Chronic Sorrow in Caregiving Spouses of Patients with Alzheimer's Disease

The article focuses on the concept of chronic sorrow in a sample of individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and their caregiving spouses. A study was designed to determine the long-term grief or chronic sorrow that develops in caregiving spouses and to increase knowledge of the nature of chronic sorrow. Utilizing the Burke Nursing Consortium for Research on Chronic Sorrow questionnaire and Lindgren's (1996) study as a prototype, the author discovered that repetitive feelings of sorrow and distress appear in caregivers when major disruptive changes occur in their lives due to the persistent demands caused by the illness. Continual coping skills are needed to keep caregivers from being mentally, emotionally, and physically depleted. The findings of this study are consistent with Lindgren's 1996 study of chronic sorrow in persons with Parkinson's disease.     

浅谈老年患者择期手术麻醉问题

随着社会老龄化,老年患者占手术麻醉比例逐年增加。对手术和麻醉危险因素、各重要器官的储备功能和应激能力的评估,以及了解老年人随年龄变化而产生的药效学和药代学改变,给予老年择期手术患者个体化麻醉是极其重要的。     

关注老年癌症止痛

虽然肿瘤的发病率在老年人并不低,但社会对老年人的关注度并不高。几乎所有肿瘤药物临床试验都把老年人排除在外,因此,不少药品说明书特别注明“缺乏老年人资料”。老年癌痛治疗领域也存在同样的问题。老年癌痛的病理生理及心理特点很独特,加之对老年癌病重视不够及缺乏正确评价,所以老年癌痛的研究相当复杂,因而癌痛的处理犹如癌症一样也需要综合治疗。癌痛治疗药物可分成两大类：非阿片类及阿片类药物。非阿片类药物中首选对乙酰氨基酚治疗轻度癌痛,非甾体类抗炎药,特别是选择性COX2抑制剂可在对乙酰氨基酚无效时应用。阿片类药物则广泛应用于中度到重度的癌痛治疗。辅助治疗药物包括三环抗抑郁药、抗惊厥药、苯二氮蕈类药物等。可用于癌痛三阶梯治疗的任一阶段,能够治疗特殊类型疼痛,改善癌痛以外的症状,增加主要药物镇痛效果,减轻副作用,但不推荐常规使用。总而言之,对于老年癌症患者更要强调以镇痛为主的姑息治疗,特别在重症老年患者,可能成为最重要的治疗,有时甚至是唯一有效妁治疗。     

Sensitivity to Levels of Importance in the Logical Memory Subtest

The performance of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and neuropsychiatric patients was examined using the Logical Memory (LM) subtest of the WMS-R, utilizing a levels of importance methodology described by Haut et al. (1990). Although patient groups were matched for dementia severity, we found the expected differences between groups in terms of absolute level of performance. There was considerable variability, however, in the AD patients' performance. AD patients' recall and sensitivity to levels of importance depended on the story (Anna or Robert), and when the passages were recalled (immediate or delayed recalls). Results suggested that AD patients were able to utilize semantic information in their immediate recall, though this was dependent on individual story characteristics. AD patient's delayed recall was essentially absent. Thus, no conclusions could be drawn with respect to the level of importance factor. NP patient's recall performance was similar to patterns observed in other clinical samples for both immediate and delayed memory.     

提倡“理性医疗”

“理性医疗”是对疾病进行科学、客观地综合分析,由此筛选出一个理性的处置方案的医疗过程。“理性医疗”不但有利于社会,有利于医患双方,更符合自然科学的规律,同时,对传统的伦理学观念也是一种补充与完善。“理性医疗”的实现需要医患双方的共同协作。     

Insurance Coverage and Mental Health Service Use by Adolescents with Serious Emotional Disturbance

This paper examines the relationships between insurance coverage, need, and mental health services in a community-based sample of 1,015 youths who were 9, 11, and 13 years old at the beginning of the study. They were followed over a two-year period. A strong measure of need based on a standardized diagnostic interview was available and repeated over three annual waves. Data on service use was collected quarterly across two years. Major findings included: (a) high need (serious emotional disturbance [SED]) was strongly related to use of any mental health services; (b) services use was much more likely to occur with public (Medicaid) insurance coverage than either private or no insurance; (c) considerable unmet need was observed even for youths with SED; (d) school-based mental health services potentially substituted for professional mental health services; and (e) there was little unnecessary use of mental health services in the low need group. The major policy implication of these findings is that the regulation of insurance benefits should be based on level of need, rather than on arbitrary limits which are likely to either reduce the probability of or appropriate amount of care for youths who most need mental health services.     

Rawls and Research on Cognitively Impaired Patients: A Reply to Maio

In his paper, “The Relevance of Rawls’ Principle of Justice for Research on Cognitively Impaired Patients” (Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 23 (2002):45–53), Giovanni Maio has developed athought-provoking argument for the permissibility of non-therapeutic research on cognitively impaired patients. Maio argues that his conclusion follows from the acceptance of John Rawls’s principles of justice, specifically, Rawls’s “liberty principle” Maio has misinterpreted Rawls’s “libertyprinciple” – correctly interpreted it does notsupport non-therapeutic research on cognitivelyimpaired patients. Three other ‘Rawlsian’ arguments are suggested by Maio’s discussion –two “self-respect” arguments and a “presumed consent” argument – but none of them are convincing. However, an alternative argument developed from Rawls’s discussion of “justice in health care” in his most recent book, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, may justify certain kinds of non-therapeutic research on some cognitively impaired patients in special circumstances. We should not expect anything more permissive from a liberal theory of justice. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.