Middle East Journal of Rehabilitation and Health Studies
Volume:5 Issue: 3, Jul 2018

Divided attention is impaired in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The influence of divided attention on people with AD has been considered from different perspectives, such as motor ability, cortical responses, performance in divided attention evaluation tasks, and comparison of divided attention and directed and focused attention. The purpose of the current study was to investigate divided attention in AD patients from these different perspectives.

 An electronic search was performed in January and February 2016 in PubMed, Science Direct, Medline, Scopus, Google Scholar, and Ovid databases to obtain relevant articles published from 1980 to 2015. The keywords used included “Alzheimer’s disease”, “attention”, and “divided attention”. The articles obtained were studied using the following standard protocol for inclusion criteria written in the English language, the focus of studies was on divided attention in AD, and no other types of cognitive ability. From the 60 articles found, 10 articles that were adhered to the inclusion criteria were selected for consideration.

The 10 studies reviewed considered divided attention in AD from different domains. These domains showed that AD patients had impaired performance in tasks that required divided attention and showed deficits in motor tasks stemming from the negative effects of impaired divided attention on motor ability. Different types of brain deficits have been observed in neuroimaging techniques in individuals with AD during divided attention tasks. Those with AD showed greater impairment for divided attention than for directed and focused attention.

Divided attention influences the lives of those with AD from several perspectives. These include the inability to focus on two or several relevant stimuli simultaneously that require divided attention rather than directed and focused attention and a deficit in the performance of motor tasks such as gait and other problems in daily life, such as falling. In addition, depression also had a negative effect on divided attention. Depressed AD patients had more difficulty in daily activities than AD patients without depression. The areas of the brain involved in divided attention in individuals with AD differ from those involved in unaffected people.

The staff performance in health care system is related to their satisfaction. The aim of this research is to investigate the relationship between the work-family conflict and the job satisfaction of medical staff after implementing the health system development plan (HSDP).

Amongst the 350 staff of Damghan Vellayat hospital, 150 of them have been selected in 2016 by random sampling. Two questionnaires, “staff satisfaction” and “work-family conflict”, have been used as the data gathering tool after implementing the HSDP.

A total of 48.8% of the respondents were female and 52% of them were male and had a mean age of 34.5. The relationship between staff satisfaction and job dimensions has been determined significantly by Pearson correlation coefficient (r = 0.463, P = 0.000). In addition, the relationship between staff satisfaction and conflict with family were significant (r = 0.245, P = 0.000). The difference between men and women in job improvement and job (P = 0.027) stress factors were significant (P = 0.07). Among all the men, 95.4% of them have gotten more than 50 scores (this indicates the job importance in comparison to family life). Therefore, the job importance in comparison to family life is more in the male staff.

According to the findings, gender, job category, lack of sufficient educations, and the physical place as well as job dimensions have a direct relationship with job satisfaction and its conflict with family and work relation after implementing the health system development plan.

The amount of burnouts in professions is relatively high and deals with health. No study has been conducted on the burnout among the speech and language pathologists (SLPs) in Iran.

Thus, this study was performed to investigate burnout and the risk factors related to it among the Iranian SLPs.

Sampling was conducted on the eligible SLPs (N = 182) participated in the 13th Iranian national congress of speech and language pathology (2015) using the convenience sampling method. In this study, Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) questionnaire, in which its reliability had been obtained in Iran (α ≥ 76%), and the demographic questionnaire (job and individual information) were used. To find the risk factors of job burnout, the χ2 test and the logistic regression correlation were used.

In this study, 97.3% of SLPs had burnout (mild = 44% and moderate = 53.3%). The burnout was observed in the domains of the emotional exhaustion and depersonalization; factors such as income level (P = 0.03, mean = 1.96, SD = 0.79), case load size (P = 0.015, r = - 0.12, mean = 35.5, SD = 21.05), and retraining courses (P = 0.05, mean = 1.54, SD = 0.8), had the significant relationship with job burnout.

All SLPs had a mild and moderate burnout. Burnout had a positive relationship with case-load size, however, it had a negative one with the income level and job retraining courses. To reduce the burnout, the above problems should be paid attention to.

Cancer is one of the main causes of death in the world. In recent years, many studies have been conducted on the usage of nanomaterials in cancer treatment. In previous studies, the anti-tumor effects of mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSN) on cancer cells have been shown. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of MSN loaded with Hematoporphyrin (HpD) on the cell proliferation and invasion of MCF7 (Michigan Cancer Foundation-7) breast cancer cell line. The antioxidant effects of MSN loaded with HpD were also investigated.

In this study, using MTT [3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide] assay, the proliferation and viability of cancer cells were studied after exposure to MSN loaded with HpD. The wound healing assay technique (migration test) was used for the assessment of cancer cells’ invasion. The antioxidant effects of MSN loaded with HpD were studied by DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) assay and FRAP (ferric reducing/antioxidant power) assay techniques.

Our results showed that the viability and proliferation of breast cancer cell line MCF7 in the presence of silica nanoparticles loaded with hematoporphyrin (HpD) significantly declined (P = 0.02). After exposure to mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSN) loaded with hematoporphyrin (HpD), the cancer cell invasion decreased (P = 0.025). Silica nanoparticles alone and loaded with hematoporphyrin (HpD) showed considerable cytotoxic activities against cancer cell lines (IC50 = 20 - 30 μg.mL-1). The most promising result was achieved for MSN loaded with hematoporphyrin (HpD) with the minimum IC50 value. It was found that the proliferation rate of MCF7 cells decreased after treatment with this compound in a dose-dependent manner. The assessments with DPPH assay and FRAP assay techniques showed that MSN and MSN loaded with HpD have antioxidant activities.

MSN loaded with HpD have an inhibitory effect on the growth of the MCF7 cell line. MSN alone and in combination with HpD have an inhibitory effect on cell invasion in the MCF7 cell line. MSN alone and loaded with HpD have antioxidant effects. These results indicate that MSN has the potential to be used in cancer treatment as a carrier for anticancer drugs.

Nine equivalents of nursing manpower use score (NEMS) is one of the scoring systems used in some studies to determine the severity of the status of patients in the ICU. The present study was conducted to investigate the application of NEMS to identify patients at the end stages of life.

This study was a prospective design where 420 patients were selected from the intensive care unit (ICU) of a referral hospital. Data collection tools were demographic, disease-related, and NEMS questionnaires. The last calculated NEMS score for patients was used to detect their need for end-of-life care. After completing the sampling, the data were analyzed by descriptive statistics and Cox regression at 95% confidence interval.

The relative risk of death in the ICU was 1.027 (95% CI = 1.015 - 1.042). All patients with NEMS ≥ 38 died, however, all patients who had a NEMS score ≤ 15 were discharged from the ICU with a satisfactory general health. The death rate was 22.1% in the 15 ≤ NEMS ≥ 34 scores. Finally, the patients admitted to the ICU were divided into three groups. The first group was the patients with a mortality risk < 41%, the second group had a mortality risk between 41% and 99%, and the third group were the patients with the mortality risk of 100%.

The present study presented a numerical criterion (NEMS > 34) for identifying the patients in need of end-of-life care instead of life-saving measures. However, further studies should be carried out in this area to argue the exact NEMS score requiring life-saving measures in ICU patients.

The objective of this study was to evaluate if ozone is capable of improving pain, function and quality of life, and to decrease serum uric acid in human knee osteoarthritis (OA) patients.

Overall, 42 patients, 31 females (73.81%) and 11 males (26.19%) were enrolled in a prospective quasi experimental before-and-after study. Mean age of the sample was 66.9 ± 8.83 years. Treatment consisted of four sessions (one per week) of an intra articular infiltration of a medical mixture of oxygen-ozone (95% to 5%), 20 mL volume at a 20 µ/mL concentration, on the most symptomatic painful knee. Before and after the intervention, the researchers measured outcomes including serum uric acid and pain, function, and quality of life by the visual analogue scale (VAS) and by Western Ontario and Mac Master index for OA (WOMAC). The OA patients were graded by Kellgren-Lawrence radiological scale as 2° to 4° grades.

Serum uric acid decreased from 5.19 ± 1.22 mg/dL to 5.03 ± 1.22 (P = 0.0439). The WOMAC pain subscale score decreased from 14.26 ± 2.61 to 5.95 ± 2.97 points (P = 0.0001), WOMAC stiffness subscale diminished from 2.72 ± 1.63 to 1.04 ± 1.04 points (P = 0.0001), and WOMAC function subscale improved from 41.78 ± 10.17 to 24.61 ± 9.86 points (P = 0.0001).

Intra articular ozone is capable of decreasing pain and stiffness and improving function and quality of life, as well as decreasing serum uric acid in knee OA patients

Heart failure has been recognized as a major cause of hospitalization, morbidity, and increasing healthcare costs. The purpose of this study was to determine causal relationships between the factors predicting self-care in Iranian elders with chronic heart failure.

In the present study, 334 elderly people (194 females and 140 males), with chronic heart failure (CHF), completed questionnaires that covered the areas of psychosocial characteristics including; age, gender, education, income, location, living arrangement, depression, social support, age-related characteristics including cognition, attitudes toward aging, functional status, hearing impairment, visual impairment, poly-pharmacy, Charlson comorbidity index, clinical characteristics including; sodium serum level, systolic BP, ejection fraction, severity of disease, sleep disorders, prior experiences, and self-care behaviors. The relationships between variables were tested under the SEM technique using AMOS version 20.

The collected data was found to not fit with the initial model, however, after modification, the final model fitness was confirmed. Age-related characteristics had no effect on self-care behaviors (r = -0.3; P = 0.221). Social factors had both direct and indirect negative effects on self-care (r = -0.37; P = 0.016) through age-related factors (r = -0.19; P = 0.016). Prior experiences had a direct positive effect on self-care (r = 0.23; P = 0.018).

Developing programs to improve social conditions and designing the educational model based on older adults’ preferences seems necessary.

Since the introduction of schizophrenia, different approaches have been developed to ameliorate the symptoms or improve the quality of life in patients who are diagnosed with schizophrenia. Currently, scientists around the world are developing new techniques to treat and rehabilitate people with schizophrenia. One of these techniques is virtual reality, which benefits the patient through simulating the experience of acting in a variety of settings and interacting with virtual characters. In this study, we aimed to briefly introduce this technique to scholars in the field of psychiatry and rehabilitation.

Sagittal spine malalignment has been linked with a number of health consequences including pain, disability, and suboptimal quality of life.

We present a 19-year-old male with 3 years history of chronic back pain associated with kypholordotic posture. Upon examination, lumbar hyperlordosis and thoracic hyperkyphosis were mainly associated with muscular imbalance around the chest, upper back, and lumbopelvic-hip region. The patient received treatment comprising postural education (PE), therapeutic massage (TM), segmental stretching exercise (SSE), and motor control exercise (MCE) twice a week for 8 weeks. The patient demonstrated a significant improvement in lumbar lordotic (83.80 to 76.30) and thoracic kyphotic (65.20 to 60.60) curves as measured by flexible ruler, back pain (7.0 cm to 1.0 cm) as measured by visual analogue scale, spine ranges of motion (flexion: 5.2cm to 7.5cm; extension: 3.5cm to 4.7cm) as measured by modified Schober’s test, and functional disability (46.7% to 20.0%) as measured by modified Oswestry disability index.

The results showed that the combination of PE, TM, SSE, and MCE was effective in improving sagittal spine alignment, back pain, spine range of movement, and function