Quality: a personal perspective.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to D Wender.
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The author (a classics professor) suffered a cerebrovascular accident, resulting in aphasia. In order to learn whether speech therapy helps aphasic patients to recover, the patient worked on Greek vocabulary and grammar and ignored Latin. (Both languages were equally well-known before the accident; skills in both languages had been totally lost afterward.) This case demonstrates the value of retraining an aphasic. After three years, testing demonstrated a professorial level of the Greek language, but Latin was essentially still missing.
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The effect of exposure to high O2 concentration on neonatal rat lung oxidative function was determined. The water content of lungs from neonatal rats exposed to 100% O2 for the first 6 days of life was 3% greater than room-air control, indicating minimal pulmonary edema. Since neonatal rat lungs exposed to O2 have minimal pulmonary edema, they provide a model to determine the direct effect of O2 on mitochondrial oxidative function. After 6 days of exposure to 100% O2, lactate production by lung slices of neonatal rats was twofold greater than room-air controls. Lactate production by lung slices of neonatal rats exposed to six days of O2 and then 3 days of room air was equal to controls. Total pyruvate dehydrogenase activity was 45% lower in O2-exposed lung compared with control, and active pyruvate dehydrogenase activity was 20% lower. The oxidation of lauric acid, acetate, and beta-hydroxybutyrate was 40% lower in the O2-exposed lung compared with controls. These data suggest that there is a toxic effect of O2 on mitochondrial oxidative function in the absence of severe pulmonary edema and that these toxic effects are reversible within 72 h.
For a stroke victim there may be at least three types of strange occurrences: incorrect saying, seeing, and thinking. To the patient only the third seems to be "crazy". After a stroke (left hemisphere), which mainly produced serious aphasia, I (the patient) felt crazy two or three times when someone said something I expected him to say. On the other hand, my initial aphasic "gibberish speech" and an occasional false vision did not seem crazy. In my case the vision is always a car or a child, seen on my extreme right, where I am otherwise blind from the stroke. I am always driving when it happens; in recent years this phenomenon occurs when I am tired or tense, or the light is poor. These rapid visions do not seem insane but merely physical problems in my eyes, much like ordinary people's dreams.