Pediatric hemifacial spasm: the efficacy of microvascular decompression

Hemifacial spasm (HFS), generally a disease of the elderly, is caused by vascular compression of the seventh nerve. Vascular compression is thought to result from atherosclerotic changes within the vessels of the posterior fossa, and therefore rarely presents in childhood. Here we describe our experience with 12 patients with onset of HFS during childhood (age 18 or less) and who had surgical exploration of the cerebellopontine angle. These patients represent less than 1.2% of the patient population with HFS operated upon at this institution during the study period. Nine patients had follow-up data extending over 83 months. All 12 patients were found to have microvascular compression of the seventh nerve at the time of surgery. The most common operative finding was compression of the seventh nerve by a vein, alone or in combination with a branch of the anterior inferior cerebellar artery. At the time of discharge and after a mean follow-up period of 125 months, microvascular decompression resulted in complete relief of spasm in 67% of the patients.     

The spiritual needs of pediatric patients and their families

Holistic perioperative nursing care of children and their families includes assessing their spiritual needs and identifying interventions that help them achieve spiritual comfort. This is achieved by therapeutic listening and by facilitating children's and family members' access to clergy members of their practice of religious rites and rituals. Perioperative nurses have a unique opportunity and responsibility to assess children's or family members' spiritual needs and to intervene on their behalf. This article describes the opportunities a surgical liaison nurse may have to intervene on the behalf of family members during children's perioperative experiences.     

Women's mental health: some directions for research

Some key issues regarding gender differences in the prevalence of mental disorders, the course of mental illness, and the use of services are reviewed, along with their diagnosis and psychopharmacologic treatment. Implications for clinical practice are examined, as are directions for future research that will ensure the presence of women's mental health as a major element in the national agenda on women's health.     

Coating and near‐surface modification design strategies for protective and functional surfaces

This paper discusses strategies for controlling the surface chemistry and microstructure of materials to form protective and functional surfaces through controlled gas‐metal reactions. Potential applications range from oxidation, corrosion, and wear resistance to electrochemical devices such as fuel cells to catalysts. Phenomenological examples are presented for coatings designed to self‐grade under oxidizing conditions, and for the growth of simple and complex (binary and ternary) nitride and carbide phase surface layers by nitridation and carburization reactions. Specific systems discussed include environmental barrier coatings (EBCs) for Si‐based ceramics such as Si₃N₄ and SiC, the growth of continuous, protective CrN/Cr₂N, TiN, VN, NiNbVN, and related simple nitride layers on Fe‐ and Ni‐base alloys, the possible formation of ternary nitride and carbide surface phases (e.g. Ti₃AlC₂ and related MAX‐phases) on intermetallic surfaces to improve oxidation resistance, and the formation of composite near‐surface structures in Ag‐SiO₂ and Co(Mo)‐Co₆Mo₆C₂ systems.     

Photoluminescence plasmonic enhancement in InAs quantum dots coupled to gold nanoparticles

Photoluminescence enhancement due to dipole field from gold nanoparticles was observed at 77 K for GaAs capped InAs quantum dots. The gold nanoparticles were coupled to the surface of the cap layer by using dithiol ligands. The enhancement was investigated as a function of the GaAs capped layer thickness. An order of magnitude enhancement in the emission was observed in samples with a cap thickness of 12 nm. This enhancement however is drastically decreased in samples with a cap thickness of 200 nm. The observed enhancement is interpreted in terms of photon scattering from the large dipole scattering cross section.     

Polarization dynamics and non-equilibrium switching processes in ferroelectrics

Time- and temperature-dependent effects are critical for the operation of non-volatile memories based on ferroelectrics. In this paper, we assume a domain nucleation process of the polarization reversal and we discuss the polarization dynamics in the framework of a non-equilibrium statistical model. This approach yields analytical expressions which can be used to explain a wide range of time- and temperature-dependent effects in ferroelectrics. Domain wall velocity derived in this work is consistent with a domain wall creep behavior in ferroelectrics. In the limiting case of para-electric equilibrium, the model yields the well-known Curie law. We also present experimental P-E loops data obtained for soft ferroelectrics at various temperatures. The experimental coercive fields at various temperatures are well predicted by the coercive field formula derived in our theory.     

Roadwise Review has limited congruence with actual driving performance of aging drivers

The Roadwise Review (RR) CD-ROM has been proposed as one way for older drivers to self-evaluate the skills that support safe driving. To better gauge the utility of RR for that purpose, further validation of RR vis-à-vis measures of driving performance is needed. We carried out this study to provide such validation. We correlated the results of the standard Useful Field of View subtest 2 (UFOV-2) and Trail Making Test (TMT) parts A and B to the corresponding RR subsections on visual information processing and visual search. We further examined the correlations between on-road performance (based on demerit points) and RR results (absolute scores and number of problems identified). The correlations between UFOV-2, TMT and the relevant RR sections ranged from .46 to .61. The correlations between demerit points and RR absolute values ranged from −.40 to .50. The correlations between demerit points and the number of problems identified by RR ranged from −.24 to .45. Using a “pass/fail” approach we also failed to find a relationship with the number of problems. These results indicate limited convergence between findings obtained with RR and actual performance using standardized approaches. Such results emphasize the importance of developing a rigorous data synthesis process before attempting knowledge translation of material aimed at older drivers.