ABSTRACT
The most appropriate posture in which to support the person with severe disability and diverse symptoms as a result of complex pathology remains more a matter of opinion than the result of research. This work reviews some of the studies which have attempted to identify definitive criteria for seating in such cases. Factors relating to measurement and conditions which threaten to invalidate the results of research in this field are highlighted. A description of the Seating and Mobility (SAM) system is given, together with a report of the monitoring of nine children with cerebral palsy using the system for a period of three years. The difficulties inherent in this work are noted and questions for future considerations are raised.
Subject(s)
Disabled Persons/rehabilitation , Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine/instrumentation , Posture , Activities of Daily Living , Arm/physiology , Cerebral Palsy/rehabilitation , Child , Child Development , Child, Preschool , Equipment Design , Female , Humans , Male , Sialorrhea , Supine PositionABSTRACT
Isogenic recA mutants of Campylobacter jejuni have been constructed for evaluation of their usefulness in attenuated vaccines against this major worldwide cause of diarrhea. The recA+ gene of C. jejuni 81-176 was cloned by using degenerate primers to conserved regions of other RecA proteins in a PCR. The C. jejuni recA+ gene encodes a predicted protein with an M(r) of 37,012 with high sequence similarity to other RecA proteins. The termination codon of the recA+ gene overlaps with the initiation codon of another open reading frame which encodes a predicted protein which has > 50% identity with the N terminus of the Escherichia coli enolase protein. A kanamycin resistance gene was inserted into the cloned recA+ gene in E. coli and returned to C. jejuni VC83 by natural transformation, resulting in allelic replacement of the wild-type recA gene. The resulting VC83 recA mutant displayed increased sensitivity to UV light and a defect in generalized recombination as determined by natural transformation frequencies. The mutated recA gene was amplified from VC83 recA by PCR, and the product was used to transfer the mutation by natural transformation into C. jejuni 81-176 and 81-116, resulting in isogenic recA mutants with phenotypes similar to VC83 recA. After oral feeding, strain 81-176 recA colonized rabbits at levels comparable to wild-type 81-176 and was capable of eliciting the same degree of protection as wild-type 81-176 against subsequent homologous challenge in the RITARD (removable intestinal tie adult rabbit diarrhea) model.