Surgical interventions targeting the nucleus caudalis: a systematic review and historical perspective.

Introduction: Chronic facial pain is a prevalent group of conditions and when refractory to common treatments poses a social and economic burden. The last decade has seen a multitude of advancements in the multimodal management of pain. Ablative or neuromodulatory interventions targeting the nucleus caudalis (NC) of the trigeminocervical complex is one such treatment that has remained underutilized. Methods: Here we present a systematic review of the literature and historical perspective regarding interventions targeting the NC. We examine the various intervention techniques, clinical indications, and procedural efficacy. A novel outcome reporting scheme was devised to allow comparison between studies using differing outcome reporting methods. Results: A review of the literature revealed 49 retrospective studies published over the last 80 years, reporting on 858 patients. The most common technique was the open NC dorsal root entry zone nucleotomy/tractotomy (n=515, 60.0%); however, there has been an emergence of novel approaches such as endoscopic (n=6, 0.7%) and spinal cord stimulation (n=20, 2.3%) in the last 10 years. Regardless of intervention technique or preoperative diagnosis, 90.4% of patients demonstrated some improvement from treatment. Conclusion: This systematic review highlights recent advancements in NC intervention technique and the wide range of facial pain syndromes for which these interventions show promising efficacy. New and less invasive techniques continue to emerge, however prospective studies remain absent in the literature. Future work should address efficacy comparisons between intervention type and preoperative diagnosis.

Practitioners’ Experiences of the Influence of Bonsai Art on Health

Bonsai art refers to the cultivation of a miniature tree. This study was motivated by the hypothesis that bonsai art may also be an ecopsychological, therapeutic practice that can have meaningful healing qualities. An international online survey elicited the meaning of bonsai art for 255 skilled bonsai practitioners. Questionnaires and interviews were used to elicit the experiences of participants. The findings supported the hypothesis that, for skilled practitioners, bonsai art was associated with meaningful healing experiences. In particular, the evidence suggests that bonsai art facilitates improved ecological, spiritual and emotional awareness, as well as various healing dimensions, including aesthetic creativity, resilience, adaptability, and social, physical, and personal health. It is viewed as an intervention technique that requires few resources, is easy to apply, and has a minimal impact on any environmental setting. The conclusions drawn point to the ethically sound health promotion value of bonsai art in various settings, such as psychiatric hospitals, retirement homes, rehabilitation centres and prisons.

A change of diagnostic name of schizophrenia can improve public’s perception and attitude toward it (in Chinese)

The debate about whether to change the Chinese diagnostic name of “Schizophrenia” has been widespread over recent years, increasing number of researchers and professionals are calling for a change of its diagnostic name. However, there is no solid evidence to support that a change of schizophrenia’s Chinese diagnostic name could ease public’s bias of this mental illness and its stigma issue. In this study, through an intervention technique, we designed a scale to measure the possible changes of participants’ perception and attitude in terms of different diagnostic names: JING SHEN FEN LIE ZHENG and SI JUE SHI TIAO ZHENG. The results showed that the scale demonstrated a high reliability (α = 0.882; α = 0.859 in two tests) and there was a moderate correlation between the dimension of perception and attitude (Pearson’s R = 0.668; Pearson’s R = 0.677 in two tests). A further analysis revealed that the new diagnostic name was able to significantly reduce the negative perception of schizophrenia (p < .001) and significantly improve participants’ attitude toward this mental illness. Our findings provide evidence to support the change of diagnostic name of schizophrenia in China for the first time. We also firstly create a new quantitative way to measure the effect of name change of schizophrenia, providing a tool for future research in this area.

‘Where chaos was, there shall be a matrix’ (de Maré). The large analytic group between chaos and creativity—reflections on the concept, its history and further evolution

The author presents a survey of the development of large group theory. Older publications (e.g. Kreeger, Turqet, also drawing on Freud, M. Klein, Bion) describe the chaotic-aggressive, near-psychosis character of the large group, a certain contrast between the seemingly ‘benign’ small group and the ‘destructive’ large group and a predominantly dyadic relationship between the conductor and the large group. More recent publications (Wilke, Island, formerly also de Maré) underline the creative-constructive potential of the large group and the intersubjective interweaving of the conductor and the large group. Experiences with a conductor-pair in the daily large group of the Altaussee workshop instead of one conductor are discussed. The author pleads for the application of modern intersubjective theorizing to the large group. The analytic attitude and intervention technique would be changed: the traditional position of strict neutrality, anonymity and abstinence as well as the emphasis on whole-group interpretations would be substituted by a more open stance that does not hide the subjectivity of the conductor(s) but rather reveals and uses the conductor’s subjectivity to promote the analytic process.

Advances in the application of respiratory training in patients with cardiovascular disease

As one of the lifestyle interventions, respiratory training has a positive role in rehabilitation. This study summarizes the mechanism, intervention technique, effects and problems of respiratory training in patients with cardiovascular disease, so as to provide reference for the developing of the best respiratory training program of the clinicians.

Voltage Sensing Technique for Renewable Energy Sources Self-Intervention

Solar photovoltaic and wind energy resources are gaining more popularity as an integrated or complementary power system. Integrating or complementing either solar photovoltaic or wind energy would be an ideal to reduce the intermittency when self-intervention from either one of the input resources is performed. The self-intervention plays a vital role in renewable energy resources hybridization, hence this paper proposes to model and simulate an adaptive voltage-divider sensing method to perform the self-intervention technique for renewable energy resources hybridization using the Stateflow/Simulink MATLAB software. The proposed adaptive voltage-divider sensing method performs the voltage sensing and measurement for input voltages from either one of the renewable energy resources adopted. This voltage sensing and measurement is an important factor to demonstrate the self-intervention in the designed and developed Stateflow/Simulink MATLAB Controller. The proposed adaptive voltage-divider sensing method and self-intervention technique for renewable energy resources hybridization is analyzed along with the voltage sensing and measurement at the inputs. The self-intervention state modes for the inputs from the renewable energy resources hybridization are given by the simulation results in this study.