Young Adult African American family members' perceptions, knowledge, attitudes, and utilization toward advance directives.

Advance directives (ADs) give patients autonomy in making decisions regarding end-of-life preferences prior to becoming incapacitated or otherwise unable to communicate. Limited family-related research currently exists on young, adult African American families and their knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions toward the utilization of ADs. A mixed-method design of quantitative data, using the Advance Directives-Knowledge, Attitudes, and Utilization Questionnaire (AD-KAUQ); and qualitative data, using a focused group session, was conducted in a southeastern city in the United States. The study surveyed 112 young, adult African American family members, ages 21-40 years, to explore their perceptions, knowledge, and attitudes toward utilizing ADs, as well as to determine whether there was a relationship between gender, education level, marital status, and occupation in making this decision. The study findings did not support evidence of significant relationships between the variables with the exception for the relationship between gender and the feeling of being treated differently for having a living will in place. This finding suggested that there was a need for members of young, adult African American families to obtain knowledge of ADs.

Optical-Based Biosensors and Their Portable Healthcare Devices for Detecting and Monitoring Biomarkers in Body Fluids.

The detection and monitoring of biomarkers in body fluids has been used to improve human healthcare activities for decades. In recent years, researchers have focused their attention on applying the point-of-care (POC) strategies into biomarker detection. The evolution of mobile technologies has allowed researchers to develop numerous portable medical devices that aim to deliver comparable results to clinical measurements. Among these, optical-based detection methods have been considered as one of the common and efficient ways to detect and monitor the presence of biomarkers in bodily fluids, and emerging aggregation-induced emission luminogens (AIEgens) with their distinct features are merging with portable medical devices. In this review, the detection methodologies that use optical measurements in the POC systems for the detection and monitoring of biomarkers in bodily fluids are compared, including colorimetry, fluorescence and chemiluminescence measurements. The current portable technologies, with or without the use of smartphones in device development, that are combined with optical biosensors for the detection and monitoring of biomarkers in body fluids, are also investigated. The review also discusses novel AIEgens used in the portable systems for the detection and monitoring of biomarkers in body fluid. Finally, the potential of future developments and the use of optical detection-based portable devices in healthcare activities are explored.