BACKGROUND Outcome assessment can support the therapeutic process by providing a way to track symptoms and functionality over time, providing insights to clinicians and patients, as well as offering a common language to discuss patient behavior/functioning. OBJECTIVES In this article, we examine the patient-based outcome assessment (PBOA) instruments that have been used to determine outcomes ...

Even though patient counselling is considered one of the main duties for community pharmacists, studies have indicated that there is room for improvement in counselling performance. In order to enhance patient counselling practise in Finland, a four-year project TIPPA was launched in 2000. A need for patient counselling specific instruments became evident in order to implement new behaviours an...

BACKGROUND The START and SAPROF are newly developed fourth generation structured professional judgement instruments assessing strengths and protective factors. The DUNDRUM-3 and DUNDRUM-4 also measure positive factors, programme completion and recovery in forensic settings. METHODS We compared these instruments with other validated risk instruments (HCR-20, S-RAMM), a measure of psychopatholo...

Two methods of fine tuning the initial settings of hearing aids were compared: An audiologist-driven approach--using real ear measurements and a patient-driven fine-tuning approach--using feedback from real-life situations. The patient-driven fine tuning was conducted by employing the Amplifit(®) II system using audiovideo clips. The audiologist-driven fine tuning was based on the NAL-NL1 presc...

HRQoL Health-related Quality of Life ICD Implantable cardioverter defibrillator ICC Intraclass correlation coefficient KCCQ[-os] Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire[-overall summary score] LVAD Left ventricular assist device [LV]EF [Left ventricular] ejection fraction LV[S]D Left ventricular [systolic] dysfunction MADIT Multicenter Automatic Defibrillator Implantation Trial [M]CID [Minimum...

This paper is Part II of a series of articles on Terahertz heterodyne imaging. In Part I introductory information and techniques were presented. In this paper the authors describe four different types of heterodyne imaging instruments that have been established at their facilities. In Part III (to appear in a future issue of this journal) selected applications of these instruments are discussed.

Pelvic bone tumor resection is challenging due to complex geometry, limited visibility, and restricted workspace. Accurate resection including a safe margin is required to decrease the risk of local recurrence. This clinical study reports 11 cases of pelvic bone tumor resected by using patient-specific instruments. Magnetic resonance imaging was used to delineate the tumor and computerized tomo...

Background Restoring good alignment after total knee replacement (TKR) is still a challenge globally, and the clinical efficiency of patient-specific instruments (PSIs) remains controversial. In this study, we aimed to explore the value and significance of three-dimensional printing PSIs based on knee joint computed tomography (CT) and full-length lower extremity radiography in TKR. Methods B...

Personalized computational cardiac models are emerging as an important tool for studying cardiac arrhythmia mechanisms, and have the potential to become powerful instruments for guiding clinical anti-arrhythmia therapy. In this article, we present the methodology for constructing a patient-specific model of atrial fibrosis as a substrate for atrial fibrillation. The model is constructed from hi...