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Biomedical subjects

L Vernon

Publications and source records attributed to L Vernon.

11 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1997

Clinical characteristics and health resource use of men and women veterans with serious mental illness.

In this retrospective analysis of gender-specific differences among veterans with serious mental illness, the clinical characteristics and health service utilization of 57 women and 114 men were compared. Women had fewer comorbid psychiatric illnesses than men, and substance use disorders were the most frequent comorbid psychiatric illness for both genders. Unlike nonveteran samples with serious mental illness, the veterans in this study showed no gender differences in hospital length of stay. Atypical antipsychotics, used for only suboptimally responsive illness in the study group, were prescribed for 50 percent of women with primary psychosis, compared with 15.3 percent of men with primary psychosis. The results suggest that psychosis among women veterans is more severe or refractory than that among men veterans.

Adult↗
PubMed1996

Outcome of risperidone therapy in elderly patients with chronic psychosis.

OBJECTIVE: This report reviews the efficacy and tolerability of risperidone therapy in elderly patients with chronic psychosis. METHODS: A computer search was conducted for all patients who were sixty-five years or older at the time of risperidone therapy at the Cleveland VAMC. Data collected included psychiatric diagnosis, risperidone dosage/side effects, concurrent medications, comorbid medical diagnosis, and response to treatment. Treatment response was quantified on a graduated scale. RESULTS: Twenty-six patients age sixty-five or older were included in this sample. Mean age of the group was 70.4 years. Mean risperidone dosage was 3.8 mg/day for a mean duration of 251 days. Eighteen of twenty-six patients (69%) had schizophrenia, two of twenty-six (8%) had schizoaffective disorder, two of twenty-six (8%) had bipolar disorder, and four of twenty-six (15%) had other psychotic disorders. Patients had a mean of 2.4 medical diagnoses in addition to their primary psychiatric diagnosis. Twenty-two of twenty-six patients (85%) had clinical improvement on risperidone, and twenty of twenty-six (77%) had improvement that was either marked or moderate. Risperidone therapy was very well tolerated in this elderly population with nineteen of twenty-six patients (73%) remaining on risperidone therapy at completion of this study. Medical illness did not appear to be worsened or complicated by risperidone therapy. CONCLUSION: Risperidone appears to be an effective and well tolerated antipsychotic for elderly patients with chronic psychosis.

Aged↗
PubMed1970

Feline leukemia and sarcoma viruses: susceptibility of human cells to infection.

Human embryonic cells are highly susceptible to infection with feline leukemia and sarcoma viruses. These viruses were propagated in human cultures without antigenic modification or loss of infectivity for cat or human cells. Virus stocks contained at least 10(6) infectious units of virus per milliliter for human cells. Virus present in 10(-6) dilution of virus stock replicated to detectable amounts as early as 7 days after virus infection. The feline sarcoma virus induced morphological transformation of human cells.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Establishing an in-house journal.

Articles in journals such as Nursing Standard offer nurses a valuable means to keep their knowledge updated, but how many people do you know who have written an article? The majority of research undertaken by nurses remains unpublished (Humphris 1999), so much potentially useful experience, knowledge, ideas and research are lost. This article describes how the School of Health, Biological and Environmental Sciences (HeBES) at Middlesex University established an in-house journal to encourage nurses to develop their skills of writing for publication.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗