Although prehospital trauma guidelines call for spine immobilization for many trauma victims, there is a lack of clarity in medical institutions as to how trauma or emergency medicine physicians should proceed to remove cervical immobilization devices (CIDs) and "clear" the spine. Despite wide variations in physicians' approaches to such matters, however, certain specific aspects of vertebral a...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the feasibility of differentiating between acute pancreatitis (AP) and healthy pancreas using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and correlate apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) /fractional anisotropy (FA) values with the severity of AP. MATERIAL AND METHODS 66 patients diagnosed with AP and 20 normal controls (NC) underwent DTI sequences and routine pancreatic MR sequenc...

Study Design Systematic review. Objective We assessed the current state of spine registries by collecting spine trauma data and assessing their compliance to defined registry standards of being clinical quality. We ascertained if these registries collected spinal cord injury data alone or with spine column trauma data. Methods A systematic review was performed using MEDLINE and Embase databases...

OBJECTIVE To correlate rattlesnake size and other characteristics of envenomation with the severity of envenomation. METHODS We retrospectively reviewed 145 charts of patients bitten by rattlesnakes in Southern California between 1995 and 2004, measuring Snakebite Severity Scores (SSS) and characteristics of envenomation that might be correlated with snakebite severity, including rattlesnake ...

OBJECTIVE To determine the prevalence of depressive symptoms among individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and to identify predictors of depressive symptoms and psychological distress. DESIGN A longitudinal study with assessments at 3 months, 1 year and 5 years after injury. SUBJECTS A total of 118 individuals (29% females; mean age 32.5; range 16-55 years) with mild-to-severe TBI who...

We investigate whether stock markets efficiently price risks brought on or exacerbated by climate change. We focus on drought, the most damaging natural disaster for crops and food-company cash flows. We show that prolonged drought in a country, measured by the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) from climate studies, forecasts both poor stock returns and profitability ratios for food companie...

Basics The Dysphonia Severity Index (DSI) is designed as an objective and quantitative correlate of voice quality. It is based on a multivariate analysis of an extended database of more than 1000 normal and pathologic voices for the multi-center study trial initiated by the Belgian Study Group on Voice Disorders (Van de Heyning, et al., 1996). Per patient, more than 45 voice characteristics and...

AIM This cohort study examined how predictors of alcohol dependence treatment outcomes work together over time by comparing pretreatment and posttreatment predictors. METHODS A sample of 274 alcohol-dependent patients was recruited and assessed at baseline, 6 months after treatment initiation (end of the active intervention phase), and 18 months after treatment initiation (end of the 12-month...

The aim of this pilot study was to evaluate whether sleep was improved by a 1-day sleep education program in an occupational setting and whether stopping alcohol intake at bedtime might influence sleep. Subjects were 40 high school employees. The sleep education program lasted 4.5 hours and consisted of sleep science information, and sleep hygiene education including the risk of sleep related b...

BACKGROUND/AIM Psoriasis is a chronic skin disease. To reduce side effects associated with current treatment modalities, new treatment methods are required. Some clinicians have begun to use microphototherapy to treat psoriatic patients with a limited number of lesions (lesions affecting <10% of the body surface area). MATERIALS AND METHODS Microphototherapy is indicated in patients whose les...