Biomedical subjects

Catherine A Niven

Publications and source records attributed to Catherine A Niven.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Analgesia through the looking-glass? A randomized controlled trial investigating the effect of viewing a 'virtual' limb upon phantom limb pain, sensation and movement.

The extent to which viewing a 'virtual' limb, the mirror image of an intact limb, modifies the experience of a phantom limb, was investigated in 80 lower limb amputees before, during and after repeated attempts to simultaneously move both intact and phantom legs. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of two conditions, a control condition in which they only viewed the movements of their intact limb and a mirror condition in which they additionally viewed the movements of a 'virtual' limb. Although the mirror condition elicited a significantly greater number of phantom limb movements than the control condition, it did not attenuate phantom limb pain and sensations any more than the control condition. The potential of a 'virtual' limb as a treatment for phantom limb pain was discussed in terms of its ability to halt and/or reverse the cortical re-organisation of motor and somatosensory cortex following acquired limb loss.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

A Scottish study of heel-prick blood sampling in newborn babies.

OBJECTIVE: to conduct a randomised-controlled trial to investigate the effectiveness of two heel-prick devices (Tenderfoot and Genie Lancet) used in the newborn-baby screening test. DESIGN: a randomised-controlled trial. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: the homes of 340 healthy term newborn babies discharged from the maternity unit of Stirling Royal Infirmary, Scotland. Data were collected between April and November 2003. INTERVENTIONS: babies were randomly allocated to be tested with either the Tenderfoot or Genie Lancet heel-prick device. MEASUREMENTS: primary study outcomes include (1) quality of the blood sample; (2) time taken to collect the sample; (3) number of heel pricks required to take the sample; (4) whether squeezing of heel was required; (5) pain expressed by the baby; and (6) presence of bruising. A potential intervening variable was the experience of the midwife. FINDINGS: on all outcomes, the Tenderfoot device was more effective than the Genie Lancet. Experienced midwives were more efficient in sample collection. KEY CONCLUSIONS: this study shows that the Tenderfoot device saves significant time for midwifery staff, improves baby care and reduces the need for more than one heel prick at each test, making it superior to the Genie Lancet device. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: there is a case to be made for midwives to be issued with the Tenderfoot device for neonatal screening.

Analysis of Variance↗

PubMed2005

A computerised guidance tree (decision aid) for hypertension, based on decision analysis: development and preliminary evaluation.

This paper discusses the piloting of a computerised decision aid that provides individualised information about hypertension to patients. The program is based on decision analysis, using decision trees as a way of structuring information. It incorporates the Framingham risk equation to assess a users' risk of coronary artery disease, together with a detailed assessment of the patient's current lifestyle and their willingness to change behaviour. Users of the program can decide how much or how little information they access. The program assesses individual's preferences for different treatment outcomes, before providing them with guidance on what might be the best treatment option for them. The program was evaluated by 10 patients with a diagnosis of mild to moderate hypertension and 8 health care professionals. Overall, both health care professionals and patients assessed the program positively. The use of a decision aid based on decision analysis may be a useful way of providing information to patients in order to promote shared decision making.

Aged↗

PubMed2000

Remembering an everyday pain: the role of knowledge and experience in the recall of the quality of dysmenorrhoea.

The ability to describe the quality of a previous pain may be thought to be better if one had experienced that particular pain because information stored in episodic and/or semantic memory is available rather than if one had not and could only guess what the pain may be like on the basis of information stored in semantic memory. However research has shown that not only is the quality of labour pain poorly recalled by women who have given birth but also it is no better described by them than by women who have never given birth at all. In order to replicate this effect for an everyday pain, the ability to recall the quantity and the quality of dysmenorrhoea was measured in two groups of women. One group regularly experienced dysmenorrhoea, the other had never experienced it. Analysis of the pain intensity scores revealed that the 'pain' group reported significantly less pain 2 weeks later whereas the 'no-pain' group did not significantly differ in their rating over time. Analysis of the MPQ Descriptors chosen by subjects using Cohen's kappa resulted in 'fair' recall for both groups with no significant advantage for the 'pain' group. These results suggest that the episodic memory system plays a limited role in facilitating the recall of the quality of an often experienced pain. However the semantic memory system allows both previous pain sufferers and pain guessers to describe the core qualities of a pain to the same extent. Further research is required to explain why remembering the quality of a pain experience is not advantaged by episodic memory and what facilitates the transfer of a pain experience into semantic event memory.

Adolescent↗