Preoperative word-finding difficulties in children with posterior fossa tumours: a European cross-sectional study.

PURPOSE: Posterior fossa tumour surgery in children entails a high risk for severe speech and language impairments, but few studies have investigated the effect of the tumour on language prior to surgery. The current crosslinguistic study addresses this gap. We investigated the prevalence of preoperative word-finding difficulties, examined associations with medical and demographic characteristics, and analysed lexical errors. METHODS: We included 148 children aged 5-17 years with a posterior fossa tumour. Word-finding ability was assessed by means of a picture-naming test, Wordrace, and difficulties in accuracy and speed were identified by cut-off values. A norm-based subanalysis evaluated performance in a Swedish subsample. We compared the demographic and medical characteristics of children with slow, inaccurate, or combined slow and inaccurate word finding to the characteristics of children without word-finding difficulties and conducted a lexical error analysis. RESULTS: Thirty-seven percent (n = 55) presented with slow word finding, 24% (n = 35) with inaccurate word finding, and 16% (n = 23) with both slow and inaccurate word finding. Children with posterior fossa tumours were twice as slow as children in the norming sample. Right-hemisphere and brainstem location posed a higher risk for preoperative word-finding difficulties, relative to left-hemisphere location, and difficulties were more prevalent in boys than in girls. The most frequent errors were lack of response and semantically related sideordinated words. CONCLUSION: Word-finding difficulties are frequent in children with posterior fossa tumours, especially in boys and in children with right-hemisphere and brainstem tumours. Errors resemble those observed in typical development and children with word-finding difficulties.

Implementation of discharge recommendations in type 1 diabetes depends on specialist nurse follow-up.

AIM: This paper presents an implementation study following previous research including a randomised controlled trial (RCT) of hospital-based home care (HBHC), referring to specialist care in a home-based setting. The aim was to evaluate whether the effects sustained when rolled out into wider practice. METHODS: In 2013-2014, 42 children newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes were included in the study at a university hospital in Sweden and followed for two years. Measurements of child safety, effects of services, resource use and service quality were included. Descriptive statistics were used to present the results and then discussed in relation to the same intervention of HBHC previously evaluated in an RCT. RESULTS: Shorter in-hospital stay was partially implemented but increased support after discharge by the diabetes nurse was not. The results indicated that the implemented HBHC was equally effective in terms of child outcomes two years from diagnosis but less effective in terms of parents' outcome. The results furthermore indicated that the quality of services decreased. CONCLUSION: The suggested overall conclusion was that the implemented HBHC services were safe but had become less effective, at least in relation to the HBHC provided under controlled circumstances.