categories of PAM and self-rated health was estimated using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). Results It was found that 76 patients had low activity, 185 had moderate while 336 patients had high activity as measured with PAM. Patients with the highest activity were younger, less depressed, had a lower body mass index and a higher level of physical activity than those with the lower activity. Correspondingly, good SRH was perceived by 29, 45 and 67% of the patients in these three PAM groups adjusted with sex, age, depressive symptoms (BDI) and number of diseases. There was a significant linear trend (adjusted with age, number of diseases and depressive symptoms) between SRH and PAM, p < 0.001. Conclusions Activity in self-care had an independent, linear relationship with the self-rated health. The present findings suggest that Patient Activation Measurement has the potential to categorize the patients according to their perceived health and their needs related to their disease management and self-care. The present results warrant longitudinal studies on the impact of promoting patient activation levels. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02992431. Registered 14 December 2016 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02992431

EFFECT OF NACL ON NEUTRON FLUX DENSITY IN GRAPHITE BLOCK

Aim of this work is to study the effect of NaCl on neutron flux through graphite block. Graphite block had 39 channels drilled through it and filled with NaCl. Au and In foils and In wire was used for neutron activation measurement of the neutron flux. AmBe neutron source with nominal activity of 92.5 GBq was used. The results were compared with MCNP simulations with channels filled with salt and air. Twelve different locations for Au and In foils were used and In wires were place in three locations to measure vertical profile of neutron flux.

Brain Activation Measurement of Velvet Hand Illusion Using Pocket NIRS

In this research, as a different approach to the conventional one which enhances the performance with hardware of a haptic device, we adopt another approach to make the brain feel as if the person is touching the real thing via an illusion. Thus, we study Velvet Hand Illusion (VHI) which is an illusionary phenomenon concerning tactile touch. In VHI, a hexagonal wire mesh is sandwiched between both hands and rubbing the wire mesh without relative motion between both hands generates a smooth feeling, like velvet. The brain activation at this time is measured by PocketNIRS, which contains two channels measuring the bilateral prefrontal cortex. We obtained the result that the prefrontal cortex was activated to roughly two times larger when VHI occurred than when touching real velvet fabric. Since different responses can be obtained in the prefrontal cortex during brain activation between real velvet and VHI, it is possible to use pocketNIRS for the evaluation of VHI.