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S Wilkins

Publications and source records attributed to S Wilkins.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Partial characterization of oligosaccharides expressed on midgut microvillar glycoproteins of the mosquito, Anopheles stephensi Liston.

Midguts of the malaria-transmitting mosquito, Anopheles stephensi, were homogenized and microvillar membranes prepared by calcium precipitation and differential centrifugation. Oligosaccharides present on the microvillar glycoproteins were identified by lectin blotting before and after in vitro and in situ treatments with endo- and exo-glycosidases. Twenty-eight glycoproteins expressed a structurally restricted range of terminal sugars and oligosaccharide linkages. Twenty-three glycoproteins expressed oligomannose and/or hybrid N-linked oligosaccharides, some with alpha1-6 linked fucose as a core residue. Complex-type N-linked oligosaccharides on eight glycoproteins all possessed terminal N-acetylglucosamine, and alpha- and beta-linked N-acetylgalactosamine. Eight glycoproteins expressed O-linked oligosaccharides all containing N-acetylgalactosamine with or without further substitutions of fucose and/or galactose. Galactosebeta1-3/4/6N-acetylglucosamine-, sialic acidalpha2-3/6galactose-, fucosealpha1-2galactose- and galactosealpha1-3galactose- were not detected. Terminal alpha-linked N-acetylgalactosamine residues on N-linked oligosaccharides are described for the first time in insects. The nature and function of these midgut glycoproteins have yet to be identified, but the oligosaccharide side chains are candidate receptors for ookinete binding and candidate targets for transmission blocking strategies.

Animals↗
PubMed2001

Career choices: a comparison of two occupational therapy practice groups.

The increasing number of elderly people in the population and their greater use of the health care system require an increasing number of health care providers to work with older adults. A shortage of health care professionals to provide this care, as well as a reluctance to provide such care have been reported in the literature. The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate how occupational therapists decide to work with older adults. Using a comparative approach, 40 occupational therapists were interviewed, 20 working in gerontology and 20 working in paediatrics. The findings indicate that social characteristics and experiences of the individual, as well as the context of work are important influences for practice choice decisions. Mapping of career paths led to the development of a typology to further describe the different influences involved in the career choices of these occupational therapists. Recommendations related to education and practice provide practical means by which to implement change.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Implementing client-centred practice: why is it so difficult to do?

This paper explores the challenges of implementing client-centred occupational therapy practice. While many occupational therapists believe in the principles of client-centred practice and espouse them, it seems much more difficult to implement these into everyday practice. Findings from three qualitative studies with three different populations (i.e., family-centred care for children and their families, community-based home care, facility-based care for older adults) are used to illustrate the challenges which are divided into three broad categories: challenges at the level of the system, at the level of the therapist and at the level of the client. Suggestions for change at each level are addressed. Organizations, therapists and clients must work together to facilitate these changes and ensure that each occupational therapy client receives respectful, supportive, coordinated, flexible and individualized service.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Aging, chronic illness and self-concept: a study of women with osteoporosis.

The coalescence of aging and chronic illness may alter the relationships between the meanings of aging and chronic illness and the self-concept. Using Rosenberg's conceptualization of self-concept (1979), a qualitative study was designed and data collected from twenty-eight women with osteoporosis. Three types of self-concepts emerged from the data: the confident self, the contradictory self and the disparaged self. A description of these types is presented highlighting the reciprocal relationship among meanings of aging and chronic illness and self-concept and including discussion of the strategies used to enhance, protect and maintain self-concept despite changes brought on by aging and chronic illness.

Aged↗
PubMed2001

Women with osteoporosis: strategies for managing aging and chronic illness.

This study focused on how self-concept and the meanings of aging and chronic illness provide an understanding of the diversity of strategies older women with osteoporosis use to manage their aging and chronic illness on a day-to-day basis. Twenty-eight women participated in this qualitative study through in-depth interviews and a self-administered questionnaire. While there was a range of strategies used across three groups of women, there was a predominant strategy which emerged as useful for each group: acceptance was used by women with confident selves, denial by women with contradictory selves and resignation by women with disparaged selves. An awareness of these strategies may be useful in understanding how women with osteoporosis make decisions to seek care from health and social service providers.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed2000

Performance of older depressed patients on two cognitive malingering tests: false positive rates for the Rey 15-item memorization and dot counting tests.

To our knowledge, no investigations have been undertaken to determine whether depression impacts performance on two commonly used tests to detect malingering of cognitive symptoms, the Rey 15-item Memorization Test and the Rey Dot Counting Test. This is a critical issue because of the high rate of depressive symptoms in patients with neurological conditions. It was hypothesized that depressed individuals, especially those with more severe depression, might be at risk for failing the tests, because these patients exhibit mild deficits in mental speed, visual perceptual/spatial skills, and visual memory, abilities required for successful completion of the malingering tests. However, examination of test performance in 64 older participants with major depression generally revealed very low false positive rates for most test scores, and severity of depression was unrelated to test scores. These results add to accumulating data supporting the validity of these cognitive malingering tests by documenting few false positive identifications.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1996

Life events before psychotic episodes: do clinical and social variables affect the relationship?

We have previously used data from the Camberwell Collaborative Psychosis Study to demonstrate a strong relationship between life events and subsequent episodes of schizophrenic, manic and depressive psychoses. In the current paper, we confirmed the robustness of this relationship, which was not vitiated by controlling for clinical and social variables. Thus, the event-onset association was not affected by the type of onset or the number of previous episodes. The influences of social variables, such as social class, ethnicity and marital status, did not seriously diminish the importance of events, although there may be a role for other forms of social disadvantage as reflected in these variables.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Depression in caregivers of demented patients is associated with altered immunity: impaired proliferative capacity, increased CD8+, and a decline in lymphocytes with surface signal transduction molecules (CD38+) and a cytotoxicity marker (CD56+ CD8+).

Changes in relevant immune parameters, including function, were found to be associated with depression in elderly caregiver wives of demented patients. We studied the relationship between immune cell phenotype and T cell proliferative capacity of such caregivers to levels of stress and depression over the course of a support group intervention. The data indicate the strongest association between depression (of all stress parameters) and impaired T cell proliferative capacity. Depression was also most strongly (of stress parameters) associated with a shift in T cell populations with an increase in CD8+ T cells, and a reduced percentage of CD38+ cells in both CD8+ and CD4+ T cell populations. Since CD38 is a signal transduction factor, it was interesting that a decreased percentage of CD38+ cells correlated with impaired T cell function (proliferation). Another significant difference was the reduction in natural killer (NK) cells as well as the percentage of the CD56+ component of the CD8+ population. This latter subset is important in MHC-unrestricted cytotoxicity, and has been found expanded in healthy centenarians. This study shows that both chronic stress, and depression in particular, and age have deleterious effects on T cells, and together could significantly contribute to the higher risk of disease and mortality associated with being a caregiver of a demented individual.

ADP-ribosyl Cyclase↗
PubMed1994

The influence of life events on the subsequent course of psychotic illness. A prospective follow-up of the Camberwell Collaborative Psychosis Study.

Fifty-nine psychotic patients with acute onset of illness, who had been interviewed about their experience of stressful life events before the episode, were followed up for an average of 42 months. Thirty patients (51%) had experienced a stressful life event in the 3 months immediately before onset (EV+), 29 had not (EV-). In patients with an RDC diagnosis of affective disorder or unspecified functional psychosis, the presence of stressful life events was associated subsequently with milder symptom severity, less time spent in hospital, more treatment for depressive symptoms and less for psychotic symptoms. In schizophrenia, differences were less apparent, but patients with event associated episodes had less need of anti-psychotic maintenance medication over the follow-up period and tended to have spent more time in complete remission. EV+ schizophrenic subjects also had higher morbid risk for schizophrenia in their first degree relatives, and tended to be female and to have less typical symptoms than EV- schizophrenic patients.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Premorbid social underachievement in schizophrenia. Results from the Camberwell Collaborative Psychosis Study.

In an investigation of the timing and precursors of social decline in schizophrenia and affective psychosis, 195 subjects from the Camberwell Collaborative Psychosis Study were currently of lower social class than were their fathers. A comparison between father's occupation and proband's best premorbid occupational level indicated underachievement confined to DSM-III schizophrenia, there being no such effect in affective psychosis. Decline in social status following onset of psychosis, analysed by comparing best premorbid occupation with current occupation, was marked in both schizophrenia and affective psychosis, indicating a non-specific effect. Schizophrenic patients who failed to achieve their fathers' social status had poorer educational qualifications than those who equalled or bettered their paternal social class, despite similar premorbid IQ (NART) scores and age at onset of psychosis. These results indicate that schizophrenia may be manifest before the onset of psychosis, and lend weight to the notion of a developmental origin to this disorder.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1993

Life events and psychosis. Initial results from the Camberwell Collaborative Psychosis Study.

Data from the Camberwell Collaborative Psychosis Study were used to examine the proposition that there is an excess of life events preceding the onset of psychoses of all types. Of 97 patients from the study who had episodes within the past year that were datable, 51 had developed psychotic symptoms from an essentially symptom-free state, 29 had been suffering only from neurotic symptoms, and 17 had experienced a marked exacerbation of psychotic symptoms. DSM-III diagnoses were collapsed into three major groups: 51 cases of schizophrenia; 31 cases of mania; and 14 cases of depressive psychosis. Life-event histories were taken for the six months before onset, and when these were compared with equivalent histories from a psychiatrically healthy sample from the local general population, there was a significant excess of life events, particularly in the three months before onset of psychosis. This was apparent in all groups, and remained even when events were restricted to the independent category. The excess of events began rather earlier than has been found in previous studies. In our view, this study provides some of the strongest evidence for a link between life events and the emergence of psychotic symptoms.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1992

Disorder of attention in individuals with schizotypal personality.

This study was designed to examine disorder of switching attention in normal individuals with schizotypal personality. High scorers on the physical anhedonia (PA) and schizophrenism (SZ) scales of a questionnaire constructed to measure schizotypy were compared with a group of control subjects. A reaction time test was used that required switching attention across or between auditory and visual modalities. It was found that the high PA scores and the high SZ scorers showed a deficit of shifting attention across modalities compared with the control subjects.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Financial risk and hospital cost for elderly patients in non-age stratified urology DRGs.

The Diagnostic Related Group (DRG) hospital payment system may be inequitable for certain groups of Medicare patients. This study of 216 Medicare urology patients in the ten non-age stratified urology DRGs demonstrated that patients seventy years of age and older (70+) had higher resource consumption than patients under seventy years of age (70-). Findings were: (1) older patients (70+) had higher total hospital costs (+12,022 per patient) than younger patients (70-) (+9,872 per patient); (2) a longer hospital length of stay (14.2 days vs 11.6 days); (3) financial risk of +1,756 loss per (70+) patient vs +1,309 profit per (70-) patient (p less than 0.05); (4) more diagnoses and procedures per patient, and (5) a higher mortality (4.0% vs 3.3%). These findings suggest that the current DRG scheme may be inequitable vis-a-vis the older urology patient in non-age stratified DRGs, and thus could limit access and quality of care for these patients in the future.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1989

Comparison of insulin secretory patterns in obese nondiabetic LA/N-cp and obese diabetic SHR/N-cp rats. Role of hyperglycemia.

Obese diabetic SHR/N-(cp/cp) rats are a genetic model for non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. When SHR/N-cp rats are overtly diabetic, they are hyperinsulinemic and hyperglycemic in the fed state when consuming commercial chow or semipurified high-carbohydrate diets. Obese SHR/N-cp rats were hyperinsulinemic by 4 wk of age, although hyperglycemia did not appear until 3-4 wk later and was exacerbated by a high-sucrose diet (mean +/- SE 1488 +/- 238 microU/ml insulin and 425 +/- 51 mg/dl glucose). The control SHR/N-cp rats (+/?) on the sucrose diet remained lean and normoglycemic. The obese diabetic SHR/N-cp rats showed three alterations in pancreas perfusion data (not present in control rats): 1) paradoxically high insulin secretion at low glucose levels (2.5 mM), 2) secretion of insulin in response to arginine (10 mM) in the absence of glucose, and 3) impaired response of insulin secretion to high glucose (16.7 mM). To determine whether hyperglycemia was responsible for the abnormalities of insulin secretion, perfusion studies were conducted in obese nondiabetic LA/N-cp rats and compared with the SHR/N-cp rats. The obese LA/N-cp rats resembled the corpulent SHR/N-cp rats in every way, except that they were normoglycemic on the sucrose diet. The obese LA/N-cp rats had two of the three alterations in insulin secretion shown by obese SHR/N-cp rats, lacking only the impaired response to high glucose, suggesting that hyperglycemia was required for that defect to occur.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Animals↗
PubMed1989

Immunoreactive beta-endorphin and met- and leu-enkephalin contents in pancreas and pituitary of corpulent (cp/cp) rats.

Previous reports have provided suggestive evidence for a role of endogenous opiates in modulating feeding behavior as well as insulin secretion from the pancreas. This evidence includes pharmacologic studies as well as studies of endogenous opioid peptides in tissues of genetically obese rodent models. In the present study, content of three opioid peptide immunoreactivities (beta-endorphin, met-enkephalin and leu-enkephalin) were measured in pituitary and pancreas of two recently described, genetically obese rats, the LA/N-cp and the SHR/N-cp. Although both of these inbred strains carry the same cp allele, the SHR-cp rat is obese and diabetic by 8 weeks of age, while the LA/N-cp is obese but remains euglycemic. There were no significant differences in content of immunoreactive beta-endorphin, met-enkephalin or leu-enkephalin in whole pituitary, posterior or anterior lobes of the pituitary, or pancreas which could be ascribed to the effect of the obese phenotype. These data are in contrast to previously reported studies in which significant alterations in opioid peptide immunoreactivities were found in genetically obese Zucker fa/fa rats, C57BL/6 ob/ob mice and C57BL/Ks db/db mice. The present work provides no support for pathological involvement of opioid peptides in the genetically obese cp/cp rat.

Animals↗
PubMed1988

The late J.A. Bogan.

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History, 20th Century↗