Articles: function.
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Pain is a biologically relevant signal and response to bodily threat, associated with the urge to restore the integrity of the body. Immediate protective responses include increased arousal, selective attention, escape, and facial expressions, followed by recuperative avoidance and safety-seeking behaviors. To facilitate early and effective protection against future bodily threat or injury, learning takes place rapidly. ⋯ In contrast to the rapid acquisition of learned responses, their extinction is slow, fragile, context dependent and only occurs through inhibitory processes. Here, we review features of associative forms of learning in humans that contribute to pain, pain-related distress, and disability and discuss promising future directions. Although conditioning has a long and honorable history, a conditioning perspective still might open new windows on novel treatment modalities that facilitate the well-being of individuals with chronic pain.
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Research into complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) has made significant progress. First, there was the implementation of the official IASP "Budapest" diagnostic criteria. It would be desirable to also define exclusion and outcome criteria that should be reported in studies. ⋯ In an attempt to avoid pain, patients neglect their limb and learn maladaptive nonuse. The final step will be to assess large cohorts and to analyze these data together with data from public resources using a bioinformatics approach. We could then develop diagnostic toolboxes for individual pathophysiology and select focused treatments or develop new ones.
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Curr Opin Anaesthesiol · Apr 2015
ReviewNutrition and metabolic support for critically ill patients.
Acute critical illness increases the risk of malnutrition, are more obese, and have multiple comorbidities and frequent pre-existing nutritional deficits. There is a vast amount of research and literature being written on nutritional practices in the critically ill. We review and discuss herein the important nutrition literature over the past 12 months. ⋯ Nutrition and metabolic support of critically ill patients is a complex and diverse topic. Nutritional measurements, requirements, and modes and routes of delivery are currently being studied to determine the best way to treat these complicated patients. We present just a few of the current controversial topics in this fascinating arena.
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Intensive care medicine · Apr 2015
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative StudyImproving ultrasonic measurement of diaphragmatic excursion after cardiac surgery using the anatomical M-mode: a randomized crossover study.
Motion-mode (MM) echography allows precise measurement of diaphragmatic excursion when the ultrasound beam is parallel to the diaphragmatic displacement. However, proper alignment is difficult to obtain in patients after cardiac surgery; thus, measurements might be inaccurate. A new imaging modality named the anatomical motion-mode (AMM) allows free placement of the cursor through the numerical image reconstruction and perfect alignment with the diaphragmatic motion. Our goal was to compare MM and AMM measurements of diaphragmatic excursion in cardiac surgical patients. ⋯ MM overestimates diaphragmatic excursion in comparison to AMM in cardiac surgical patients. Using MM may lead to a lack of recognition of diaphragmatic dysfunction.
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Semin Respir Crit Care Med · Apr 2015
ReviewFungi in cystic fibrosis and non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis.
Bronchiectasis is a pathologic bronchial dilatation with loss of function that can result from multiple inflammatory and infectious injuries to the conducting airways of the lung. Molds, particularly the filamentous fungus Aspergillus fumigatus, have been implicated as a common cause of both cystic fibrosis (CF) and non-CF bronchiectasis, the latter primarily in patients with severe asthma. The pathogenesis of mold-associated bronchiectasis is usually due to atopic sensitization to mold allergens in the presence of active chronic endobronchial fungal infection with host innate and adaptive immune deviation to a Th2-dominated inflammation, a condition known as allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis (ABPA) (or allergic bronchopulmonary mycosis if a non-Aspergillus mold is implicated). Diagnostic criteria of ABPA continue to evolve, while treatment relies upon downregulation of the allergic inflammatory response with immunomodulatory agents and antifungal pharmacotherapy.