An Analysis of Documents Guiding Palliative Care in Five Canadian Provinces.

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this study was to analyse the consistency and extent of palliative content across high-level guiding documents related to the care of persons residing in Canadian long-term care homes. A systematic search was conducted examining documents at the national level and across five provinces (Alberta, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Quebec). Twenty-five documents were selected based on inclusion criteria from 273 documents identified in the systematic search. The majority of these documents were created nationally (48%) or in Ontario (28%). Documents varied in palliative topics discussed, and long-term care was discussed minimally. A minimal number of palliative care guiding documents were found. Long-term care specific documents were absent, and all documents lacked consistency on palliative topics. It is imperative that palliative principles are present and consistent in high-level documents in order to improve the quality of life and care for long-term care residents across Canada.

Inhibitory control deficits in rats with ventral hippocampal lesions.

Two experiments are reported in which rats with selective hippocampal lesions were tested on 2 prefrontal-dependent tasks. In Experiment 1, we compared the effects of lesions of the ventral hippocampus (vHC), dorsal hippocampus (dHC), and sham control surgery on the 5-choice reaction time task. Whereas rats with lesions of the dHC were indistinguishable from sham controls, those with vHC lesions showed increased premature responses and reduced accuracy throughout the experiment. The subsequent administration of systemic escitalopram (5 mg/kg), a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, reduced the number of premature responses in the vHC animals to control levels. In contrast, systemic injections of GBR 12909, a dopamine reuptake inhibitor, failed to ameliorate the impulsive deficit in the vHC group and, in addition, elevated perseverative responding in the vHC group only. In Experiment 2, we tested a separate group of rats with vHC lesions on a touchscreen visual discrimination and reversal learning task. Rats with vHC lesions acquired the visual discrimination as well as sham controls and showed normal inhibitory control of a previously reinforced response during reversal learning. These data support a role for the vHC in inhibitory control functions, especially in the inhibitory control of impulsive actions.