Structural-visual functional relationships detected by optical coherence tomography in varying age-cohorts' patients with optic neuritis.

AIM: To assess the relationships of final best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) and the optic nerve structural loss in varying age-cohorts of optic neuritis (ON) patients. METHODS: This is a retrospective, cross-sectional study. Totally 130 ON subjects (200 eyes) without ON onset within 6mo were included, who underwent BCVA assessment, peripapillary retinal nerve fibre layer (pRNFL) and macular segmented layers evaluation by optical coherence tomography (OCT). RESULTS: For the 0-18y cohort, the final BCVA (logMAR) was significantly better and less frequent recurrences than adult cohorts (P=0.000). The final BCVA (logMAR) in all age-cohorts of the ON patients had negative and linear correlations to the pRNFL thicknesses and macular retinal ganglion cell layer (mRGCL) volumes, when the pRNFL thicknesses were reduced to the thresholds of 57.2-67.5 µm or 0.691-0.737 mm3 in mRGCL volumes, respectively, with the strongest interdependence in the 19-40y cohort. The ON patients from varying age cohorts would be threatened by blindness when their pRNFL thicknesses dropped 36.7-48.3 µm or the mRGCL volumes dropped to 0.495-0.613 mm3. CONCLUSION: The paediatric ON has best prognosis and young adult ON exhibits perfectly linear correlations of final vision and structural loss. The pRNFL and the mRGCL could be potential structural markers to predict the vision prognosis for varying-age ON patients.

Factor analysis of the relationship between PANSS score and family burden of patients with schizophrenia.

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to investigate the burden of family caregivers of patients with schizophrenia, and its influencing factors METHODS: A total of 105 patients with schizophrenia and their caregivers were investigated using the positive and negative symptom scale (PANSS) and family burden scale of disease (FBS) RESULTS: There was a strong correlation between the patient's recovery and family burden, especially between positive and negative symptoms and family financial burden, family daily activities, family recreational activities, and family relationship CONCLUSION: There is a strong correlation between the patient's recovery and family burden, and this is especially correlated to family economic burden, family daily activities, family recreational activities, and family relationship. Medical staff should pay attention to the psychological characteristics of patients and fully understand and avoid the adverse effects of family burden on the rehabilitation of patients.

Novel Capacitive Sensing System Design of a Microelectromechanical Systems Accelerometer for Gravity Measurement Applications.

This paper presents an in-plane sandwich nano-g microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) accelerometer. The proof-mass fabrication is based on silicon etching through technology using inductive coupled plasma (ICP) etching. The capacitive detection system, which employs the area-changing sensing method, combines elementary capacitive pickup electrodes with periodic-sensing-array transducers. In order to achieve a large dynamic range with an ultrahigh resolution, the capacitive detection system employs two periodic-sensing-array transducers. Each of them can provide numbers for the signal period in the entire operating range. The suspended proof-mass is encapsulated between two glass caps, which results in a three dimensional structure. The measured resonant frequency and quality factor (Q) are 13.2 Hz and 47, respectively. The calibration response of a ±0.7 g input acceleration is presented, and the accelerometer system presents a sensitivity of 122 V/g and a noise floor of 30 ng/√Hz (at 1 Hz, and 1 atm). The bias stability for a period of 10 h is 30 µg. The device has endured a shock up to ±2.6 g, and the full scale output appears to be approximately ±1.4 g presently. This work presents a new opportunity for highly sensitive MEMS fabrication to enable future high-precision measurement applications, such as for gravity measurements.