Prognosis and enhancement of recovery in disorders of consciousness.

Disorders of consciousness after severe brain injury encompass conditions of coma, vegetative state/unresponsive wakefulness syndrome, and minimally conscious state. DoC clinical presentation pose perplexing challenges to medical professionals, researchers, and families alike. The outcome is uncertain in the first weeks to months after a brain injury, with families and medical providers often making important decisions that require certainty. Prognostication for individuals with these conditions has been the subject of intense scientific investigation that continues to strive for valid prognostic indicators and algorithms for predicting recovery of consciousness. This manuscript aims to provide an overview of the current clinical landscape surrounding prognosis and optimizing recovery in DoC and the current and future research that could improve prognostic accuracy after severe brain injury. Improved understanding of these factors will aid healthcare professionals in providing optimal care, fostering hope, and advocating for ethical practices in the management of individuals with DoC.

Acute inpatient rehabilitation for COVID-19 survivors: A retrospective case series.

BACKGROUND: Patients with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) who required mechanical ventilation and had prolonged hospital stay present with medical instability and functional impairments after the acute hospitalization. OBJECTIVE: To present the rehabilitation outcome of three patients with COVID-19 admitted to an inpatient rehabilitation unit using a case series method. METHODS: Subjects included three consecutive male patients admitted to the rehabilitation unit with a diagnosis of deconditioning and critical illness myopathy. On admission, patients were evaluated by a multidisciplinary team using outcome measures such as 6-min walk test (6 MWT), 10-m walk test (10 MWT), berg balance scale (BBS), and dynamometry. Each patient received daily therapy with a minimum of 900 min per week during their rehabilitation stay. Treatment strategies included fatigue management, training of mobility and activities for daily living tasks, muscle strengthening, and cognitive retraining. RESULTS: All patients showed significant improvements across all the outcome measures, specifically, the 6MWT (minimal clinically identifiable difference (MCID) range: 14-30.5 m) and the 10MWT (MCID range: 0.10-0.20 m/s) which exceeded the MCID for all three patients. The BBS also demonstrated significant improvement, surpassing the minimum detectable change of 5-7 points. Of the three patients, two were able to be discharged at an independent level, while one required supervision for safety. CONCLUSION: Patients with COVID-19, who experienced prolonged hospital stay present with severe impairments in muscle strength, functional mobility, and participation in daily living tasks. Inpatient rehabilitation may have the potential to reduce impairments and accelerate the recovery process while managing ongoing medical issues.

A hybrid virtual nurse model.

Impact on patient experience and quality of care.

An Overview of Dupuytren's Disease for Perioperative Nurses.

Dupuytren's disease is a fibroproliferative condition that causes shortening, thickening, and fibrosis of the palmar fascia and a flexion deformity of metacarpophalangeal and proximal interphalangeal joints. Although the etiology is unknown, a variety of risk factors, such as age greater than 50 years, male sex, family history, or tobacco and alcohol use may lead to disease development. At the present time there is no cure and symptoms may recur; however, surgical procedures (eg, limited fasciectomy) and nonsurgical treatment (eg, needle aponeurotomy, injection of collagenase clostridium histolyticum) can help patients manage the disease's symptoms. Patients may experience wound-healing complications after fasciectomy and skin fissures after needle aponeurotomy. Recurrence rates for needle aponeurotomy and collagenase clostridium histolyticum injection are similar. Perioperative nurses should provide individualized patient care during procedures, participate in effective team communication regarding patient needs, and provide patient education throughout the perioperative continuum.

Importance of public-private partnerships for nutrition support research: An ASPEN Position Paper.

Parenteral and enteral nutrition support are key components of care for various medical and physiological conditions in infants, children, and adults. Nutrition support practices have advanced over time, driven by the goals of safe and sufficient delivery of needed nutrients and improved patient outcomes. These advances have been, and continue to be, dependent on research and development studies. Such studies address aspects of enteral and parenteral nutrition support: formulations, delivery devices, health outcomes, cost-effectiveness, and related metabolism. The studies are supported by public funding from the government and by private funding from foundations and from the nutrition support industry. To build public trust in nutrition support research findings, it is important to underscore ethical research conduct and reporting of results for all studies, including those with industry sponsors. In 2019, American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition's (ASPEN's) Board of Directors established a task force to ensure integrity in nutrition support research that is done as collaborative partnerships between the public (government and individuals) and private groups (foundations, academia, and industry). In this ASPEN Position Paper, the Task Force presents principles of ethical research to guide administrators, researchers, and funders. The Task Force identifies ways to curtail bias and to minimize actual or perceived conflict of interests, as related to funding sources and research conduct. Notably, this paper includes a Position Statement to describe the Task Force's guidance on Public-Private Partnerships for research and funding. This paper has been approved by the ASPEN Board of Directors.

Research Needs for Prognostic Modeling and Trajectory Analysis in Patients with Disorders of Consciousness.

BACKGROUND: The current state of the science regarding the care and prognosis of patients with disorders of consciousness is limited. Scientific advances are needed to improve the accuracy, relevance, and approach to prognostication, thereby providing the foundation to develop meaningful and effective interventions. METHODS: To address this need, an interdisciplinary expert panel was created as part of the Coma Science Working Group of the Neurocritical Care Society Curing Coma Campaign. RESULTS: The panel performed a gap analysis which identified seven research needs for prognostic modeling and trajectory analysis ("recovery science") in patients with disorders of consciousness: (1) to define the variables that predict outcomes; (2) to define meaningful intermediate outcomes at specific time points for different endotypes; (3) to describe recovery trajectories in the absence of limitations to care; (4) to harness big data and develop analytic methods to prognosticate more accurately; (5) to identify key elements and processes for communicating prognostic uncertainty over time; (6) to identify health care delivery models that facilitate recovery and recovery science; and (7) to advocate for changes in the health care delivery system needed to advance recovery science and implement already-known best practices. CONCLUSION: This report summarizes the current research available to inform the proposed research needs, articulates key elements within each area, and discusses the goals and advances in recovery science and care anticipated by successfully addressing these needs.

Synemin Redefined: Multiple Binding Partners Results in Multifunctionality.

Historically synemin has been studied as an intermediate filament protein. However, synemin also binds the type II regulatory (R) subunit α of protein kinase A (PKA) and protein phosphatase type 2A, thus participating in the PKA and phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)-Akt and signaling pathways. In addition, recent studies using transgenic mice indicate that a significant function of synemin is its role in signaling pathways in various tissues, including the heart. Recent clinical reports have shown that synemin mutations led to multiple cases of dilated cardiomyopathy. Additionally, a single case of the rare condition ulnar-mammary-like syndrome with left ventricular tachycardia due to a mutation in the synemin gene (SYNM) has been reported. Therefore, this review uses these recent studies to provide a new framework for detailed discussions on synemin tissue distribution, binding partners and synemin in disease. Differences between α- and ß-synemin are highlighted. The studies presented here indicate that while synemin does function as an intermediate filament protein, it is unique among this large family of proteins as it is also a regulator of signaling pathways and a crosslinker. Also evident is that the dominant function(s) are isoform-, developmental-, and tissue-specific.

Diet-induced insulin resistance elevates hippocampal glutamate as well as VGLUT1 and GFAP expression in AßPP/PS1 mice.

The symptomologies of Alzheimer's disease (AD) develop over decades suggesting modifiable lifestyle factors may contribute to disease pathogenesis. In humans, hyperinsulinemia associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus increases the risk for developing AD and both diseases share similar age-related etiologies including amyloidogenesis. Since we have demonstrated that soluble Aß42 elicits glutamate release, we wanted to understand how diet-induced insulin resistance alters hippocampal glutamate dynamics, which are important for memory formation and consolidation. Eight to twelve-week-old C57BL/6J and AßPP/PS1 mice were placed on either a low-fat diet or high-fat diet (HFD) for 8 months. A HFD led to significant weight increases as well as impaired insulin sensitivity, glucose tolerance, and learning in both C57BL/6J and AßPP/PS1 mice. AßPP/PS1 low-fat diet mice had elevated hippocampal basal as well as stimulus-evoked glutamate release that was further increased with consumption of a HFD. Immunohistochemistry indicated an increase in vesicular glutamate transporter 1 and glial fibrillary acidic protein density in hippocampal subregions corresponding with this elevated extracellular glutamate. While no differences in hippocampal plaque load were observed, the elevated astrogliotic response surrounding the plaques in AßPP/PS1 HFD mice may have been a compensatory mechanism to control plaque accumulation. These data support that AßPP/PS1 mice have chronically elevated extracellular glutamate that is exacerbated by a HFD and that modifiable lifestyle factors such as obesity-induced insulin resistance can contribute to AD pathogenesis. OPEN SCIENCE BADGES: This article has received a badge for *Open Materials* and for *Open Data* because it made the data publicly available. The data can be accessed at https://osf.io/5whvu (figures for data) and https://osf.io/gd5vf (materials and methods). The complete Open Science Disclosure form for this article can be found at the end of the article. More information about the Open Practices badges can be found at https://cos.io/our-services/open-science-badges/. Cover Image for this issue: doi: 10.1111/jnc.14490.

RepB C-terminus mutation of a pRi-repABC binary vector affects plasmid copy number in Agrobacterium and transgene copy number in plants.

A native repABC replication origin from pRiA4b was previously reported as a single copy plasmid in Agrobacterium tumefaciens and can improve the production of transgenic plants with a single copy insertion of transgenes when it is used in binary vectors for Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. A high copy pRi-repABC variant plasmid, pTF::Ri, which does not improve the frequency of single copy transgenic plants, has been reported in the literature. Sequencing the high copy pTF::Ri repABC operon revealed the presence of two mutations: one silent mutation and one missense mutation that changes a tyrosine to a histidine (Y299H) in a highly conserved area of the C-terminus of the RepB protein (RepBY299H). Reproducing these mutations in the wild-type pRi-repABC binary vector showed that Agrobacterium cells with the RepBY299H mutation grow faster on both solidified and in liquid medium, and have higher plasmid copy number as determined by ddPCR. In order to investigate the impact of the RepBY299H mutation on transformation and quality plant production, the RepBY299H mutated pRi-repABC binary vector was compared with the original wild-type pRi-repABC binary vector and a multi-copy oriV binary vector in canola transformation. Molecular analyses of the canola transgenic plants demonstrated that the multi-copy pRi-repABC with the RepBY299H mutation provides no advantage in generating high frequency single copy, backbone-free transgenic plants in comparison with the single copy wild-type pRi-repABC binary vector.