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Biomedical subjects

R Chambers

Publications and source records attributed to R Chambers.

67 records · Page 4Linked to original sources
PubMed1985

The acute phase response in acute anterior uveitis.

The acute phase response is part of the body's systemic response to inflammation. It consists of the synthesis and release of proteins participating in the inflammatory process. The acute phase protein serum amyloid A (SAA) was studied by serial measurement of its concentration in 57 patients with acute anterior uveitis. Patients were divided into two big groups on the basis of their SAA concentrations. Thirty-eight patients showed a transient elevation of SAA and were designated responders. In 19 patients SAA levels remained normal throughout the study and these patients were designated non-responders. Responders and non-responders were of similar age and sex distributions. The severity of the uveitis was equal in the two groups, and did not correlate with the SAA concentrations at presentation. Responders tended to have had fewer previous attacks of uveitis than non-responders. HLA typing showed that HLA B27 was more frequent in patients with recurrent disease than in those suffering their first attack. The majority of HLA B27 positive patients were responders. SAA concentration does not predict the severity of an attack of uveitis, but absence of an acute phase response may be associated with a greater tendency to recurrence.

Acute Disease↗
PubMed1979

Seasonal dimensions to rural porverty: analysis and practical implications.

This paper reports on a conference on seasonal dimensions to rural poverty. Presentations included specialised papers on climate, energy balance, vital events, individual tropical diseases, nutrition, rural economy, and women, and also multi-disciplinary case studies of tropical rural areas from the Gambia, Nigeria, Mali, Kenya, Tanzania, India and Bangladesh. While care is needed in generalising, the evidence suggested that for agriculturalists in the tropics, the worst times of year are the wet seasons, typically marked by a concurrence of food shortages, high demands for agricultural work, high exposure to infection especially diarrhoeas, malaria, and skin diseases, loss of body weight, low birth weights, high neonatal mortality, poor child care, malnutrition, sickness and indebtedness. In this season, poor and weak people, especially women, are vulnerable to deprivation and to becoming poorer and weaker. Seasonal analysis is easily left out in rural planning. When applied, it suggests priorities in research, and indicates practical policy measures for health, for the family, for agriculture, and for government planning and administration.

Agriculture↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The geriatric obstacle course: a training session designed to help prehospital personnel recognize geriatric stereotypes and misconceptions.

A significant proportion of ambulance transports to the Emergency Department involve elderly patients, and this use of EMS services by the elderly is expected to increase. Emergency medical technicians (EMTs) may have preconceived notions about the behavior they observe in this group of patients, who tend to be difficult to assess. To provide EMTs with the perspective from which their elderly patients view the situations in which they find themselves, we developed and implemented training scenarios in which the EMTs were required to play the role of the geriatric patient. The EMTs' evaluations of the sessions were enthusiastically positive and indicated that the course did enable them to reevaluate their attitudes toward elderly patients. It is our conviction that this type of sensitivity training is an easily implemented and highly valuable method of augmenting the facts and algorithms taught to these prehospital care providers.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Echography and pulsed Doppler of the arteries of the renal parenchyma in obstructive syndromes and dilatation of the excretory cavities of the kidney].

Ultrasonography is highly effective in diagnosing pyelocalyceal dilatation. Confirming the distension of these collecting structures, indicating probable obstruction, is more difficult since the degree of dilatation does not always correspond to the degree of distension. Renal studies were performed in 244 patients including 51 patients with dilation or renal obstruction. Doppler ultrasonography was used to measure the Pourcelot's resistive index of arcuate and interlobar arteries for each kidney. Results demonstrate: 1) for healthy patients the average vascular resistive index is 0.54 +/- 0.02 (minimum 0.48 +/- 0.02, maximum 0.60 +/- 0.02). 2) in cases of acute obstruction, this resistive index for pathologic kidney is elevated greater than 0.7. The difference in resistive indices between the pathologic and contralateral kidney was greater than 0.10. 3) in the patients with intermittent junctional syndromes when an intravenous furosemide test is used, there is an increase in the resistive index. 4) in case of chronic obstruction well tolerated, the increase in resistive index is moderate. If there is an acute deterioration, the resistive index become greater than 0.8. Concurrent abnormalities which affect only one kidney (pathology of the renal hilum, tumoral syndromes) may make it difficult to interpret certain results. Ultrasonography together with Doppler scanning may be in certain cases a reasonable alternative with IVP.

Acute Disease↗