PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

A D Hall

Publications and source records attributed to A D Hall.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1984

Therapeutic abortions following rubella infection in pregnancy: the potential impact on the incidence of congenital rubella syndrome.

In 1977, a large rubella outbreak occurred in Hawaii. Because attack rates were high among women of childbearing age, we conducted extensive surveillance efforts to detect both pregnancies complicated by rubella and cases of congenital rubella syndrome (CRS). Initial surveillance included a survey of physicians and hospitals, review of fetal death and birth certificates, and cord blood screening for rubella-specific IgM of infants born following the epidemic. Two years after the outbreak, the medical community was again surveyed to identify affected children who were missed initially. No case of CRS was identified either shortly after the outbreak or in the ensuing two years. In addition, none of the 5,605 cord serum samples obtained was found to contain rubella-specific IgM antibody. Through active surveillance, we received 12 reports of rubella in pregnant women, of whom 11 elected to terminate their pregnancies. The extensive use of therapeutic abortion by exposed women may have prevented the birth of infants with CRS. Surveillance for rubella-related abortions is an important component in assessing the health impact of rubella in a community.

Abortion, Therapeutic↗
PubMed1984

Learning as a function of haptic discriminability among items.

In Experiment 1, braille symbols for the letters A-J were found to be more haptically discriminable from one another than braille symbols for the letters K-T. In Experiment 2, subjects learned the names for the A-J symbols faster than for the K-T symbols. Experiment 3 demonstrated that faster learning of the names for the A-J than for the K-T symbols is attributable to characteristics of the symbol sets themselves (probably to the discriminability of the items from one another) and not to what they are called. The effects of discriminability on learning in these experiments are similar to those from experiments in which other modalities have been used.

Blindness↗
PubMed1981

Comparing staff attitudes and patient satisfactions in a home health agency.

Patient and staff perceptions of Home Health care delivery were examined in the present study. Opinions from the two groups were surveyed then compared on five perceptual areas. The five areas rated were (a) feelings of ease at home, (b) learning and understanding self-care, (c) trust, (d) quality of care received, and (e) severity of illness. Staff characteristics and patient idiosyncracies were also considered. Overall, patient satisfaction with the Home Health care system was explored. The results indicated a high degree of satisfaction with the amount and appropriateness of Home Health care, confidence about self-care, and feelings of ease at home. All patients returning questionnaires would recommend Home Health services to a friend who may need them. Perhaps more importantly, the provider's opinions exhibited both accordance and discordance with those of the patients surveyed. Accordance was detected in ratings of ease, learning and understanding self-care, trust, and quality of care received at home. Discordance was noted regarding severity-of-illness ratings. As a whole, staff rated the severity of patients' illnesses or injuries as being less severe than did the patients themselves. Independent of primary diagnostic grouping, older patients' illnesses were rated by the staff less severe in nature than those of the younger patients. It was concluded that the Home Health practitioner must guard against legitimizing the illnesses of patients at any age.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed1980

Validating optimal response modes of learning disabled children.

To determine optimal and least effective response modes of learning disabled children, the procedure described by Owen, Braggio, and Ellen (1976) and the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities were used. On the basis of pretest and posttest comparisons on selected subtests, the performance of these children could be described as individual or multiple combinations of covert-, vocal-, or visual/manual-response modes. This learning style analysis was validated by presenting a paired-associate task to the children using an administration similar to (matched condition) or different from (unmatched condition) the child's optimal response mode. More items were recalled under the matched condition than under the unmatched condition. Also, the children with multiple response modes recalled more items than the learning disabled children with single optimal response modes. These results suggest that disabled children may do poorly on academic tasks because they may not have enough optimal response modes, or are unable to select the most appropriate mode of responding as required by a task. The use of optimal response modes as an aid in the diagnosis and remediation of educational handicaps is discussed.

Child↗
PubMed1978

Diagnosis of palatal defects by trispiral tomography: a pilot study.

A pilot study is presented in which 12 selected patients, ages 3-11 years, were evaluated for a palatal defect utilizing trispiral tomography. Each patient, because of speech and hearing abnormalities, was evaluated by a speech pathologist and an otolaryngolgist and voice recordings, audiometry, tympanometry and plain and cine radiographic X-rays were obtained. Those children with speech and hearing abnormalities in whom the question of a palatal defect was raised underwent trispiral palatal tomography. Nine of the 12 patients selected for tomography demonstrated a palatal defect that was not detected by other means. Trispiral tomography appears to be a useful tool in the diagnosis of suspected palatal defects in selected patients.

Child↗
PubMed1975

Rubella reinfection during pregnancy. A case of mistaken diagnosis of congenital rubella.

A case of subclinical rubella reinfection during pregnancy with serologic findings in the offspring initially led to an erroneous diagnosis of fetal infection. Laboratory diagnosis of congenital rubella infection, based on finding hemagglutination-inhibition (HI) activity in immunoglobulin M (IgM) fractions of newborn's serum after sucrose gradient fractionation, was questioned when apparent IgM-HI activity was to be probably due to nonspecific inhibitors, which resulted from bacterial action on the beta-lipoprotein in the serum. These findings emphasize some pitfalls encountered in arriving at a diagnosis based soley on serologic data. This case also illustrates the importance of keeping serum samples sterile when performing serologic tests.

Adult↗