In France, many people consult "bonesetters" for several medical reasons. Little is known about them. We aimed to investigate the practices of traditional healers in France as well as their profile ...and that of their customers.
This was a survey carried out in Metropolitan France. A 33-item questionnaire developed by a multidisciplinary group was sent to a sample of 148 traditional healers found on the Internet and by word of mouth.
Of the 148 questionnaires sent, 89 (60.1 %) were returned and 67 (45.3 %) were analyzed: 51.5 % (n = 34) of respondents were men, and the mean (±standard deviation) age was 51.6 ± 11.6 years. The respondents considered that they had received a gift of healing and were mainly magnetic healers (68.2 %). They became aware of this gift at a mean age of 19.9 ± 14.1 years. The traditional healers practiced mainly in rural areas (54.5 %), at home (59.1 %), and used their hands to transmit energy (95.5 %). They advertised their practice mainly by word of mouth (89.4 %) and had a predominantly female clientele (78.1 %). Various diseases were treated, with the most frequent being subjective complaints (pain, stress, fatigue, insomnia) and dermatological complaints (eczema, accidental and post-herpes-zoster burns, psoriasis, and warts). Most respondents considered their activities to be complementary to conventional medicine, and 10.9 % considered them more effective. Some indicated that they did not consider themselves "healers" but rather "providers of relief".
The results of this survey provide a better understanding of this network of local care that revolves around medicine.
We present a prospective, observational study evaluating the incidence of medication errors (ME) in a university hospital pediatric emergency department and describe their characteristics and ...determinants. A systematic analysis of the handwritten prescriptions was conducted by a clinician and pharmacist. Of 11,573 consecutively studied prescriptions in children under 15 years of age, the ME incidence was 0.9% (n=102). The incidence of errors found was statistically significantly higher in children older than 5 years (OR=2.05; P=0.026). There was no significant difference regarding the time of admission (P=0.544), the day of the week (P=0.940), or the affluence of people in attendance at the emergency department. The errors observed were all prescription errors. Most errors were related to analgesic (51%) and antibiotic (30%) treatments. No serious errors were reported.
We found a low incidence of medication errors in this study. The validation of prescriptions by a senior multidisciplinary staff could contribute to limited medication errors. Measures should be continued to further reduce the incidence of drug errors by calling the attention of prescribers to the most common situations at risk of ME.
Enzymatically digested κ (A-G4S)-carrageenans, apart from their biological activities in plants, could be used as ‘model’ molecules to elucidate potential problems in nuclear magnetic resonance ...spectroscopy of carrageenans. Thus, oligosaccharides obtained from κ-carrageenan by enzymatic digestion using κ-carrageenase have been separated on silica and polymeric based ion-exchange and porous graphitic carbon (PGC) columns, coupled to an evaporative light scattering detector. Oligomers were separated on ion-exchange columns using a gradient of ammonium acetate as a developing ion, while analysis on PGC column presented an additional adjacent peak next to each main one, using a gradient of ammonium acetate in water/acetonitrile as a mobile phase. The phenomenon can be attributed to different retention mechanisms that govern the PGC surface. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that acetonitrile can regulate the selectivity between the peaks raising hopes for preparative chromatography.
Using dimethylated-β-cyclodextrin mixtures (MeCD) as chiral selectors in CO
2-polar modifier mobile phase and porous graphitic carbon as solid-phase, chiral supercritical (or subcritical) fluid ...chromatography was performed. The adsorbed quantity of MeCD onto the porous graphitic carbon (Hypercarb) was measured for various chiral selector concentrations using the breakthrough method with evaporative light scattering detector. The effects of MeCD concentration in the mobile phase, the nature of the polar modifier, the outlet pressure, the column temperature and the nature of the commercial MeCD mixture on the retention and the enantioselectivities were studied. For a given solute, the enantioselectivity is greatly dependent on the commercial MeCD mixture used. The retention mechanism was also studied. From the data, we find that the dominant mechanism for the chiral discrimination is the diastereoisomeric complexation in the mobile phase.
Oligosaccharides and polysaccharides are frequently found in complex matrices such as food products, foodstuffs, cosmetics or pharmaceutical preparations. Prior sugar analysis, such samples require ...selective extraction and/or purification.
Two methods are proposed and compared using test mixtures such as maltodextrins and commercial sugar syrup. Procedures include solid phase extraction and liquid chromatography with an evaporative light scattering detector. The choice of the system is highly dependent on the degree of polymerisation of the analytes. Aminopropyl bonded phases were the best choice for solid phase extraction and chromatography of oligosaccharides having a degree of polymerization higher than 4. Besides, apolar phases used for extraction, as well as for chromatography, were revealed to be well adapted for polysaccharides analyses. Both methods, having recoveries up to 90%, were applied to acacia honey and it was shown that oligosaccharides detection can be easily performed. Besides, trace analysis of polysaccharides in honey was also possible using a high enrichment factor. Polysaccharides presence was confirmed by Maldi-TOF mass spectrometry.
Five commercial dimethylated β-cyclodextrin (DM-β-CD) samples were analysed by electrospray (or ionspray) mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) and supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) with evaporative ...light scattering detection. A silica and a nitro-bonded silica were selected using CO
2–methanol–acetonitrile–water and CO
2–methanol as mobile phase, respectively. An extensive optimisation scheme was performed for mobile phase selection. Both SFC systems were used for analyses of complex DM-β-CD samples. Peak identifications were made using off-line ESI-MS. Commercial DM-β-CDs are impure mixtures of homologues and isomers and analysis reveals that every manufacturer produces a different mixture.
Efficient subcritical fluid chromatography (SubFC) analysis of twelve monosaccharides and polyols on silica and trimethylsilyl (TMS)-bonded silica stationary phases is proposed. Mobile phase ...composition was studied using CO
2-methanol, CO
2-methanol-water, CO
2-methanol-water-triethylamine in order to obtain high efficiency and resolution. By adjusting the column temperature to 60°C and the flow-rate to 5 ml min
−1, a complete separation of eight monosaccharides and polyols is obtained in less than 10 min. Using silica and TMS columns, retentions of carbohydrates and polyols in SubFC are compared with those of some glycolipids. It was found that carbohydrate retention increases when water is added to the eluent, whereas the retention of glycolipids decreases.
A sensitive method for the simultaneous analysis of five estrogens in sewage sludge was developed. The extraction and purification steps were optimized and the matrix effects were evaluated. The ...chromatographic gradient was optimized to limit matrix effects and the analysis step was performed by LC-MS/MS. The method consists of an ASE® extraction with a solvent mixture water/methanol 80/20 v/v at 100 °C followed by two consecutive purifications on Oasis HLB® and florisil cartridges. A thorough validation of the developed method was performed. Recoveries determined at two different spiking levels ranged between 86% and 126% depending on the molecule. Repeatability was evaluated on five replicates of the same sludge sample spiked at two different levels and measuring native estrogens in triplicates of 12 sludge samples. Relative standard deviations obtained a range of between 2% and 27%. Reproducibility was also studied by analyzing the same sludge on four different days: the relative standard deviation ranged between 14% and 20% for E1, βE2 and E3. For αE2, poor reproducibility (68%) was observed but it was linked to the very low quantity of αE2 present in the sludge sample and not to the method performance. The specificity of the method was evaluated on various sludge samples spiked at different spiking levels showing that performances of the proposed method were not modified by matrix effects. Finally, sensitivity of the method was evaluated taking into account both instrumental sensitivity and matrices; the estimated limits of quantification were around 1 ng/g for E1, between 2 and 4 ng/g for αE2, βE2, and E3 and around 5 ng/g for EE2.
