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Biomedical subjects

S C Hayes

Publications and source records attributed to S C Hayes.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2004

Role of a mixed type, moderate intensity exercise programme after peripheral blood stem cell transplantation.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the effect of peripheral blood stem cell transplantation on functional capacity, and to determine the role of a mixed type, moderate intensity exercise programme in the recovery of patients after intensive cancer treatment. METHODS: Peak aerobic capacity and muscular strength (upper body, lower body, and handgrip strength) measures were assessed before (PI) and after (PII) transplant and after a 12 week intervention period (PIII). After PII, 12 patients aged 16-64 years were allotted in equal numbers to a control group or exercise intervention group. RESULTS: Mean peak aerobic capacity and muscular strength were reduced after the transplant, with significant (p<0.05) decreases for upper body strength. No change was found in aerobic capacity and muscular strength between PII and PIII for the control group. In contrast, participation in the exercise programme led to significant improvements in peak aerobic capacity (p<0.05) and upper and lower body strength (p<0.01). In addition, values recorded after the three month intervention period were significantly higher than before treatment for peak aerobic capacity (litres/min (p<0.05) and ml/kg/min (p<0.01)) and lower body strength (p<0.01). CONCLUSION: Intensive treatment for cancer can adversely affect aerobic capacity and muscular strength. A mixed type, moderate intensity exercise programme can help patients to regain fitness and strength within three months. No exercise can exacerbate physical losses resulting from treatment.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

Emotion regulation in acceptance and commitment therapy.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) offers an alternative to traditional psychotherapies designed to regulate affect. ACT is based on the premise that normal cognitive processes distort and enhance the experience of unpleasant emotion, leading clients to engage in problematic behaviors designed to avoid or attenuate those unpleasant emotions. Such avoidant behavior patterns can hinder and prevent client movement toward valued goals and place the client in harmful situations. Rather than working to change cognitions or decrease levels of emotion, the ACT approach involves the client directly experiencing problematic emotions in a context in which the literal functions of language enhancing the negative implications of those emotions are stripped away. The focus throughout the treatment is facilitating the client's movement toward a more valued and personally fulfilling life, in a context in which previously obstructive unpleasant emotions no longer serve as obstructions. A case study is provided to illustrate some of ACT's core techniques.

Avoidance Learning↗
PubMed2000

Immunohistochemical analysis of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon-DNA adducts in breast tumor tissue.

Environmental carcinogens may play a role in the etiology of breast cancer, but the extent of their contribution is not yet defined. The aims of this study were to determine whether polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH)-DNA adducts could be detected in stored paraffin blocks of breast tumor tissue (n=147) with an immunoperoxidase technique and whether they correlated with smoking history and/or mutant p53 protein expression. There was no significant difference in mean relative nuclear staining intensity in non-smokers (444+/-90, n=75), ever smokers (435+/-91, n=72), and current smokers (456+/-98, n=35). In either current or ever smokers, PAH-DNA adducts were non-significantly elevated in those with greater compared with lower exposure in relation to age at started smoking, years of smoking, cigarettes per day, and pack years. DNA damage levels were not elevated in tissues with compared with those without mutant p53 protein expression. These data demonstrate that immunohistochemical methods can be used to monitor DNA damage levels in archived breast tissues.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

Adverse reactions to anthrax immunisation in a military field hospital.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the outcome of anthrax immunisation. METHODS: Adverse reactions (occurrence, nature, severity and incapacity) and immune responses to a voluntary programme of anthrax immunisation at 0, 3, 6, and 24 weeks were monitored by questionnaire and voluntary blood sampling in 129 members, including 24 immunised 7 years previously (immunes), of a military field hospital alerted for possible deployment. RESULTS: Follow-up was complete in 85%. Ninety-eight (76%) received the first anthrax immunisation. Uptake was greater (p = 0.015) in immunes. Initial prevalence of adverse reaction was 63%. Subsequent uptake and adverse reaction dwindled significantly (p < 0.001). Only 28 (22%) were immunised at 24 weeks. Proportions reporting adverse reactions following the initial immunisation were greater in immunes (p = 0.046) and officers (p = 0.02). There was no significant (p = 0.36) correlation between uptake of immunisation and prevalence of adverse reaction. Antecedent adverse reaction did not reduce the proportion of participants accepting immunisation subsequently. The nature of adverse reactions (47% local, 24% systemic and 27% both) and severity were the same throughout. Forty-five percent of adverse reactions caused incapacity. Seventy-four percent of these had pain in the injected arm (+/- systemic symptoms) which prevented lifting or driving for 48 hours in 63%. Immune responses were greater in immunes. CONCLUSIONS: It was concluded that anthrax immunisation results in a higher than expected prevalence of adverse reaction with initial incapacity of military significance affecting 18%. Greater immune responses may increase adverse reaction but this does not affect acceptance of anthrax immunisation. Poor completion rates necessitate development of a new anthrax immunisation strategy.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

The likely success of functional analysis tied to the DSM.

Nelson-Gray and Farmer argue that behavioral assessment and functional analysis may be beneficially applied to personality disorders (PDs). While this is a reasonable response to the largely non-behaviorally derived Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), it is not yet clear that grafting such theoretically incongruent elements will be viable. In essence, they argue that a syndromal classification system could serve a nomothetic role of guiding a functional, idiographic analysis. This is possible, but it seems unlikely that this process would remain in equilibrium, with no interactive effect of the functional analysis on the syndromes themselves. Yet the DSM system has shown itself to be surprisingly closed to a more functional approach, so the relationship between the DSM and functional analysis is not open in both directions. What is needed is a nomothetic level of analysis that is also functionally derived. The primary benefit of functional over syndromal categories is one of treatment utility, a concept that is itself surprisingly absent from the authors' otherwise comprehensive discussion of behavioral assessment.

Behavior Therapy↗
PubMed1998

Why behavior analysts should study emotion: the example of anxiety.

Historically, anxiety has been a dominant subject in mainstream psychology but an incidental or even insignificant one in behavior analysis. We discuss several reasons for this discrepancy. We follow with a behavior-analytic conceptualization of anxiety that could just as easily be applied to emotion in general. Its primary points are (a) that languageable humans have an extraordinary capacity to derive relations between events and that it is a simple matter to show that neutral stimuli can acquire discriminative functions indirectly with no direct training; (b) that private events can readily acquire discriminative functions; (c) that anxiety disorders seem to occur with little apparent direct learning or that the amount of direct learning is extraordinarily out of proportion with the amount of responding; and (d) that the primary function of anxious behavior is experiential avoidance. We conclude that the most interesting aspects of anxiety disorders may occur as a function of derived rather than direct relations between public events and overt and private responses with avoidance functions. Implicit in this conclusion and explicit in the paper is the assertion that anxiety is a suitable subject for behavior-analytic study.

Anxiety↗
PubMed1997

Cognition in behavior therapy: agreements and differences.

The issue of cognition has often been divisive among behavior therapists. Typically the debate has centered around the causal status of cognition. Cognitive psychologists have argued for the causal efficacy of cognition, while behavior analysts have argued against it. These disputes are not entirely empirical matters. In part, they reflect irreconcilable differences at the level of theory and philosophy. Such differences may make theoretical integration impossible. However, in this paper we examine the potential for reconciliation of the cognitive and behavioral wings of behavior therapy when the issue of cognition is approached as a shared content area, rather than at the level of theory and philosophy. Behavior therapy has always been comprised of very diverse theoretical positions. Historically they found common ground around a set of shared values centered on an empirical science of clinical work. We will argue that this core of shared values still exists, and that even controversial topics can provide an arena for reconciliation when we focus on the core values that initially brought us together.

Behavior Therapy↗
PubMed1997

Videotaped interviewing of non-English speakers: training for medical students with volunteer clients.

In a multicultural society such as Australia, with over 20% of its population born overseas, interpreters are often required to facilitate medical interviews. However, where a patient has some proficiency in English, medical interviews are sometimes conducted across the boundaries of culture and language. This is a report of an educational innovation to teach interviewing skills to pre-clinical medical students with the assistance of volunteers of non-English-speaking backgrounds. Pre-clinical students interviewed community volunteers on topics of general life history in a sequence of 16 tutorials. Each student conducted two interviews. Teaching methods included feedback from the volunteers, tutorial discussion facilitated by playback of videotapes, and modelling of skills by the teachers. Evaluations by volunteers and students indicated high satisfaction with the teaching methods and outcomes. Students gained confidence in interviewing people from different cultures. Evaluation of students' pairs of videotapes by an independent rater achieved satisfactory reliabilities and indicated significant gains in inquiry skills and the communication of positive attitudes. Skills in communicating empathy and in using simple language did not improve measurably.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

Interviewing skills: self-evaluation by medical students.

In an independent learning project, 52 third-year medical students carried out a structured self-assessment of two videotaped psycho-social interviews they had conducted with volunteer clients 1 year earlier, as part of a previous course. The interviews had been conducted in small tutorials with feedback from their clients, fellow students and tutors, facilitated by videotape playback. During the sequence of 16 tutorials each student had carried out an early and a late interview and had observed and participated in the discussion of the interviews of 14 peers. Students were asked to tally the frequencies of various interview behaviours, to evaluate the quality of their behaviours, and to establish priorities for future learning. The videotapes were also reliably rated by an independent observer. Students' overall self-assessments correlated 0.46 with those of the independent observer. This correlation was higher than is typically reported in studies of the validity of self-assessment. In absolute terms, the students' mean rating of interviewing performance was 3.2 (adequate plus) which was significantly lower than the observer's mean of 3.6 (adequate to good). Results are discussed in terms of Gordon's (1992) two recommendations for improving the validity of self-assessments and two further suggestions, for paired comparisons and low-threat learning environments, are added.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1996

Psychology's drug problem: do we need a fix or should we just say no?

Five contextual factors give rise to the proposal that psychologists secure prescription privileges: (a) the historical overattachment of applied psychology to psychotherapy; (b) the oversupply of psychotherapists; (c) the rise of managed care; (d) the hegemony of syndromal classification; and (e) the weakening of the medical guild and rise of drug company attention to psychopharmacology. Whereas some of these factors present real problems for psychology, the acquisition of prescription privileges by psychologists is not the proper response. The cost to the discipline in loss of professional identify, safety, and training disruption is too great. Instead, the profession should build a more honorable alternative based on psychological science.

Cost-Benefit Analysis↗
PubMed1996

Experimental avoidance and behavioral disorders: a functional dimensional approach to diagnosis and treatment.

Syndromal classification is a well-developed diagnostic system but has failed to deliver on its promise of the identification of functional pathological processes. Functional analysis is tightly connected to treatment but has failed to develop testable, replicable classification systems. Functional diagnostic dimensions are suggested as a way to develop the functional classification approach, and experiential avoidance is described as 1 such dimension. A wide range of research is reviewed showing that many forms of psychopathology can be conceptualized as unhealthy efforts to escape and avoid emotions, thoughts, memories, and other private experiences. It is argued that experiential avoidance, as a functional diagnostic dimension, has the potential to integrate the efforts and findings of researchers from a wide variety of theoretical paradigms, research interests, and clinical domains and to lead to testable new approaches to the analysis and treatment of behavioral disorders.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1996

Resurgence of derived stimulus relations.

Resurgence has been shown in human and nonhuman operant behavior, but not in derived relational responses. The present study examined this issue. Twenty-three undergraduates were trained to make conditional discriminations in a three-choice matching-to-sample paradigm. The training resulted in three equivalence classes, each consisting of four arbitrarily configured visual stimuli. The same 12 stimuli were then reorganized, and the conditional discrimination training was repeated such that three new classes were possible. In a subsequent test of derived relations, most subjects showed response patterns that were consistent with the altered conditional discriminations. Subjects were then exposed to conditional discrimination trials under extinction. Most subjects continued to respond consistently with the most recently reinforced conditional discrimination trials. During the next phase, subjects were exposed to symmetry and equivalence trials. Responses consistent with the most recent training produced feedback saying that the responses were incorrect, whereas other responses produced no feedback. Most subjects showed a resurgence of responding that was consistent with their earlier training. Finally, subjects were exposed to conditional discrimination trials carried out in extinction. Most subjects continued to show a resurgence of responding that was consistent with their early training.

Conditioning, Operant↗
PubMed1995

Communicating behavioral views and techniques to practicing clinicians.

The chasm between behavioral and nonbehavioral views of clinical phenomena results in communication difficulties in both directions. We distinguish five situations based on the nature and degree of differences in understanding within the two language systems. We recommend different communication strategies for behavioral scientists, depending upon which situation best applies.

Behavior Therapy↗
PubMed1995

The role of cognition in complex human behavior: a contextualistic perspective.

Cognitive and behavioral psychology have long debated the merits of cognitive causality in the explanation of human behavior. We argue, however, that cognitive causality must be understood in the context of the pre-analytic philosophical assumptions of the scientist, not merely as an empirical matter. Many of the issues that seemingly separate cognitive from behavioral positions cannot be answered by research. We briefly present Relational Frame Theory, which is a behavioral approach to language and cognition. RFT is not subject to the same criticisms made by Bandura of behavior analytic thinking. Finally, we describe some aspects of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy as an example of the applied implications of this contextual analysis of cognition.

Cognition↗
PubMed1995

Retest reliability of the woodcock language proficiency battery.

The Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery: English Form was administered to 152 of the 478 students beginning medical studies at an Australian university in 1990 and 1991. Two years after admission 147 of the students were available for retest. Test-retest reliability coefficients ranged from .70 to .85 for the 8 subtests, .83 to .91 for the three cluster scores, and the coefficient for the Broad Language Cluster score was .95. The sample had deliberately over-represented students low in English language proficiency but the reliability coefficients were only slightly reduced when this bias was corrected by forming a representative sample of 72 students. The mean incremental gain on the Broad Language Cluster of 1.8 was statistically significant and corresponded closely to the 2.0 predicted from the test norms for a 2-year developmental period. These results support previous reports of the excellent psychometric properties of this instrument.

Adolescent↗