Objectives: Acoustic stimulation or sound therapy is proposed as a main treatment option for chronic subjective tinnitus. To further probe the field of acoustic stimulations for tinnitus therapy, this exploratory study compared 10 Hz amplitude modulated (AM) sounds (two pure tones, noise, music, and frequency modulated (FM) sounds) and unmodulated sounds (pure tone, noise) regarding their tempo...

OBJECTIVES To examine potential sensitive periods for activity participation across adulthood to reduce cognitive decline and to determine whether associations persist after accounting for the lifetime stability of cognitive ability. METHOD The Lothian Birth Cohort 1921 is a longitudinal study of cognitive aging. Participants were born in 1921 and most completed a mental ability test at the a...

BACKGROUND India's older population is projected to increase up to 96 million by 2011 with older people accounting for 18% of its population by 2051. The Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health aims to improve empirical understanding of health and well-being of older adults in developing countries. OBJECTIVES To examine age and socio-economic changes on a range of key domains in self-reported...

BACKGROUND In 2009 two randomised cluster trials took place to assess the introduction of the Italian Version of the Liverpool Care Pathway in hospitals and hospices. Before and after data were gathered. The primary aim of this study is to evaluate the feasibility of using a combination of assessment methods aimed at different proxy respondents to create a means of measuring quality of care at ...

This paper compares experts' assessments to a set of structural variables to determine whether each effectively predicts technology success. Using 69 homeland security and defense-related technologies, expert reviewers scored each technology on various dimensions as part of a government grant funding process. These technologies were tracked over 3 years and degrees of success recorded. Differen...

Purpose – The paper aims to review all the techniques for developing scenarios that have appeared in the literature, along with comments on their utility, strengths and weaknesses. Design/methodology/approach – The study was carried out through an electronic search using internet search engines and online databases and indexes. Findings – The paper finds eight categories of techniques that incl...

BACKGROUND There is a lack of data on quality of life in long-term survivors of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) who have been treated with intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). We characterized long-term disease-specific and cognitive QoL in NPC survivors after IMRT. METHODS We conducted a cross-sectional study of surviving patients diagnosed and treated for NPC at our center with cura...

BACKGROUND Postoperative pain is a persistent problem after surgery and can delay recovery and develop into chronic pain. Better patient education has been proposed to improve pain management of patients. Serious games have not been previously developed to help patients to learn how to manage their postoperative pain. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to describe the development of a comput...

BACKGROUND How companies deal with complaints is a particularly challenging aspect in managing the quality of their service. In this study we test the direct and relative effects of service quality dimensions on consumer complaint satisfaction evaluations and trust in a company in the Dutch health insurance market. METHODS A cross-sectional survey design was used. Survey data of 150 members o...

BACKGROUND This study was designed to develop a mapping algorithm to estimate EQ-5D utility values from Cystic Fibrosis Questionnaire-Revised (CFQ-R) data. METHODS A cross-sectional survey of adults with cystic fibrosis (CF) was conducted in the UK. The survey consisted of the CFQ-R, the EQ-5D and a background questionnaire. Eight regression models, exploring item and domain level predictors,...