Treatment of obesity hypoventilation syndrome

Aside from being a health concern in itself, obesity can result in other serious health conditions. Some of these, such as cancer, can result in early death, while others, including sleep-disordered respiratory problems, can compromise patients' day-to-day quality of life and economic status. This article explores how obesity affects respiratory disorders and focuses on obesity hypoventilation syndrome. It outlines the pathophysiology and diagnosis of the condition, and explains how it can be treated with non-invasive ventilation.

The nursing practice of taking level 1 patient observations

Nurses have a pivotal role in the early identification of patients at risk of deterioration through the taking of patient observations and assessment. This paper presents the findings from an ethnographic qualitative study to discover the practice of recording basic observations of general ward patients and discusses how these observations are used in the assessment of the physical state of the patient. The research is a triangulation method including participatory observation (n = 20) and semi-structured interviews (n = 8) of registered (n = 4) and unregistered (n = 4) nursing staff. Although the research is limited by its exploratory nature and the size of both the interview group and the observational study, the findings suggest that the experience of staff is important in the assessment of patients to detect indicators of patient deterioration. The practice of taking basic observations as a part of assessing patients has changed from being the qualified nurses' role to a role delegated to health care assistant. In addition, there appears to be a reliance on the use of electronic monitoring equipment. The results of the research will be utilised to inform where the practice might be improved.

Heat shock and developmental expression of hsp83 in the filarial nematode Brugia pahangi

hsp83 was cloned from the filarial nematode Brugia pahangi. The mRNA was constitutively expressed at 37 degrees C in life cycle stages that live in the mammalian host (microfilariae and adult worms). Heat shock resulted in only a minimal increase in levels of transcription. A genomic copy of hsp83 was isolated and was shown to contain 11 introns while sequencing of the 5' upstream region revealed several heat shock elements. Using a chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) reporter gene construct the expression of hsp83 from B. pahangi (Bp-hsp83) was studied by transfection of COS-7 cells. Similar to the expression pattern in the parasite, CAT activity was detected at 37 degrees C and was not influenced by heat shock. When the free-living nematode Caenorhabditis elegans was transfected with the same construct, CAT activity was not observed at normal growth temperatures (21 degrees C) or under moderate heat shock conditions (28 degrees C). However exposure to more severe heat shock (35 degrees C) resulted in an increase in CAT activity. These results suggest that Bp-hsp83 has a temperature threshold > or = 35 degrees C for expression.