This thesis is a retrospective study analyzing data from patient implanted cardiac devices in order to determine the effect of SARS-CoV-2 on cardiac arrhythmias. This study is also the first, to the knowledge of the researchers, in which a cohort…
This thesis is a retrospective study analyzing data from patient implanted cardiac devices in order to determine the effect of SARS-CoV-2 on cardiac arrhythmias. This study is also the first, to the knowledge of the researchers, in which a cohort of undifferentiated hospitalized and non-hospitalized COVID patients were studied using data from cardiac implanted devices. The results from this study has shown that SARS-CoV-2 leads to statistically significant increases in arrhythmic burden, in particular increased overall arrhythmic episodes, increased VT episodes, increased AT Burden percent, and increased SVT Average Ventricular Rate, and a statistically significant decrease in VT Average Ventricular Rate.
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The goal of this project was to create a quasi experimental study using an education module that teaches evidence-based practice methods. The theoretical frameworks used to create the educational content were the self-efficacy theory and the Health Belief Model. The…
The goal of this project was to create a quasi experimental study using an education module that teaches evidence-based practice methods. The theoretical frameworks used to create the educational content were the self-efficacy theory and the Health Belief Model. The evaluation methods used are based on the Kirkpatrick four level model. An education module was created to be culturally and regionally relevant to South Sudan and Malawi. The education module was designed to be part of the SolarSPELL Health: Nursing and Midwifery Library. This was done by performing a literature review, curating resources, creating the educational materials, creating learning scenarios, curating relevant belief scales, and integrating the content into the SolarSPELL Health: Nursing and Midwifery Library. The on ground implementation of the materials was not a part of this project, but instead is planned for future research. This project creates a foundation from which SolarSPELL Health can implement the resources at a future date. In the long term, the goal of implementing the experiment is to improve maternal mental and physical health outcomes in South Sudan and Malawi, both of which have extremely high rates of maternal mortality and morbidity.
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HIV &AIDS is a global epidemic that has affected the lives of millions of people across the world. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 37.7 million people were living with HIV in 2020. Sub-Saharan Africa has been particularly affected…
HIV &AIDS is a global epidemic that has affected the lives of millions of people across the world. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 37.7 million people were living with HIV in 2020. Sub-Saharan Africa has been particularly affected by the epidemic, specifically, the Southern and Eastern Africa region which accounts for the highest number of new HIV infections, the highest number of people living with HIV, and the highest number of AIDS-related deaths. Botswana, Eswatini and South Africa are countries located in Southern Africa and have been greatly affected by the HIV & AIDS epidemic as Botswana had the highest HIV prevalence from the late 90s to the early 2000s while Eswatini currently has the HIV highest prevalence rate, and South Africa currently has the highest number of people living with HIV in the world. This paper examines the HIV & AIDS health policies adopted by these three countries in their responses to the HIV & AIDS epidemic.
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Objective: To determine if patients’ insurance status or the income level of their zip code of residence affect their quality of life or overall survival after enrollment in clinical trials for cancer treatment. Methods: Data were collected from cancer treatment…
Objective: To determine if patients’ insurance status or the income level of their zip code of residence affect their quality of life or overall survival after enrollment in clinical trials for cancer treatment. Methods: Data were collected from cancer treatment trials conducted through the North Central Cancer Treatment Group and the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology. 700 subjects with baseline quality of life scores were analyzed to explore potential differences in quality of life indicators by insurance group. 624 patients with valid US zip codes were also analyzed based on the median household income of their zip code to determine any associations with quality of life. Overall survival was also analyzed by insurance group and by income quartile. Results: 700 subjects (mean age 59 years, 53% male) were included. 49% had private insurance only, 30% had public insurance only, 8.9% had both private and public insurance, 1.4% had no insurance, and 10% had other insurance. 13% of patients came from zip codes in the bottom quartile by median income, 20% came from the second quartile, 25% from the third quartile and 42% from the top quartile. No significant differences were found in baseline quality of life scores between insurance groups or income quartiles. Patients with both private and public insurance had higher baseline fatigue scores compared to only private, only public, or other insurance. No significant difference was found in baseline fatigue scores by income quartile. No significant differences were found in overall survival by insurance group or income quartile. Conclusions: Patients with both private and public insurance may need more extensive interventions than patients with other insurance statuses due to their higher baseline fatigue scores. Future studies are needed to further investigate the effects of neighborhood advantage level on quality of life indicators.
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The SolarSPELL Health: Nursing and Midwifery library was created to provide health students and professionals in developing and underprivileged countries with resources for evidence based practice learning, and to help improve women’s health in the country with the highest maternal…
The SolarSPELL Health: Nursing and Midwifery library was created to provide health students and professionals in developing and underprivileged countries with resources for evidence based practice learning, and to help improve women’s health in the country with the highest maternal mortality rate in the world. Our team partnered with local health schools to identify the greatest areas of need. The SolarSPELL team searched for open access materials aimed towards students and professionals in the health field, ensured that this content was relevant to the location and took into account the resources available, curated this content and ensured consistency throughout the process, and lastly packaged the material in a platform that was easy to access and navigate. South Sudan is the newest country in the world, and they lack significant resources, as do all of the countries that SolarSPELL serves. Receiving this library will allow the health students and professionals in South Sudan to utilize the resources they currently have, to provide evidenced based care, both saving and improving lives.
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Over the last half century, global healthcare practices have increasingly relied on technological interventions for the detection, prevention, and treatment of disability and disease. As these technologies become routinized and normalized into medicine, the social and political dimensions require substantial…
Over the last half century, global healthcare practices have increasingly relied on technological interventions for the detection, prevention, and treatment of disability and disease. As these technologies become routinized and normalized into medicine, the social and political dimensions require substantial consideration. Such consideration is particularly critical in the context of ableism, in which bodily and cognitive differences such as disabilities are perceived as deviance and demand intervention. Further, neoliberalism, with its overwhelming tendency to privatize and individualize, creates conditions under which social systems abdicate responsibility for social issues such as ableism, shifting accountability onto individuals to prevent or mitigate difference through individualized means.
It is in this context that this dissertation, informed by critical disability studies and feminist science and technology studies, examines the understanding and enactment of disability and responsibility in relation to biomedical technologies. I draw from qualitative empirical data from three distinct case studies, each focused on a different biomedical technology: prenatal genetic screening and diagnosis, deep brain stimulation, and do-it-yourself artificial pancreas systems. Analyzing semi-structured interviews and primary documents through an inductive framework that takes up elements of Grounded Theory and hermeneutic phenomenology, this research demonstrates a series of tensions. As disability becomes increasingly associated with discrete biological characteristics and medical professionals claim a growing authority over disabled bodyminds, users of these technologies are caught in a double bind of personal responsibility and epistemic invalidation. Technologies, however, do not occupy either exclusively oppressive or liberatory roles. Rather, they are used with full acknowledgement of their role in perpetuating medical authority and neoliberal paradigms as well as their individual benefit. Experiential and embodied knowledge, particular when in tension with clinical knowledge, is invalidated as a transgression of expert authority. To reject these invalidations, communities cohering around subaltern knowledges emerge in resistance to the mismatched priorities and expectations of medical authority, creating space for alternative disabled imaginaries.
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This research aims to serve as a starting point to the exploration of the current status of autism in Sudan and how to best utilize available Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to educate and support parents and educators. Currently, there…
This research aims to serve as a starting point to the exploration of the current status of autism in Sudan and how to best utilize available Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to educate and support parents and educators. Currently, there is no official published data on the prevalence of autism in Sudan or the related available services and facilities. To attempt to expand upon the limited existing knowledge, the researcher collected all available data and information through Sudanese Facebook groups and pages. The research was observational in nature. Findings indicated that raising a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in Sudan can be rather challenging, particularly for parents who do not have easy access to ASD treatment. In general, parents in this study expressed minimal satisfaction with the available treatments and services that their children were receiving. Parents repeatedly addressed problems regarding a lack of access, the overwhelming expense, and the need for more awareness and acceptance of autism within Sudanese society. In response to these issues, some of the parents formed small support groups and met regularly to share experiences and discuss solutions. Additionally, some parents are creating discrete Facebook pages to help normalize autism and combat misinformation.
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The purpose of this analysis is to determine the economic impact that the distribution of the SolarSPELL digital library system to Peace Corps volunteers in Vanuatu will have on the citizens of Vanuatu by quantifying the potential for SolarSPELL and…
The purpose of this analysis is to determine the economic impact that the distribution of the SolarSPELL digital library system to Peace Corps volunteers in Vanuatu will have on the citizens of Vanuatu by quantifying the potential for SolarSPELL and its health education content to reduce rates of certain illnesses and thereby reduce the demands on the Vanuatu healthcare system. The research was carried out by researching the most prominent non-communicable diseases in Vanuatu that could be affected by lifestyle changes as a result of exposure to the health education content on the SolarSPELL and determining the expected changes in rates of each non-communicable disease as well as the expected changes in the individual and hospital costs, the loss of income due to missed work, transport costs within Vanuatu, and international medical evacuation costs. Ultimately, these costs were collectively reduced by approximately 2.046% due to SolarSPELL intervention, a reduction of approximately $7,000. However, given the limited scope of available information within the healthcare system of Vanuatu, it can be inferred that the impact of the distribution of the SolarSPELL is likely significantly larger. Consequently, it is recommended that the Vanuatu Ministry of Health, the SolarSPELL team, and the Peace Corps implement policies to increase the volume of healthcare data collected in Vanuatu in order to assist in future analyses of the healthcare system.
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Concussions and traumatic brain injuries are mechanical events which can derive from no specific activity or event. However, these injuries occur often during athletic and sporting events but many athletes experiencing these symptoms go undiagnosed and continue playing without proper…
Concussions and traumatic brain injuries are mechanical events which can derive from no specific activity or event. However, these injuries occur often during athletic and sporting events but many athletes experiencing these symptoms go undiagnosed and continue playing without proper medical attention. The current gold standard for diagnosing athletes with concussions is to have medical professionals on the sidelines of events to perform qualitative standardized assessments which may not be performed frequently enough and are not specialized for each athlete. The purpose of this report is to discuss a study sanctioned by Arizona State University's Project HoneyBee and additional affiliations to validate a third-party mouth guard device product to recognize and detect force impacts blown to an athlete's head during athletic activity. Current technology in health monitoring medical devices can allow users to apply this device as an additional safety mechanism for early concussion awareness and diagnosis. This report includes the materials and methods used for experimentation, the discussion of its results, and the complications which occurred and areas for improvement during the preliminary efforts of this project. Participants in the study were five non-varsity ASU Wrestling athletes who volunteered to wear a third-party mouth guard device during sparring contact at practice. Following a needed calibration period for the devices, results were recorded both through visual observation and with the mouth guard devices using an accelerometer and gyroscope. This study provided a sound understanding for the operation and functionality of the mouth guard devices. The mouth guard devices have the capability to provide fundamental avenues of research for future investigations.
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Atrial fibrillation, also known as Afib or AF, is the most common irregular heart rhythm among the United States adult population. Atrial fibrillation is characterized by an abnormal fibrillation of the upper chambers of the heart, known as the atria.…
Atrial fibrillation, also known as Afib or AF, is the most common irregular heart rhythm among the United States adult population. Atrial fibrillation is characterized by an abnormal fibrillation of the upper chambers of the heart, known as the atria. When left chronically untreated, this condition may lead to insufficient systemic blood flow or the formation of blood clots. Atrial fibrillation has many modifiable risk factors, meaning contributing habits and practices within the patient's control that may worsen the condition. Communication of these modifiable risk factors to patients with atrial fibrillation is important in improving patient quality of life and for reduction of disease symptoms. The motivation for this study was to convey the potential of improved disease process by lifestyle modification to patients with atrial fibrillation.
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