This report describes the impact of parent methamphetamine abuse on the development and well-being of school-aged children, and considers implications for culturally appropriate child welfare ...services. Thirty-five adult informants from several, adjacent rural Midwestern counties in the United States were interviewed as part of a larger ethnographic study. These child welfare workers, other community professionals (educators, counselors, law enforcement personnel, and substance abuse treatment providers), and foster caregivers described their experiences with families involved with methamphetamine. Overall, informants described that children are brought by their methamphetamine-abusing parents into a rural drug culture characterized by distinct, antisocial beliefs and practices. Children's experience of this culture includes environmental danger, chaos, neglect, abuse, loss, and isolation. Informants believed that children develop antisocial beliefs and practices such as lying, stealing, drug use, and violence through direct teaching by their parents and, indirectly, through observing parents' own antisocial behavior. Informants described children as displaying psychological, social, and educational disturbances. They also described individual variation in functioning across children that they attributed, in part, to individual (e.g., temperament, intelligence), familial (e.g., extended family), and community (e.g., school) characteristics. Informants noted a need for effective child mental health services in the area, and for ensuring a positive environment for children's future development through education of the children, foster parents and other community members.
Barriers to screening and early detection often result in cancers in low-income and minority women diagnosed at stages too advanced for optimal treatment. This randomized controlled trial examined ...whether a personalized form (PF) letter containing generic cancer information and a personalized tailored (PT) letter containing minimally tailored individualized risk factor information based on medical records data affected breast and cervical cancer screening among 1574 urban low-income and minority women. The personalized form-letter group was significantly more likely to schedule a screening appointment and to have undergone a Pap test and mammography within 1 year after the intervention than were the tailored letter and control groups (
P<0.001 for all comparisons). Personalized tailored letters that contain individualized cancer risk factor information may decrease the likelihood of receiving cancer screening among medically underserved low-income and minority women, but personalized form letters that contain generic cancer information may improve these rates in this disadvantaged population.
The effect of topical colchicine treatment of the sciatic nerve on sciatic and saphenous nociceptive thresholds and neurogenic extra-vasation was investigated in normal and neuropathic rats. After a ...pilot investigation using several different concentrations of colchicine it was determined that treating the sciatic nerve with 5 mM colchicine did not usually affect the heat nociceptive threshold over the sciatic innervated plantar surface of the hindpaw. Mechanical nociception and motor function were also unchanged. Electrical stimulation of the sciatic nerve after intravenous injection of Evans blue dye causes extravasation of the dye in the cutaneous distribution of the nerve. The area and quantity of sciatic extravasation were measured 3 weeks after treating the sciatic nerve with colchicine. This treatment results in a marked loss of neurogenic extravasation, but there were no changes in the sciatic and saphenous mediated heat and mechanical nociceptive thresholds. The area of saphenous nociceptive innervation was mapped using pinch responses and saphenous neurogenic extravasation acutely after sciatic section. There was no change in the cutaneous distribution of saphenous nociceptive fibers when measured 3 weeks after the sciatic colchicine treatment. Some rats had their sciatic nerves transected immediately after colchicine treatment (5 and 50 mM) and the saphenous nociceptive thresholds and autotomy scores were followed postoperatively. Colchicine pretreatment of the sciatic nerve has no effect on the development of hyperalgesia or autotomy. Colchicine blocks axonal transport in peripheral nerve, including the orthograde transport of tachykinins, which probably explains its ability to induce prolonged reductions in sciatic neurogenic extravasation at concentrations that spare C-fiber nociceptor function. Sciatic nerve colchicine treatment does not trigger nociceptive fiber collateral sprouting from the adjacent saphenous nerve, nor does it influence the development of hyperalgesia and autotomy behavior after sciatic transection.
Bis-aryl ureas have been disclosed previously as a potent class of Raf kinase inhibitors. Modifications in the amide portion led to an improvement in aqueous solubility, an important characteristic ...for an oral drug. Based on this finding, we hypothesize that this portion of the molecule is directed towards the solvent in Raf-1.
The carboxamide group of the urea class of Raf-1 kinase inhibitors is shown to be a suitable position for the introduction of water-solubilizing groups. This change led to improved aqueous solubility without significant impact on Raf-1 kinase potency.
Jump Into Action, a school‐based non‐insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) prevention program, encourages students to eat low‐fat foods and exercise regularly to reduce their risks for ...developing NIDDM. A study was conducted in a school district with a predominately Hispanic enrollment to assess the effectiveness of Jump Into Action in improving fifth‐graders' knowledge, self‐efficacy, and behaviors regarding NIDDM prevention. Jump Into Action was found effective in increasing knowledge and self‐efficacy regarding NIDDM prevention and improving dietary and exercise‐related behaviors. These gains were sustained from posttest to follow‐up four weeks later.
Nerve lesions producing extensive axonal loss can induce painful hyperalgesic states in man. The affect of axonal regeneration and end-organ reinnervation on hyperalgesia and pain is controversial. ...This study used two axonotmetic models, the sciatic crush injury (CI) and the sciatic chronic constrictive injury (CCI), to investigate the affects of nerve regeneration and reinnervation on hyperalgesia and presumed painful behavior in rats. The sciatic CI resulted in a transient loss of both sciatic motor function and the withdrawal response to pinch and heat in the sciatic distribution. Extensive recovery of motor function, pinch and heat response occurred over days 23-38 post-crush injury. This temporally corresponded with a plateau in the hindpaw autotomy score and a resolution of the saphenous-mediated pressure and heat hyperalgesia (adjacent neuropathic hyperalgesia; ANH) which developed over the medial dorsum of the hindpaw following the sciatic CI. In contrast, with sciatic transection and distal stump excision, no motor recovery occurs, large areas of the hindpaw remain unresponsive to heat and pinch, and the saphenous mediated ANH fails to resolve over a period of 3 months. When sciatic CI was compared to contralateral sciatic transection within the same rat, the bilateral saphenous-mediated pressure and heat thresholds were initially identical, but by 23-27 days post-crush, the crush side thresholds became hypoalgesic relative to the section side. This demonstrates an attenuation of the crush-induced ANH which temporally corresponds to the recovery of motor and sensory function. When the sciatic nerve was proximally crushed and distally transected (3 cm below the crush site), the saphenous-mediated pressure and heat threshold changes were identical (over 6 weeks of serial testing) to those produced by a contralateral sciatic transection within the same rat. This indicates that the microenvironments surrounding the regenerating axon tips did not differentially affect the development of ANH following sciatic CI or transection. The sciatic CCI resulted in a transient loss of hindpaw motor function without the loss of pinch or heat withdrawal responses in the sciatic distribution. Motor function recovery occurred primarily over days 23-59 post-ligature. During this prolonged period of motor function recovery there was a resolution of the sciatic-mediated plantar surface heat hyperalgesia and the saphenous-mediated heat ANH. The above data support the hypothesis that the successful regeneration of distal axons after axonotmetic lesions can initiate the resolution of neuropathic hyperalgesia.
