PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

C W Hart

Publications and source records attributed to C W Hart.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2004

Death notification: considerations for law enforcement personnel.

Death notification is among the most unpleasant and uncomfortable tasks a law enforcement officer undertakes. For years, law enforcement officers have been performing notifications that involved life threatening injuries or death from tragedies including suicide. Unfortunately, many officers have performed this task without appropriate training. Performing notifications can be physically and emotionally exhausting. Expressing the right words, understanding families' emotions, and responding with empathy are paramount. The attitude, demeanor, professionalism, and sensitivity of law enforcement officers projected during a notification are critical. The delivery of a notification can remain etched in a family member's memory forever. Many notifications have left family members with the perception that law enforcement officers are callous, thoughtless, and insensitive. This negative perception can be overcome through training and practice. This article presents several factors that supervisors and officers should consider in the notification process and offers guidelines to consider to best serve your agency and the community.

Death↗
PubMed2001

Vestibular impairment.

The measurement of vestibular impairment for medicolegal purposes represents a challenge. In the United States, the most widely employed system is that described in the American Medical Association's (AMA's) Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment. The fourth edition, published in 1993, represented a major step forward at that time, but room for improvement still exists. The problem areas in the Guides are discussed and appropriate modifications are suggested. Briefly, balance disorders are divided into two general categories, constant and recurrent (episodic). Using this novel approach, scales for quantification of the symptoms and signs (and laboratory tests for each), in increasing order of severity, are suggested. In this manner, an overall score may be derived for any individual with a permanent medicolegal balance impairment.

American Medical Association↗
PubMed1997

Collaboration between hospital social work and pastoral care to help families cope with serious illness and grief.

The authors describe an educational program for hospital chaplains based on a partnership between pastoral care and social work in a teaching hospital. The goal of the program is to train chaplains to use social work principles to maximize families' capacity to negotiate a complex health care system, to solve problems in a health crisis, and to participate constructively on the health care team. Building on the two disciplines' shared values in person-centered, process-oriented approaches to care, the program introduces chaplain trainees to social work concepts of crisis intervention and family systems theory that they can apply in their interactions with families in their hospital and congregational practice. The approach taught in the program is illustrated in a case vignette describing a chaplain trainee's work with the family of a child treated for severe burns.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1996

Medicolegal aspects of neurotology.

In their professional capacity, physicians interact with the legal profession in a variety of ways. The interaction occurs most often in the situation where an individual suffering from a bodily injury seeks the recovery of monetary benefits through the legal system. This article reviews the manner in which physicians are contacted by attorneys in connection with workers' compensation cases and civil tort cases. It will also set forth various definitions of disability and contrast those definitions with the concept of impairment as that term is used in the medical profession. Suggestions for patient evaluation and a summary of the legal basis for the recovery of benefits are also presented.

Disability Evaluation↗
PubMed1992

Guarantees come to professional service firms.

Can lawyers, doctors, investment bankers, accountants, and consultants guarantee their work? Your money back if not absolutely delighted? Some professional service firms are doing exactly that, and they believe they are gaining not only satisfied customers but higher market share and improved service quality. The authors discuss the benefits and risks of unconditional and more limited guarantees. Firms that address this issue proactively now, they argue, will be less likely to rush into poorly considered guarantees later.

Commerce↗
PubMed1992

Lateralising value of the computerized dynamic posturography (CDP) test.

The side of labyrinthine pathology, as indicated by caloric tests, Quix test, audiometry or otoscopy is investigated by Computerised Dynamic Posturography. The correlation level fluctuates from high with audiometry to low with caloric tests. The quantification possibility of the dynamic posture is stressed.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Neurotologic findings of a patient with acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

A Caucasian male contracted acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) following a blood transfusion during heart surgery. Four years later he developed dizziness, dysequilibrium, and emotional disturbances. Neurotologic evaluation implicated central vestibular and auditory dysfunction. Electronystagmographic findings showed ataxic pursuit and optokinetic nystagmus, with a total loss of caloric excitability. The auditory brain stem response indicated delayed absolute and interpeak latencies, and the synthetic sentence identification test yielded abnormally reduced scores bilaterally. Psychological tests suggested organic brain disease with severe anxiety and depression. At autopsy, the AIDS retrovirus was found in mononuclear and multinucleated giant cells in the cortical and subcortical gray matter, cerebral and cerebellar white matter, and throughout the brain stem. Pathologic changes were consistent with the patient's neurotologic profile.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗
PubMed1988

Dynamic low-dose three-dimensional computed tomography: a preliminary study.

Three-dimensional (3D) computed tomographic reformations have been used successfully as an adjunct to standard axial computed tomography (CT) in the evaluation of disorders affecting areas of complex anatomy. The basic requirements for high-quality 3D reformations are an absence of patient movement and narrow-width transaxial sections. Speed of examination is an important factor in optimizing image quality. One hundred examinations were performed on an IGE CT 9800 scanner. For bone studies, 80 mAs and, for certain soft tissues, 140 or 200 mAs were employed with 120 kVp. The advantages of such a "low-dose" technique are significant reduction in patient skin dose and a faster examination. The main disadvantage is a reduction in signal-to-noise ratio. The image quality obtained in 3D presentations has nevertheless been sufficient to enable all bony abnormalities to be identified. Three-dimensional examinations are now being performed routinely using a dynamic mode and this "low-dose" technique.

Female↗
PubMed1984

Caloric tests.

The caloric test is still the most useful vestibular test by far. Rotatory tests may allow more accurate control of the stimulus and the response parameters may vary less in normal individuals, but only the caloric test allows individual testing of each ear. By various means described in this article, it is possible to minimize potential sources of error and thus maximize the reliability of the test. Although the test allows a good measure of horizontal semicircular canal function and, by inference, an estimate of labyrinthine disease, the fact that the reflex arc traverses the vestibular nerve and brain stem renders this pathway liable to damage by central vestibular disease. Thus the electronystagmographic recording of the caloric nystagmus response may show a variety of changes, depending on the site and nature of the central vestibular lesion. Some of these changes are discussed.

Caloric Tests↗
PubMed1983

The Quix test.

Professor Doctor F.H. Quix, of Utrecht, was a keen student of macular function, who published extensively at the beginning of this century. He described many useful tests for otolithic function, and one in particular has continued to be fairly widely used. The so-called "Quix Test" is performed with the patient standing, feet slightly apart, arms outstretched, index fingers extended, and the examiner assumes a similar mirror-image posture, such that the fingertips almost touch. The patient is then requested to close his eyes, and the index fingers are observed for drift. The lateralizing value of this sign of vestibular disease is discussed.

Humans↗
PubMed1981

Meniere's disease: terminology and data bank acquisition.

It is proposed that the term Meniere's disease be restricted to patients with the classic symptom and sign complex in whom the etiologic factor is unknown (idiopathic). The term Meniere's syndrome is restricted to patients whose etiologic factor is known, who have an incomplete form of the disease, or who are in the process of being evaluated. Vestibular neuronitis and cochlear hydrops are terms that should be retained until the concepts of vestibular and cochlear Meniere's disease are better understood and can be identified prospectively. The classic symptoms and signs, both positive and negative, are outlined and a standard evaluation format is suggested. This must submit to mathematical reduction for pre- and post-treatment comparisons. Until this basic problem has been solved to the satisfaction of the profession, the inferences that may be drawn from otherwise excellent studies will continue to be of very limited clinical value.

Electronic Data Processing↗