Search results for "Direct"
showing 10 items of 2669 documents
Human eyes do not need monochromatic aberrations for dynamic accommodation
2017
Purpose To determine if human accommodation uses the eye's own monochromatic aberrations to track dynamic accommodative stimuli. Methods Wavefront aberrations were measured while subjects monocularly viewed a monochromatic Maltese cross moving sinusoidally around 2D of accommodative demand with 1D amplitude at 0.2 Hz. The amplitude and phase (delay) of the accommodation response were compared to the actual vergence of the stimulus to obtain gain and temporal phase, calculated from wavefront aberrations recorded over time during experimental trials. The tested conditions were as follows: Correction of all the subject's aberrations except defocus (C); Correction of all the subject's aberratio…
Reference interval by the indirect approach of serum thyrotropin (TSH) in a Mediterranean adult population and the association with age and gender.
2019
Abstract Background The serum concentration of thyrotropin (TSH) represents a first-line test in diagnostic algorithms. The estimation of TSH reference intervals (RIs) is still a matter of debate due to the high prevalence of subclinical disease making difficult the definition of truly healthy subjects. The aim of this study was to estimate TSH RIs in healthy subjects and to evaluate the effect of age and gender on TSH concentration. Methods Forty-four thousand one hundred and fifty-six TSH data were collected between July 2012 and April 2018 at the Department of Laboratory Medicine, University-Hospital, Palermo. Common and sex-specific RIs were estimated by Arzideh’s indirect method after …
Ethical assessment of hepatitis C virus treatment: The lesson from first generation protease inhibitors
2015
Abstract Since chronic hepatitis C has mostly become curable, issues concerning choice and allocation of treatment are of major concern. We assessed the foremost ethical issues in hepatitis C virus therapy with 1st generation protease inhibitors using the personalist ethical framework within the health technology assessment methodology. Our aim was to identify values at stake/in conflict and to support both the physicians’ choices in hepatitis C therapy and social (macro-) allocation decision-making. The ethical assessment indicates that: (1) safety/effectiveness profile of treatment is guaranteed if its use is restricted to the patients subgroups who may benefit from it; (2) patients shoul…
Age and Grip Strength Predict Hand Dexterity in Adults.
2015
In the scientific literature, there is much evidence of a relationship between age and dexterity,\ud where increased age is related to slower, less nimble and less smooth, less coordinated\ud and less controlled performances. While some suggest that the relationship is a direct consequence\ud of reduced muscle strength associated to increased age, there is a lack of research\ud that has systematically investigated the relationships between age, strength and\ud hand dexterity. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the associations between\ud age, grip strength and dexterity. 107 adults (range 18-93 years) completed a series of hand\ud dexterity tasks (i.e. steadiness, line tracking…
Modulating phonemic fluency performance in healthy subjects with transcranial magnetic stimulation over the left or right lateral frontal cortex.
2017
Abstract A growing body of evidence have suggested that non-invasive brain stimulation techniques, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), can improve the performance of aphasic patients in language tasks. For example, application of inhibitory rTMS or tDCs over the right frontal lobe of dysphasic patients resulted in improved naming abilities. Several studies have also reported that in healthy controls (HC) tDCS application over the left prefrontal cortex (PFC) improve performance in naming and semantic fluency tasks. The aim of this study was to investigate in HC, for the first time, the effects of inhibitory repetitive TMS (rTMS…
Type I Diabetes is the Main Cost Driver in Autoimmune Polyendocrinopathy
2019
Abstract Context Autoimmune polyendocrinopathy (AP), a chronic complex orphan disease, encompasses at least two autoimmune-induced endocrine diseases. Objective To estimate for the first time total, indirect and direct costs for patients with AP, as well as cost drivers. Design Cross-sectional cost of illness study. Setting Academic tertiary referral center for AP. Patients 146 consecutive, unselected AP patients. Intervention Interviews pertaining to patients’ socioeconomic situation covered a recall period of 12 months. Both the human capital (HCA) and the friction cost approaches (FCAs) were applied as estimation methods. Main outcome measures Direct and indirect annual costs, and sick l…
Optimizing patient referral and center capacity in the management of chronic hepatitis C: Lessons from the Italian experience
2019
Abstract Aims In 2017 the Italian Drug Agency (Agenzia Italiana del Farmaco, AIFA) revised the criteria for access to therapy for patients with chronic hepatitis C as part of a three-year plan to eradicate HCV. We conducted a Delphi study to determine strategies to identify and treat patients with HCV and to develop through a shared pathway, a model to manage patient referral and optimize prescription center capacity with the overall aim of increasing access to therapy. Methods The process took place in two phases – Phase I (January 2017), before the criteria for treatment of HCV were revised and Phase II (May 2017) when AIFA developed a framework for the eradication of HCV infection in Ita…
Effects of transcranial direct current stimulation on esophageal motility in patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease
2014
To evaluate the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on esophageal peristalsis in patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).Patients with GERD preliminary diagnosis were included in a randomized double-blind sham-controlled study. Esophageal manometry was performed before and during transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of the right precentral cortex. Half of patients were randomly assigned to anodal, half to sham stimulation. Distal waves amplitude and pathological waves percentage were measured, after swallowing water boli, for ten subsequent times. Last, a 24h pH-bilimetry was done to diagnose non-erosive reflux disease (NERD) or functional heartb…
Perceptual Pseudoneglect in Schizophrenia: Candidate Endophenotype and the Role of the Right Parietal Cortex
2013
Several contributions have reported an altered expression of pseudoneglect in psychiatric disorders, highlighting the existence of an anomalous brain lateralization in affected subjects. Surprisingly, no studies have yet investigated pseudoneglect in first-degree relatives (FdR) of psychiatric patients. We investigated performance on “paper and pencil” line bisection (LB) tasks in 68 schizophrenic patients (SCZ), 42 unaffected FdR, 41 unipolar depressive patients (UP), and 103 healthy subjects (HS). A subgroup of 20 SCZ and 16 HS underwent computerized LB and mental number line bisection (MNL) tasks requiring judgment of prebisected lines and numerical intervals. Moreover, we evaluated, in …
From telescope to binoculars. Dyadic outcome resulting from psychological counselling for infertile couples undergoing ART
2018
Objective This longitudinal study aims to evaluate the effect of psychological counselling on quality of life, marital satisfaction and need for parenthood in couples undergoing fertility treatments (ART). Background Recent guidelines on the ART suggest that psychological counselling should target both members of the infertile couple in order to improve their conjoint management of the infertility-related stress. However, studies on the dyadic outcome of couples are scarce. Methods 262 patients were originally considered in the study and completed questionnaires on quality of life, need for parenthood and marital satisfaction, before treatment (T1) and at the day of intrauterine inseminatio…