Derek Sizemore

Research in Allied Heath

Movie Review

November 24, 2006

Awakenings

Let me first say that I enjoyed the movie "The Awakenings" very much. I also liked the movie’s message to be happy over small things and to be thankful for everything we have, I think that is a very good attitude and outlook to have. I thought it was crazy that the patients could catch balls and stuff when they were thrown at them. I really never did get that part because they all looked so stiff and wouldn’t even move their eyes, then their arms would just shoot up and catch the ball. I wonder If that actually happened when the doctors were observing these patients. This movie let us in to how the research was done on treating these patient’s disorders and how the doctors observed and documented various activities that the patients were being tested by.

Before administering any drug to the patients Dr. Sayer observed various things about the patients, enough to know that a synthetic form of dopamine could possibly help them increase their neurological function. It was a new drug and had not been evaluated completely as far an extensive clinical trial goes. Since the doctors didn’t know what to expect they only allowed Dr. Sayers to try this new drug on one patient. When I did outside research for this class the clinical researcher I talked with said that there were four phases that classified how safe a clinical study was for people to participate in. Phase 1 being the most dangerous and phase 4 being the safest. This clinical study would probably be classified as a phase 1 because it had never been tested on anyone with this disease before. Once Dr. Sayer got one of the patients mom to sign, he began administering the drug to him. The doctor didn’t even know how much of the drug that he should give him. He first tried 500 mg and then boosted it up to 1000mg when he didn’t see any results. The whole clinical trial seemed to be based on trail an error. Which turned out pretty good but it seems kind of risky. I don’t guess there would really be any way to test it before giving it to him though.. The doctors didn’t have a specific diagnosis or name for the problem that the patients had. I don’t think there’s any way to find that same problem in mice so the drug could be tested with the illness, before being given to humans. The patients who all had the same illness had different diagnosis at the beginning of the movie. The only way to test the drug was to give it to someone who had the disease and observe. The drug worked great for the first few months, Leonard began to act just like a normal person with no illness. Unlike other studies that I am aware of, other people were administered the drug before Leonard’s case was far enough along to bring to light what the full course of the drug would take. A trail on one person doesn’t really give an indication of all the side effects anyway. Sometimes I wonder how ethnical some of these studies are, but the possibility of many people being brought to life is hard to dismiss. The others were brought to life about the time that Leonard began experiencing problems with the drug. At this time the doctors thought that it could be Leonard’s individual reaction to the drug and the others would still be okay. It turned out that they all were gradually brought back to the state they started in. The study did bring about a lot of useful information that can be used later. I wonder if they still administer the drug to people with this condition so they can be awoke for a short time and then go back.

Posted by zdrs21 at 4:59 PM EST

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Derek Sizemore

Research in Allied Heath

Outside Research

November 21, 2006

ETSU Cancer Center

On November 21, 2006 I met with a clinical researcher that described to me the clinical studies that she was participating in and what steps that study as well as others have to take to be carried out. The ETSU Cancer Center is currently conducting studies on prostate, breast, and probably other cancers to find preventative measures and treatment options for these cancers. Selenium and vitamin E are the substances being tested for the possibility of preventing prostate cancer. In determining if these substances actually do prevent cancers the participants are divided up into groups, one taking a placebo pill and the other taking vitamin E and selenium. Each group is also structured within by age and possibly by other factors according to the participants. Once a participant decides to join the study the person is in it for life. Every year after the study is over these participants are contacted and asked to provide their medical records. If someone dies, how they died and why are reported to the researchers to provide them with further information.

The clinical researcher that I spoke with strongly emphasized that the studies being conducted try very hard to be ethical and not harm any of its subjects. The IRB has to approve the study, making sure that subjects are at minimal risk. The clinical researcher kept talking about how important the IRB was and how getting approval from the IRB had to take place before the study could go underway. Once the IRB has approved a study the next step is to advertise the study in order to attract participants. There are very strict guidelines that the participants must meet in order to become part of the study. In the study on prostate cancer the participants were denied if they had any type of cancer previously in their life, and had to be within a certain age. Once the participants are attracted, and the people who don’t meet the criteria of the study have been rejected, then the next step is for each eligible person to sign a consent form. The researchers cannot do any testing or conduct any type of clinical trial until this consent form has been signed. The subjects are then randomly assigned to groups which take either selenium and vitamin E or to the placebo group. The clinical researchers that I spoke to wasn’t even allowed to know who was in what group. She said that this could create a bias in the study. None of the participants are allowed to take selenium or vitamin E from other sources during the study. They are given a list of foods that contain these substances, but are not allowed to take any additional vitamins that contain vitamin E or selenium. I asked the researcher how they know if a person in the study has refrained from taking extra vitamins or not, and she said that they just take their word for it and that the people tend to be very honest. If any person wants to discontinue being part of the study they can do so at any time, however they will still be contacted at a set time interval for the rest of their lives. The researchers cannot make a person continue the study if they don’t want to. If a participant is found to have gotten prostate cancer during the study that person is considered no longer part of the study. This is called the end point, where a person has come down with the cancer that is being tested. The clinical researcher also explained to us how being a subject in a study has its benefits. Not only is the person allowing him or herself to be tested on to receive results that could benefit many people. They are also given regular screening during the study that could detect heath problems that would otherwise not have been found.

Posted by zdrs21 at 4:02 PM EST

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Derek Sizemore

Research in Allied Heath

November 13, 2006

Lorenzo's Oil Quiz - 10 points

2. How would you classify the disease' impact on the patients functional status..mild, moderate or severe, and why? In Lorenzo the first symptoms were lack of self control which could be considered mild. Then he lost his ability to walk by himself and to talk plainly, which seems severe but is only moderate compared to later symptoms of the disease. Then at last he lost his sight, all motor function, all of his speech, and couldn’t swallow. I would classify the diseases impact on the patients functional status to be severe.

3. In your opinion, how did the research doctors regard Lorenzo's parents? They probably regarded them as being parents who cared a lot for their sick child and wanted to find help at any cost. The researchers doctors probably didn’t pay any attention to Lorenzo’s parents ideas because they weren’t doctors and their ideas interfered with the research project that the scientist were conducting. They probably felt that Lorenzo’s parents just wanted to do everything they could to help their kid but they couldn’t because their lack of medical knowledge. The scientist thought they were on the right track with the diet that they imposed and wanted everyone to stay on it so they could get true results.

4. "The roles of the researchers were juxtaposed or changed in this movie." Explain why this is true. The roles of the researchers were changed because they didn’t actually come up with the hypothesis, or really anything else concerning the study to find a cure for disease. It seemed to me that the researches were just wanting to find out if the treatments were safe. Also, the research itself was set aside because of the time limit that had to be met in order for Lorenzo to stay alive. There was no testing and evaluation of the treatments, the researchers didn’t even thing they could find the extract from olive oil that Lorenzo’s dad was looking for.

5. Dad had a breakthrough at the library - explain the paperclip analogy/model. The "good guys" and "bad guys" are both built by enzymes. The more good guys that were being made the less bad guys that are built, so they enzymes that build these guys have to be in relation to one another. He later finds out that they are controlled by the same enzyme.

6. Dad was concerned when Lorenzo's friend came from Africa to live with the Adone's and care for Lorenzo. What was Dad's primary concern? The friend was an Muslim African who didn’t speak English. His primary concern was bringing to a racist country were he would be a second class citizen. Also it would take him away from his culture and way of life.

7. Who was the first human subject to consume the oil and how was it dosed and administered through what portal (ingested, injected, absorbed, inhaled, or other)? The first human subject that consumed this oil was the mom’s sister, and she ingested it with her salad.

8. What is the role of money in this research product? Who paid for most of the early groundbreaking research? Lorenzo’s family paid for most of the ground breaking research. Money played a very important role, it seemed that everything revolved around money. First off the doctors didn’t think they could get the money to fund the research because they had already ask for so much money concerning other diseases. Once the dad found what could lower the long strands of fat in the blood, the doctors didn’t think that they could find any body to produce it because there was no market for it.

9. The critical mass theory suggests that multiple researchers conclusively find (or frequently stumble upon) an answer to a scientific inquiry. Were the researchers on a single path to finding a cure for this disease? No, the research that was being done at the beginning of the movie was directed towards diet. However, for the dad to learn enough knowledge to find the cure, he read much literature that was written by researchers and doctors that lead him to the cure. So multiple researches provided enough knowledge to lead to the cure, but it was never all put together until later.

10. Consider ethics for a moment. Does this movie represent a appropriate ethical model for research.
Defend your answer. This movie does represent a appropriate ethical model for research. Researches deal with diseases that effects many peoples lives on many different levels. It doesn’t seem unreasonable that they were less concerned about Lorenzo’s specific case than were the parents. The researchers tried the best way they could to study ALD legitimately without taking risks that could harm these patients any more. It makes since that they want to implement their diet plan on Lorenzo and others like him to find out the results that could one day lead to the cure. The diet was the researchers leading plan to benefit the diseased kids, they had to test the diet to see how it worked and be able to make more progress in curing the disease. I don’t think it was unethical to study the patients to try to find the cure for other children.

Posted by zdrs21 at 12:28 AM EST

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Derek Sizemore

Research in Allied Heath

Article Critique # 2

November 4, 2006

The Impact of Self-Efficacy on Behavior Change And Weight Change

Among Overweight Participants in a Weight Loss Trail

Summary

This study was conducted to find how self-efficacy effected the adoption and performance of heath behaviors. The researchers evaluated 349 participants that volunteered for the 8 week weight loss program led by a trained facilitator. The participants were all over 18, overweight, and in good heath. To gather the needed information, questionnaires were completed by participants every week measuring their levels of eating self-efficacy and exercise self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is simply an individual’s belief in his or her ability to succeed when confronted with challenging situations. Eating self-efficacy would mean how much confidence an individual has in themselves to follow a diet. The results indicated that weight loss behaviors mediate the impact of self-efficacy on weight in the context of a cognitive-behavioral weight loss intervention. But, much there was not enough empirical evidence to conclude that self-efficacy was an important predictor of successful weight loss behaviors.

                                            Reflection

I believe that this study comes from very good reasoning because it seems very logical that self-efficacy would have a major effect on weight loss and weight loss behaviors. Also, self efficacy has been linked to adoption of good heath behaviors in relation to other various health domains. This study is important because attempts to fill a gap in the literature. Few studies have tried to link the influence of self-efficacy on weight loss, and those that tried have had mixed success. This study could turn out to be very informational if it can prove that self-efficacy has an effect on weight loss behavior, which in turn would mean an effect on weight loss.

The gather the participants of this study public advertisements were used, so the people who wanted to participate volunteered for the 8 week weight loss program. I believe that this method of gathering participants this study used could the cause the validity of the study to decrease. I think this because it seems probable that the people who volunteered for the study would have a higher degree of self-efficacy than the ordinary population. This is probably true because the study pointed out that 87% of the participants under study showed eating self-efficacy and 91% showed exercise self-efficacy. Although, the main intent of the study was not to show how much of the population had eating and exercise self-efficacy, the percent of people without self-efficacy is to small to accurately be compared with the results of self-efficacy participants. In order to find out how self-efficacy relates to behavior modification and weight loss it seems that the results would have to be compared to people without self-efficacy.

To measure self-efficacy the questionnaires had questions concerning effort, physical activity, dietary variables, and height and weight. Effort was measured on a scale from 0-8, 0 meaning no effort and 8 meaning a great deal of effort put towards following the weight control program. Physical activity was measured in calories burned per week according to city blocks walked, stairs climbed, and a other various activities added by participants. Dietary variables were measured by how often the participates ate certain foods, also measured by a scale from 1 to 8. Height and Weight was measured on a digital scale with participates wearing light clothing at 8 weeks. The measurements gathered from these questionnaires were compared to the baseline results. This section of the study measured self-efficacy of the individuals. The results pointed out that self-efficacy decreased in participants throughout the study, also 38% dropped out of the study before week eight. With changing self-efficacy within the participates and the high drop out percentages it seems hard to measure how self-efficacy effects weight loss behavior and weight loss. Some people that started with high self-efficacy remained stable through the study, some dropped out, and some lost self-efficacy. I don’t see how self-efficacy could be linked to weight loss because the participants who started out with self-efficacy had very different endings.

Jennifer A. Linde, Alexander J. Rothman, Austin S. Baldwin, and Robert W. Jeffery. Heath Psychology 2006, Vol. 25, No. 3, 2006.

Posted by zdrs21 at 5:31 PM EST

Updated: Sunday, 5 November 2006 5:35 PM EST

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Derek Sizemore

Research in Allied Heath

Article Critique #1

October 1, 2006

Summary

The article Obesity Status and Body Satisfaction found in The Heath Educator Spring 2006, Volume 38 looked into many different factors concerning obesity in female college students. It compared how satisfied the female college students were with their weight to their actual BMI. It also looked at BMI in female college students in different living arrangements (at home, on campus, apartment (alone), apartment with roomates) and how often the subjects thought about their weight in relation to their BMI. The results were quite logical, they showed that females who thought that they were overweight and thought about their weight more often were actually overweight. Subjects who thought that their weight was normal, and thought about their weight less were actually normal in weight and were more satisfied with their bodies.

Reflection

This article contained some very interesting and important information. Ideas about females not being satisfied with their bodies because of society’s pressure on them by movie stars and skinny girls in magazines have been around for quite sometime know. Although this may have an effect, this study has shown that females actually do have realistic ideas about how much they weight and how fat they are. Some of the important statistics in this study show that these female subjects are concerned about their weight on a realistic scale.

One factor this study looked at to compare females BMI to their self satisfaction was how often they thought about their weight. The statistics showed that females who thought about their weight very often, had a higher BMI as a whole than those who thought about their weight much less. This is very logical because you would think that bigger people would think about their weight more often. This is also important because it implies that bigger people are concerned about their weight, their don’t just have an "I don’t care" attitude.

Another very important factor looked at in this study was the relationship between BMI and weight fluctuation. The study showed that females who have gained or lost weight since they have been in college have a much higher BMI than those females who’s weights have stayed relatively the same. This could bring up another hypothesis to test, people who’s weight fluctuates often, tend to have a higher BMI. This could provide helpful information on diets and weight loss programs.

Another good thing this study has shown is the average BMI of college girls living in different locations. Those who live at home or in an apartment by themselves have a higher average BMI than those who live in a dorm or in an apartment with roommates. This is important to understand because most weight management programs target people who live on campus, which happens to be the people who need weight management less. This information could help change heath and wellness programs to be more effective by attempting to reach out to those college students who are not on campus very often.

Critique/Analysis of research methods

The research method for this study was quantitative research. The contents of the paper was full of statistics that measured different factors in the research. The results came to a very sure conclusion, the numbers put the information into a very tangible countable nature. There are no open ends left to the research, a definite answer has came from the data. This study was designed to establish facts, show causal explanations and relationships between variables. The data gathered in this study was countable and measurable and the design was very structured.

Posted by zdrs21 at 10:37 PM EDT

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Mood:  vegas lucky

hope this works

Posted by zdrs21 at 4:28 PM EDT

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