Biomedical subjects

Robert E Wood

Publications and source records attributed to Robert E Wood.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2005

Pediatric postcricoid vascular malformation: a diagnostic and treatment challenge.

Hemangioma of the upper aerodigestive tract is a rarely reported occurrence in the pediatric literature. To date, there have been three published case reports of postcricoid hemangiomas contributing to unexplained dysphagia and respiratory distress. We present three children with a history of swallowing difficulty and stridor who were found to have an occult postcricoid mass. Valsalva maneuvers confirmed the suspicion of a vascular malformation in both patients. Transoral laser therapy (KTP and CO2) was used to ablate the lesions. The patients are symptom-free at 5 months, 5 years, and 2 weeks, respectively. The diagnostic challenge in evaluating these children and the therapeutic choices are described.

Bronchoscopy↗

PubMed2004

Complications of metallic stents in the pediatric airway.

OBJECTIVE: Our aim was to present our experience with complications caused by placement of metallic stents in the pediatric airway. DESIGN AND SETTING: We conducted a retrospective study of the medical records of patients with complications resulting from metallic stent placement, managed by the senior authors between 1993 and 2002. RESULTS: Nine children had complications associated with the placement of metallic airway stents. Of these, 8 children required stent removal. Granulation tissue and tracheal stenosis were seen in all 7 children with long standing stent placement. There was 1 stent death in this series. CONCLUSIONS: Metallic airway stents can cause significant complications in the pediatric airway. These complications may supersede the airway compromise that necessitated their initial placement. As such, metallic stent placement should be approached with caution. The likelihood and severity of complications increase with time, as do the difficulties encountered upon removal. The proportion of patients in whom metallic stents may be placed "permanently" without complications is not known. Therefore we recommend that metallic airway stents be considered a temporizing measure of limited duration.

Child, Preschool↗

PubMed2004

Feedback specificity, exploration, and learning.

Greater feedback specificity is generally considered to be beneficial for performance and learning, but the evidence for this generalization is limited. The authors argue that increasing the specificity of feedback is beneficial for initial performance but discourages exploration and undermines the learning needed for later, more independent performance. The results of their transfer experiment demonstrate that increasing the specificity of feedback positively affected practice performance, but its benefits did not endure over time or modification of the task. In addition, feedback specificity negatively affected levels of exploration during practice and interacted with exploration strategies to affect learning. The results suggest that those who received feedback of varying specificity may have learned through different but equally beneficial mechanisms.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Feedback specificity, learning opportunities, and learning.

Although increasing feedback specificity is generally beneficial for immediate performance, it can undermine certain aspects of the learning needed for later, more independent performance. The results of the present transfer experiment demonstrate that the effects of increasing feedback specificity on learning depended on what was to be learned, and these effects were partially mediated through the opportunities to learn how to respond to different task conditions during practice. More specific feedback was beneficial for learning how to respond to good performance and detrimental for learning how to respond to poor performance. The former relationship was partially mediated by feedback specificity's effect on learning opportunities during practice. The results have implications for designing feedback interventions and training to maximize the learning of various aspects of a task.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

Skeletal identification using the frontal sinus region: a retrospective study of 39 cases.

The importance of identification using the frontal sinus has been previously demonstrated in case reports. In this study, 39 cases of identification using frontal sinus comparison from the Ontario Chief Coroner's Office were reviewed and differences between antemortem and postmortem radiographs examined. All cases involved decedents older than twenty years. Three cases were rejected due to poor antemortem and postmortem film quality. One subject had no frontal sinus. Thirty-five cases provided conclusive postmortem to antemortem pattern matches. Sixteen cases also yielded metric (quantitative) matches. Duration between antemortem and postmortem radiographic examinations, age, gender, and cause of death did not affect the ability to obtain a match. This is the largest study undertaken on actual cases and demonstrates the validity of frontal sinus pattern matching for forensic identification.

Adult↗