Integrating children's services in England: national evaluation of children's trusts

Background Poor co‐ordination of services can have severe consequences for disadvantaged children with complex needs. Since 2003 national and local governments in England embarked on sweeping reforms aimed at improving and integrating local health, education and social services for children. These were to be organized locally by children's trusts and piloted by 35 children's trust pathfinders. Methods This study described and compared the experience of integrating children's services in all 35 children's trust pathfinders, covering 20% of children in England. It had a prospective mixed‐methods design. Over 3 years we interviewed 147 managers and professionals working in the children's trusts, including 172 semi‐structured interviews, carried out two questionnaire surveys of the 35 children's trusts and analysed official documents. Results In most areas different agencies jointly commissioned children's services, especially for mental health, disabilities and multi‐purpose children's centres, and increasingly pooled finances. Provision of multi‐agency and multi‐professional services was increasing. Professionals generally supported these changes but found them stressful. All children's trusts appointed directors of children's services and established boards representing multiple agencies. Systems for sharing information about individual children were mostly in place but were still underused. Health services were generally less involved in joint work than were local authorities' education and social care services, with notable exceptions. Areas where local authorities and health authorities shared geographical boundaries made most progress. Some children's trusts made few changes beyond their statutory obligations. Conclusion Children's trusts enabled major changes to services in areas where local actors and organizations were motivated and empowered. In other areas the remit of children's trusts was often too broad and vague to overcome entrenched organizational and professional divisions and interests. Policymakers need to balance facilitation of change in areas with dynamic change agents with methods for ensuring that dormant areas and agencies are not left behind.     

Gold: an old drug still working in refractory pemphigus

BACKGROUND: The mainstay of treatment for pemphigus is systemic corticosteroids. Different adjuvants have been used to reduce side-effects of long-term corticotherapy. Gold is an anti-inflammatory drug used in autoimmune diseases, whose use has waned with the advent of new immunosuppressive agents. OBJECTIVE: To study the outcome of the use of intramuscular gold treatment of pemphigus vulgaris refractory to previous therapies. METHODS: Thirteen patients with pemphigus vulgaris who had failed to respond to several prior therapies were treated with aurothiomalate, as a steroid-sparing agent. Patients were monitored to assess disease activity and gold toxicity. RESULTS: Seven patients achieved complete remission. Four patients were able to taper prednisone doses, although pemphigus flared when prednisone was discontinued or reduced. Toxicity was observed in the other two patients. CONCLUSIONS: In 53.4% of the patients, the use of chrysotherapy resulted in the complete clearing of the disease, discontinuation of all systemic therapies and induced a long-term clinical remission. Prednisone doses were able to be reduced in the remaining 46.6%. Any side-effects were reversible with drug discontinuation. Gold therapy showed efficacy as a secondary line treatment in refractory pemphigus vulgaris.     

Early changes in hemoglobin and hematocrit levels after packed red cell transfusion in patients with acute anemia

BACKGROUND: Equilibration of hemoglobin concentration after transfusion has been estimated to take about 24 hours, but some studies have shown that earlier measurements reflect steady-state values in persons who have not bled recently. This study was aimed at assessing the changes over time in hemoglobin concentration after transfusion in acutely anemic patients because of recent bleeding. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: Thirty-two normovolemic patients recovering from an acute bleeding episode who were no longer thought to be bleeding and who received a 2- unit red cell transfusion were studied. At baseline and 15, 30, 60, and 120 minutes and 24 hours after transfusion, hemoglobin concentration and hematocrit values were measured. RESULTS: The administration of 2 units of packed red cells elicited a 24-hour increase of 22.4 +/− 6.8 g per L in hemoglobin concentration. Hemoglobin values were not different at any of the defined posttransfusion times. Hematocrit levels experienced similar changes over time. Agreement between 15-minute and 24-hour values was excellent, as only 6 percent of patients exhibited a clinically significant difference (> 6 g/L) between the hemoglobin measurements. CONCLUSION: Hemoglobin and hematocrit values rapidly equilibrate after transfusion in normovolemic patients who are recovering from an acute bleeding episode. This fact would allow a rapid assessment of the effects of transfusion and of the recurrence of bleeding in patients remaining at risk.     

Outcome of laparoscopic Nissen fundoplication in patients with disordered preoperative peristalsis.

BACKGROUND: A 360 degrees or Nissen fundoplication remains controversial in patients with disordered peristalsis, some surgeons preferring a partial wrap to minimise postoperative dysphagia. AIM: To evaluate symptoms and manometric outcome in patients with disordered peristalsis after Nissen fundoplication. PATIENTS: In an initial series of 345 patients studied prospectively, 31 patients who had undergone a Nissen fundoplication had disordered peristalsis. Using preoperative manometry, patients were classified as: equivocal primary peristalsis (eight patients); abnormal primary peristalsis (four patients); abnormal maximal contraction pressure (13 patients); abnormal primary peristalsis and maximal contraction pressure (six patients). METHODS: Postoperatively, patients underwent a barium meal, oesophageal manometry and standardised clinical review by a blinded scientific officer. RESULTS: Twenty eight (90%) patients had satisfaction scores of at least 8 out of a maximum of 10 and all would undergo surgery again. Whereas 15 (48%) patients had dysphagia scores greater than 4/10 preoperatively, only two (6%) had these scores at one year. Improved peristalsis was seen in 78% of postoperative manometric studies, and mean preoperative lower oesophageal sphincter pressure increased from 6.6 (range 0-21) mm Hg to 19 (4-50) mm Hg. CONCLUSIONS: These results are similar to the overall group of 345 patients and suggest that disordered peristalsis, and possibly even absent peristalsis, is not a contraindication to Nissen fundoplication as performed in these patients.     

Narrative and procedural discourse in temporal lobe epilepsy.

It is well established that some individuals with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) demonstrate language deficits at the single word level. However, discourse production rarely has been examined quantitatively within this group. This study compared adult TLE patients with an early seizure onset (< or = age 14 years, n = 27) to a control group (n = 28) on narrative and procedural discourse tasks. As a group, the TLE patients performed normally on the procedural discourse task, but differed significantly from the controls on several narrative discourse variables. At the individual level, 30% of the TLE patients versus 4% of the controls demonstrated impaired discourse ability (p and 0.01). Within this early onset TLE group, discourse performance was not associated with demographic or seizure history variables. Considering the cognitive domain, discourse performance correlated significantly with working memory. In summary, mild discourse dysfunction was present in a significant minority of early onset TLE patients, but this deficit was not closely associated with other language measures. Discourse ability and its neuropsychological, neuroanatomical and conversational speech correlates deserve further study in TLE patients.     

L-arginine reverses the antinatriuretic effect of cyclosporin in renal transplant patients

BACKGROUND: Cyclosporin has been shown to facilitate renal vasoconstriction and to have an antinatriuretic effect. The existence of an interference of cyclosporin with the vasodilating properties of endothelium mediated by nitric oxide production could mediate these effects. On the other hand, the infusion of the nitric oxide precursor L-arginine has been shown to induce renal vasodilatation and to facilitate natriuresis in normal volunteers. We have investigated the renal effects of the administration of an infusion of L-arginine in renal transplant patients chronically treated with cyclosporin. To facilitate the analysis of the data the effects of the administration of a similar dose of cyclosporin on renal function during the infusion of a vehicle were also investigated during the administration of a vehicle of L-arginine. DESIGN: Ten male renal transplant patients, chronically treated with cyclosporin and with a stable renal function were studied during 2 consecutive days after the administration of the usual morning dose of cyclosporin. The first day they received an intravenous infusion of vehicle and the second the infusion of graded doses of L-arginine (50, 100, 150 mg/kg/h) during 3 consecutive h. RESULTS: The first day, after cyclosporin administration a significant fall (P < 0.01) was observed in natriuresis and kaliuresis in the absence of changes in renal plasma flow and glomerular filtration rate. After the administration of L-arginine significant (P < 0.01) increases of renal plasma flow, glomerular filtration rate, and natriuresis were seen. The increase in blood levels of cyclosporin after its administration did not differ between days 1 and 2. CONCLUSION: These results indicate that L-arginine facilitates renal vasodilatation and natriuresis in renal transplant patients. Furthermore, the observed increase in sodium excretion could indicate that L-arginine counteracts the antinatriuretic effect of cyclosporin.      

Influence of peripheral afferents on cortical and spinal motoneuron excitability.

The objective of this study was to establish to what extent muscle, cutaneous, and joint afferents alter the excitability of spinal and cortical motor neurons. This question was examined by studying the impact of electrical stimulation of the second and third digits, the median nerve at the wrist, and the recurrent thenar motor branch on the F/H and magneto-electrical cortical motor responses (MEPs) of the thenar muscles. The firing frequencies of single F/H motor unit action potentials were unaltered by the foregoing conditioning peripheral stimuli. MEPs conditioned by motor threshold stimulation of the median nerve at the wrist or the recurrent motor branch were significantly increased in size at conditioning to test intervals of 50 to 80 milliseconds. No significant change in MEP size resulted from conditioning stimulation of the digital nerves. We conclude that muscle afferents were primarily responsible for the increase in MEP size. Conditioning stimuli may allow examiners to assess central motor conduction where it would otherwise be impossible.