A Mindset for Communication for End of Life Care.

This communication model attempts to reconcile the unknowingness of death, with a deeper inner knowingness that supports End of Life patients in an empowered way, through a mindset that models both oneness and presence with the death and dying experience. Through 23 years of experienced EOL care, I feel it seems necessary to rethink the very one-dimensional idea of dying and to create a space for a multidimensional experience. This model of communication and perspective-taking, offers my patients an opportunity for a secure connection to their own inner resources of knowing how to die. As our bodies are each equipped in our own unique way to do it perfectly, as the return of self, from the experience of being. This communication model also includes perspectives and narratives that attempt to make communication and care in the EOL experience more effortless and intuitive for the provider. Further, the model explains and illustrates why perspectives matter, as they impact connection in the relationship of the provider to the patient and includes a multidimensional perspective to question our own perceptions of death as providers. This model also includes the theory of balance and harmony. As it relates to the relativity of the experience of self, through the connection of communication and perspectives, as the exchange of information that occurs in the relationship between providers and patients. This information as a model represents a new awareness approach in the field of EOL care. It's based on 23 years of EOL experience and is supported through research and a fundamental theory of our reality, which intuitively and logically approaches relativity in our human connection to our patients as providers.

Detection of the dystroglycanopathy protein, fukutin, using a new panel of site-specific monoclonal antibodies.

Mutations in the gene encoding fukutin protein cause Fukuyama muscular dystrophy, a severe congenital disorder that occurs mainly in Japan. A major consequence of the mutation is reduced glycosylation of alpha-dystroglycan, which is also a feature of other forms of congenital and limb-girdle muscular dystrophy. Immunodetection of endogenous fukutin in cells and tissues has been difficult and this has hampered progress in understanding fukutin function and disease pathogenesis. Using a new panel of monoclonal antibodies which bind to different defined sites on the fukutin molecule, we now show that fukutin has the predicted size for a protein without extensive glycosylation and is present at the Golgi apparatus at very low levels. These antibodies should enable more rapid future progress in understanding the molecular function of fukutin.

Amphibian lipid levels at metamorphosis correlate to post-metamorphic terrestrial survival.

In organisms that have complex life cycles, factors in the larval environment may affect both larval and adult traits. For amphibians, the postmetamorphic transition from the aquatic environment to terrestrial habitat may be a period of high juvenile mortality. We hypothesized that lipid stores at metamorphosis may affect an animal's success during this critical transition period. We examined variation in total lipid levels among years and sites in recently metamorphosed individuals of two pond-breeding salamander species, the marbled salamander (Ambystoma opacum) and the mole salamander (A. talpoideum), with limited data for one anuran species (southern leopard frog, Rana sphenocephala). Lipid levels were allometrically related to body size and ranged from 1.9 to 23.8% of body dry mass. The two salamander species differed in lipid allocation patterns, with A. opacum apportioning a higher percentage of total lipid reserves into fat bodies than A. talpoideum. Species differences in lipid allocation patterns may primarily reflect that large metamorphs will mature as one-year olds, and, regardless of species, will alter lipid compartmentalization accordingly. We used mark-recapture data obtained at drift fences encircling breeding ponds for 13 A. opacum cohorts to estimate the proportion of postmetamorphic individuals that survived to breed (age 1-4) and the mean age at first reproduction. Regression models indicated that size-corrected lipid level at metamorphosis (i.e., lipid residuals), and to a lesser extent rainfall following metamorphosis, was positively related to adult survival. Snout-vent length at metamorphosis was negatively related to age at first reproduction. We suggest that lipid stores at metamorphosis are vital to juvenile survival in the months following the transition from aquatic to terrestrial habitat, and that a trade-off shaped by postmetamorphic selection in the terrestrial habitat exists between allocation to energy stores versus structural growth in the larval environment.