Erectile dysfunction: How to help patients and partners.

This guide and helpful list of key questions can provide a therapeutic framework for addressing the relationship side of ED.

Integrating a Pharmacy Student into a Marriage and Family Therapy Counseling Course: A Pilot.

THE PROBLEM: Interprofessional educational experiences are a requirement in pharmacy and counseling curricula. However, scheduling conflicts between professional programs and lack of administrative support create barriers for students who want to take a course in another healthcare program. INNOVATION: This pilot enabled a pharmacy student to participate in a counseling course for 8 weeks. The course "Integrated Healthcare" is a 3-credit required core-course in the Master of Arts in marriage and family therapy (MFT) program. It explores the connection between emotional, psychological and physical health, covering information on behavior change, psychopharmacology, and common ways in which mood and anxiety manifest in the body. Class activities were matched to pharmacy interprofessional standards, in addition to Interprofessional Collaborative Practice competencies (IPEC). CRITICAL ANALYSIS: All IPEC core competencies were achieved during this course. One pharmacy student and 18 counseling students helped one another understand the importance of their different roles in patient care. The course also established relationships between pharmacy and counseling faculty, paving the way for more interprofessional class experiences. CONCLUSION: This pilot integrating pharmacy and counseling students in a course demonstrates that administrative barriers can be overcome and collaborative learning benefit is achieved for everyone involved.

Alterations in amino acid status in cats with feline dysautonomia.

Feline dysautonomia (FD) is a multiple system neuropathy of unknown aetiology. An apparently identical disease occurs in horses (equine grass sickness, EGS), dogs, rabbits, hares, sheep, alpacas and llamas. Horses with acute EGS have a marked reduction in plasma concentrations of the sulphur amino acids (SAA) cyst(e)ine and methionine, which may reflect exposure to a neurotoxic xenobiotic. The aim of this study was to determine whether FD cats have alterations in amino acid profiles similar to those of EGS horses. Amino acids were quantified in plasma/serum from 14 FD cats, 5 healthy in-contact cats which shared housing and diet with the FD cats, and 6 healthy control cats which were housed separately from FD cats and which received a different diet. The adequacy of amino acids in the cats' diet was assessed by determining the amino acid content of tinned and dry pelleted foods collected immediately after occurrences of FD. Compared with controls, FD cats had increased concentrations of many essential amino acids, with the exception of methionine which was significantly reduced, and reductions in most non-essential amino acids. In-contact cats also had inadequate methionine status. Artefactual loss of cysteine during analysis precluded assessment of the cyst(e)ine status. Food analysis indicated that the low methionine status was unlikely to be attributable to dietary inadequacy of methionine or cystine. Multi-mycotoxin screening identified low concentrations of several mycotoxins in dry food from all 3 premises. While this indicates fungal contamination of the food, none of these mycotoxins appears to induce the specific clinico-pathologic features which characterise FD and equivalent multiple system neuropathies in other species. Instead, we hypothesise that ingestion of another, as yet unidentified, dietary neurotoxic mycotoxin or xenobiotic, may cause both the characteristic disease pathology and the plasma SAA depletion.

Supervision of couples cases.

Supervision is invaluable to a psychotherapist-in-training, aiding the developing clinician in consolidating skills, thinking ethically, and developing autonomy. Although many supervisory duties can be applied across treatment modality, there are specific variations of these duties that supervisors of couples therapy cases must consider. These include assuring trainees' understanding of ethical issues of fidelity and confidentiality related to both partners in the client dyad; evaluating trainees' competence to treat two clients simultaneously and to utilize couples-specific interventions; assessing how trainees' personal beliefs such as those related to religion, reproduction, and culture may influence views of norms within a romantic relationship; and tailoring supervisory techniques and processes to best address couples treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).