Interdisciplinary Trauma-focused Therapy and Return-to-work Support for A Police Officer with Work-related PTSD: A Case Study.

Police officers carry a high risk of exposure to traumatic events in their everyday work duties and are at an increased risk for work-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Practitioners lack clear guidance on how to support these individuals to facilitate both mental health recovery and return to work, particularly for those receiving treatment in the context of a claim with a workers' compensation board. The following case study describes the treatment of a female police officer who had experienced numerous traumatic events over the course of her career, and subsequently filed a claim with the workers' compensation board of British Columbia. She was referred to an interdisciplinary program that involved both psychology and occupational therapy interventions, including a trauma-focused cognitive behaviour therapy intervention followed by a gradual return to work. The outcome suggests that intensive, interdisciplinary trauma-focused treatment is a promising approach for supporting police officers with their recovery and return to work.

Impact of a conformationally restricted receptor on the BF2 chelated azadipyrromethene fluorosensing platform.

Conformational control of the receptor-fluorophore orientation of BF2 chelated azadipyrromethene sensors reveals two photophysically different modes of analyte triggered fluorescence switching both of which exhibit large off-on fluorescence intensity responses to the light input-output of the sensors in the visible red spectral region.

A modular synthesis of unsymmetrical tetraarylazadipyrromethenes.

[reaction: see text] A stepwise route to unsymmetrical tetraarylazadipyrromethenes by a condensation of 2,4-diaryl-5-nitroso-pyrroles with 2,4-diarylpyrroles is described. This modular building-block approach allows for the introduction of up to four different aryl substituents on the azadipyrromethene and is tolerant of a varied substituent set. An efficient synthesis of the 2,4-diarylpyrroles building blocks from 1,3-diaryl-4-nitro-butan-1-ones by nitro hydrolysis to a keto-aldehyde and subsequent ammonia condensation reaction has been achieved. The facile conversion of 2,4-diarylpyrroles into their alpha-nitroso analogues by their reaction with sodium nitrite generated the second building block required for the synthesis.

In vitro demonstration of the heavy-atom effect for photodynamic therapy.

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is an emerging treatment modality for a range of disease classes, both cancerous and noncancerous. This has brought about an active pursuit of new PDT agents that can be optimized for the unique set of photophysical characteristics that are required for a successful clinical agent. We now describe a totally new class of PDT agent, the BF2-chelated 3,5-diaryl-1H-pyrrol-2-yl-3,5-diarylpyrrol-2-ylideneamines (tetraarylazadipyrromethenes). Optimized synthetic procedures have been developed to facilitate the generation of an array of specifically substituted derivatives to demonstrate how control of key therapeutic parameters such as wavelength of maximum absorbance and singlet-oxygen generation can be achieved. Photosensitizer absorption maxima can be varied within the body's therapeutic window between 650 and 700 nm, with high extinction coefficients ranging from 75,000 to 85,000 M(-1) cm(-1). Photosensitizer singlet-oxygen generation level was modulated by the exploitation of the heavy-atom effect. An array of photosensitizers with and without bromine atom substituents gave rise to a series of compounds with varying singlet-oxygen generation profiles. X-ray structural evidence indicates that the substitution of the bromine atoms has not caused a planarity distortion of the photosensitizer. Comparative singlet-oxygen production levels of each photosensitizer versus two standards demonstrated a modulating effect on singlet-oxygen generation depending upon substituent patterns about the photosensitizer. Confocal laser scanning microscopy imaging of 18a in HeLa cervical carcinoma cells proved that the photosensitizer was exclusively localized to the cellular cytoplasm. In vitro light-induced toxicity assays in HeLa cervical carcinoma and MRC5-SV40 transformed fibroblast cancer cell lines confirmed that the heavy-atom effect is viable in a live cellular system and that it can be exploited to modulate assay efficacy. Direct comparison of the efficacy of the photosensitizers 18b and 19b, which only differ in molecular structure by the presence of two bromine atoms, illustrated an increase in efficacy of more than a 1000-fold in both cell lines. All photosensitizers have very low to nondeterminable dark toxicity in our assay system.

Synthesis of BF2 chelates of tetraarylazadipyrromethenes and evidence for their photodynamic therapeutic behaviour.

The synthesis, spectroscopic characteristics and in vitro cellular uptake properties of a new class of therapeutic window photosensitiser, namely the BF2 chelates of 3,5-diaryl-1H-pyrrol-2-yl-3,5-diarylpyrrol-2-ylidene amines (tetra-arylazadipyrromethenes), are described with the aim of developing a novel class of photodynamic therapeutic agents.