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Biomedical subjects

L McCracken

Publications and source records attributed to L McCracken.

12 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Temporal stability of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) in patients undergoing lumbar fusion: a poor predictor of surgical outcome.

In this prospective study, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) was administered to patients before and after lumbar spines fusion to investigate the stability of MMPI scores after surgical intervention and to attempt to correlate MMPI scale scores with outcome data. Sixty-eight patients were included. Testing was performed before surgery and at a mean of 1.5 years after surgery. Clinical outcome ratings were assigned by using criteria of pain relief and analgesic use. In addition, demographic variables known to affect outcome were analyzed. Sixty percent of the patients had a successful clinical outcome. Positive outcome correlated with the demographic factors of occupation (homemaker) and solid fusion. MMPI scales were stable across time, with no difference between groups. Independent t tests were used to study preoperative MMPI scores with respect to clinical outcome. Unsatisfactory outcomes were associated with higher scores on scales 1, 3, and 10 before surgery. Postoperative testing revealed significant outcome correlations--higher scores on scales 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, and 8 associated with an unsatisfactory outcome. However, discriminant function analysis of preoperative MMPI data was able to classify outcomes correctly in only 58.8% of the cases. The utility of the MMPI as a predictor of outcome after surgical intervention is quite limited. Use of group data and testing before and after surgery does not appear to influence this conclusion. Although the scores as a group were stable across time, the amount of variance in outcome that could not be accounted for by using MMPI scales as predictors was unacceptably large.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

Suicidal behavior among patients in the VA health care system.

A total of 167 Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers responded to a survey that sought information on suicidal behavior during a one-year period among patients in inpatient or outpatient treatment. Of 248 completed suicides during the period, about 60 percent occurred among patients in outpatient mental health treatment. The incidence of anxiety disorder diagnoses (17.7 percent), particularly posttraumatic stress disorder, among patients who completed suicide was much higher than that reported for persons who completed suicide in the general population. Many patients with psychiatric diagnoses who completed suicide had comorbid substance abuse diagnoses.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Aging and the influence of contextual contrast on vowel identification.

This study examines possible differences between young and older adult listeners in the effect of contextual contrast on vowel identification using a vowel anchoring procedure. All listeners identified a 7-step [i]-[I] continuum under both an equiprobable control condition and an anchoring condition (in which one endpoint stimulus occurred four times more often than any other single stimulus token). Phoneme boundaries in the anchoring condition shifted toward the anchor endpoint, as expected, for both groups, but there was a significant effect of age when [i] served as the anchor. Evidence of an increase in response bias for older adult listeners was also found.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1983

Platelet factor 4 (PF4) and heparin-released platelet factor 4 (HR-PF4) in patients with cardiovascular disorders.

The recent introduction of the determinations of platelet factor 4 (PF4) and beta-thromboglobulin (beta TG) by radioimmunoassay provided a new tool to obtain knowledge of in vivo platelet activation. We evaluated the plasma level of PF4 and beta TG in 14 normal subjects (mean PF4 7.7 ng/ml; beta TG 28.8 ng/ml), in 29 patients with chronic stable cardiovascular disorders (mean PF4 9.8 ng/ml; beta TG 32.6 ng/ml) and in 15 diabetics with vascular disease (mean PF4 14.5 ng/ml; beta TG 41.8 ng/ml). The great majority had normal values and no statistical differences were noted among the three groups (p greater than 0.05). Fifteen days of treatment with 150 mg daily of dipyridamole produced a significant reduction in the levels of both proteins (p less than 0.01), in contrast of the daily administration of 650 mg of aspirin, which failed to produce any significant change (p greater than 0.5). The patients and the normal subjects were also administered 3,000 USP units intravenously of porcine heparin. The values of the heparin released-platelet factor 4 (HR-PF4), evaluated 5 minutes after the injection, showed a good correlation between platelet concentration and HR-PF4 levels (z = 2.37, p less than 0.02) in the patients. The determination of standard residual following linear regression analysis of HR-PF4 indicated the presence of two distinct patient populations. One group, including the vast majority of patients, did not differ from the control (patients mean HR-PF4 111.1 ng/ml; controls: mean HF-PF4 136 ng/ml). The other group, with severe cardiovascular disease, but with normal levels of PF4 and beta TG in almost all patients and similar platelet concentrations, showed a significantly higher HR-PF4 (219 ng/ml). Neither aspirin nor dipyridamole had any effect on the level of HR-PF4. This HR-PF4 could represent a possible marker of the interaction of platelets with a seriously damaged atherosclerotic vessel wall.

Adult↗