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K Montgomery

Publications and source records attributed to K Montgomery.

67 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

Comparison of the neuropsychological deficits associated with early and advanced Huntington's disease.

Patients with "recently" diagnosed Huntington's Disease (RHD) were compared on a neuropsychological test battery to patients who have had the disease three to 15 years (AHD) and to intact controls. While the patients with HD showed general nonfocal deficits on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, the Wechsler Memory Scale, and tests of short-term memory and verbal fluency, the patients with RHD had focal deficits that stressed their memory deficits. The patients with RHD had IQs within the normal range, but their memory quotients, their performance on short-term memory tests, and their ability to search and retrieve from long-term memory were severely imparied. These results suggest that the cognitive deficits of patients with HD do not develop uniformally; memory disorders are early focal signs that precede the patients' more widespread intellectual deterioration.

Adult↗

Simulation of macroamylasaemia by salivary-type ('S type') hyperamylasaemia.

Hyperamylasaemia with low or normal urinary amylase excretion in the face of normal renal function has been noted to be indirect evidence for the existence of macroamylasaemia. A more refined indicator is a low ratio of renal amylase clearance to creatinine clearance. This report describes observations made in three patients, each of whom displayed the indirect features suggestive of macroamylasaemia. In none of these patients, however, could a serum macroamylase be demonstrated by chromatography. Ultracentrifugation was also done in one of the patients and likewise failed to disclose a macroamylase in the serum. When the isozyme nature of the serum amylase in each of these patients was examined, there was found to be a marked rise in activity of the salivary-type isoamylase (;S-type amylase'). The pancreatic-type isoamylase (;P-type amylase') was normal in one patient and perhaps slightly above normal in the other two. These data indicate that (1) S-type hyperamylasaemia may exhibit the indirect criteria taken to indicate macroamylasaemia and thereby simulate the latter disorder; and (2) unequivocal identification of macroamylasaemia requires the direct demonstration of the presence in the serum of a macromolecular amylase complex.

Amylases↗

Assisted suicide: implications for nurses and nursing.

Assisted suicide is an issue of great importance to nurses. This issue reflects our values and beliefs as a society, calls for a clear and precise response as a profession, and challenges individual nurses to think about their own moral views. The history of the debate and the compelling moral arguments on both sides attest to the complexity of the issue and also suggest that it will not soon be resolved. The current position of the profession, as expressed in the ANA Code for Nurses and a specific position statement, were reviewed. The dilemma faced by the individual nurse who perceives an obligation to adhere to the guidelines specified by his or her profession's code and yet whose conscience dictates an act in violation of this code has been discussed as an instance of conscientious objection. While this analysis has been necessarily brief, it was intended to illustrate the importance of being clear about one's personal moral views and equally clear about one's duty to fulfil the obligations stemming from the profession's public statements. It is essential that the profession continue to explore the moral issues involved in requests for assistance in dying and provide additional guidelines for practicing nurses, with sound rationale for the profession's position.

American Nurses' Association↗

Internet-based support for bioscience research: a collaborative genome center for human chromosome 12.

This paper describes an approach that provides Internet-based support for a genome center to map human chromosome 12, as a collaboration between laboratories at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, New York, and the Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. Informatics is well established as an important enabling technology within the genome mapping community. The goal of this paper is to use the chromosome 12 project as a case study to introduce a medical informatics audience to certain issues involved in genome informatics and in the Internet-based support of collaborative bioscience research. Central to the approach described is a shared database (DB/12) with Macintosh clients in the participating laboratories running the 4th Dimension database program as a user-friendly front end, and a Sun SPARCstation-2 server running Sybase. The central component of the database stores information about yeast artificial chromosomes (YACs), each containing a segment of human DNA from chromosome 12 to which genome markers have been mapped, such that an overlapping set of YACs (called a "contig") can be identified, along with an ordering of the markers. The approach also includes 1) a map assembly tool developed to help biologists interpret their data, proposing a ranked set of candidate maps, 2) the integration of DB/12 with external databases and tools, and 3) the dissemination of the results. This paper discusses several of the lessons learned that apply to many other areas of bioscience, and the potential role for the field of medical informatics in helping to provide such support.

Chromosome Mapping↗

Literature, literary studies, and medical ethics: the interdisciplinary question.

How do we know what is right, or before that, how do we recognize what is morally salient? Such matters lie deeper than can be plumbed by traditional philosophical modes of inquiry alone. Careful study of them requires also the study of literature, with the meticulous appraisal that it encourages of the intricate, tangled issues involved in apprehending the world, finding our way in it, and representing it to others. In this way, the study of literature contributes to a richer and more complex perspective on moral problems, and a more cautious view of the status and breadth of attempts to solve those problems.

Ethics, Medical↗

Making a difference.

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American Nurses' Association↗