Patient preferences for osteoporosis in Spain: a discrete choice experiment

Summary  

In Spain, various treatments are available to prevent osteoporotic fractures. A discrete choice experiment (DCE) was used to investigate the importance of different treatment aspects and its influence on patients’ preferences. All attributes included as type and place of drug administration as well as costs showed to be significant predictors of choice. Spanish osteoporosis patients have well-defined preferences and accept trade-offs among attributes.     

Augmented reality haptic (ARH): an approach of electromagnetic tracking in minimally invasive surgery

Purpose  

Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) is a widely used surgical technique that requires a long training process due to its difficulty and complexity. We developed an Augmented Reality Haptic (ARH) System based on electromagnetic tracking devices for use in creation training models (computer-enhanced trainers), in computer-assisted surgery or telemanipulation applications.     

The neural correlates of attentional bias in blood phobia as revealed by the N2pc

In the literature, a lack of attentional bias in blood phobia has been reported, using both behavioral and ERP measures. However, in the tasks employed so far, attentional resources to single stimuli, rather than attentional selection, were evaluated. The present study investigated whether in blood phobics disorder-relevant pictures can capture visuo–spatial attention when paired with neutral or non-specific unpleasant pictures (attack), and participants have to focus on a visual detection task. The N2pc component of the ERPs was measured as an index of spatial attentional selection. Results showed that in blood phobics, but not in controls, injuries elicited a larger early N2pc than attack pictures when paired with neutral material. Moreover, only in blood phobics a reliable N2pc to injury-attack pairs was found. The late N2pc reversal to injury pictures suggests that early orienting to phobic cues was followed by cognitive avoidance.     

Cognitive Impairment in Schizophrenia and Affective Psychoses: Implications for DSM-V Criteria and Beyond

It has recently been suggested that the diagnostic criteria of schizophrenia should include specific reference to cognitive impairments characterizing the disorder. Arguments in support of this assertion contend that such inclusion would not only serve to increase the awareness of cognitive deficits in affected patients, among both clinicians and researchers alike, but also increase the “point of rarity” between schizophrenia and mood disorders. The aim of the current article is to examine this latter assertion in light of the recent opinion piece provided by Keefe and Fenton (Keefe RSE, Fenton WS. How should DSM-V criteria for schizophrenia include cognitive impairment? Schizophr Bull. 2007;33:912–920). Through literature review, we explore the issue of whether cognitive deficits do in fact differentiate the major psychoses. The overall results of this inquiry suggest that inclusion of cognitive impairment criteria in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Fifth Edition) (DSM-V) would not provide a major advancement in discriminating schizophrenia from bipolar disorder and affective psychoses. Therefore, while cognitive impairment should be included in DSM-V, it should not dictate diagnostic specificity—at least not until more comprehensive evidence-based reviews of the current diagnostic system have been undertaken. Based on this evidence, we consider several alternatives for the DSM-V definition of cognitive impairment in schizophrenia, including (1) the inclusion of cognitive impairment as a specifier and (2) the definition of cognitive impairment as a dimension within a hybrid categorical-dimensional system. Given the state of current evidence, these possibilities appear to represent the most parsimonious approaches to the inclusion of cognitive deficits in the diagnostic criteria of schizophrenia and, potentially, of mood disorders.     

Migration eines intraoperativ belassenen Bauchtuches in das Kolon

Even in the era of correct precautions and risk management culture adverse and preventable adverse events, such as intraoperatively residual foreign bodies remain a hot topic. Due to legal considerations and possible image loss many cases may remain unpublished leading to an underestimation of the real incidence in literature. The following casuistic is an example for a rarely documented and in this case a partial migration of a retained surgical sponge into the colon. The causes for the delayed foreign body detection, accounting for the relative good health even during chemoradiotherapy are analyzed in order to sharpen the awareness of such serious complications.