Occupational asthma in the furniture industry: is it due to styrene?
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BACKGROUND: Styrene, a volatile monomer, has been reported as a cause of occupational asthma in a few case reports. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate the risk for asthma in relation to exposure to styrene in a large number of workers. METHODS: A total of 47 workers with a history of exposure to styrene were included in the study. To establish whether asthma was present, each patient underwent a clinical interview, pulmonary function testing and bronchial challenge with methacholine. Specific bronchial challenges with styrene and serial peak expiratory flow (PEF) measurement at home and at work were carried out in subjects with a diagnosis of asthma to evaluate the relationship between their asthma and exposure to styrene in the workplace. RESULTS: Among the 47 subjects, 5 workers had given a history of work-related symptoms, and 3 of them had a positive methacholine challenge test. Specific bronchial challenges with styrene and serial PEF measurement were subsequently carried out in these 3 subjects. Although provocation tests with styrene were negative in the 3 workers, 1 worker had PEF rate records compatible with occupational asthma. CONCLUSION: We established one patient with occupational asthma from a group of people who have excessive styrene exposure. This finding may be suggestive but is not conclusive about the causative role of styrene in occupational asthma. Since styrene is a frequently used substance in the furniture industry, it is worth performing further studies to investigate the relationship between styrene and occupational asthma. (+info)
Can adapting the homes of older people and providing assistive technology pay its way?
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BACKGROUND: Adaptations and assistive technology (AT) have an important role in enabling older people to remain in their own homes. OBJECTIVE: To measure the feasibility and cost of adaptations and AT, and the scope for these to substitute and supplement formal care. DESIGN: Detailed design studies to benchmark the adaptability of 82 properties against the needs of seven notional users. SETTING: Social rented housing sector. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Measures of the adaptability of properties, costs of care, adaptations and AT, and relationships between these costs. RESULTS: The adaptability of properties varies according to many design factors and the needs of occupiers. The most adaptable properties were ground floor flats and bungalows; the least were houses, maisonettes and flats in converted houses. Purpose-built sheltered properties were generally more adaptable than corresponding mainstream properties but the opposite was the case for bungalows. Adaptations and AT can substitute for and supplement formal care, and in most cases the initial investment in adaptations and AT is recouped through subsequently lower care costs within the average life expectancy of a user. CONCLUSION: Appropriately selected adaptations and AT can make a significant contribution to the provision of living environments which facilitate independence. They can both substitute for traditional formal care services and supplement these services in a cost-effective way. (+info)
Designing your office for technology.
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BACKGROUND: To practice efficiently, dentists need to consider the successful integration of technologies, which can benefit their practice of dentistry. The physical environment of the office must be developed to accommodate not only the appropriate placement of computer hardware and high-tech dental devices, but their interconnectivity, as well. CONCLUSION: Dentists need to make appropriate decisions regarding the types of technology they choose to integrate into their offices, and they need to understand how the technology will be installed and integrated. An office designed to optimize the use of technology will produce ongoing benefits for dentists, their staff members and their patients throughout the lives of their practices. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: A dentist's practice must be planned to accommodate networks of systems hidden below floors, above ceilings and within walls, as well as to support and connect diverse technology items throughout the office. (+info)
Chlorpyrifos accumulation patterns for child-accessible surfaces and objects and urinary metabolite excretion by children for 2 weeks after crack-and-crevice application.
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The Children's Post-Pesticide Application Exposure Study (CPPAES) was conducted to look at the distribution of chlorpyrifos within a home environment for 2 weeks after a routine professional crack-and-crevice application and to determine the amount of the chlorpyrifos that is absorbed by a child living within the home. Ten residential homes with a 2- to 5-year-old child in each were selected for study, and the homes were treated with chlorpyrifos. Pesticide measurements were made from the indoor air, indoor surfaces, and plush toys. In addition, periodic morning urine samples were collected from each of the children throughout the 2-week period. We analyzed the urine samples for 3,5,6-trichloropyridinol, the primary urinary metabolite of chlorpyrifos, and used the results to estimate the children's absorbed dose. Average chlorpyrifos levels in the indoor air and surfaces were 26 (pretreatment)/120 (posttreatment) ng/m3 and 0.48 (pretreatment)/2.8 (posttreatment) ng/cm2, respectively, reaching peak levels between days 0 and 2; subsequently, concentrations decreased throughout the 2-week period. Chlorpyrifos in/on the plush toys ranged from 7.3 to 1,949 ng/toy postapplication, with concentrations increasing throughout the 2-week period, demonstrating a cumulative adsorption/absorption process indoors. The daily amount of chlorpyrifos estimated to be absorbed by the CPPAES children postapplication ranged from 0.04 to 4.8 microg/kg/day. During the 2 weeks after the crack-and-crevice application, there was no significant increase in the amount of chlorpyrifos absorbed by the CPPAES children. (+info)
Medical facilities as moral worlds.
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Bioethics is dominated by an emphasis on rule making and quandary solving. Teaching and research in ethics often focuses upon dramatic, controversial issues at the margins of life and death. Much less attention is given to the relationship between moral reflection and the ethos of place. Medical facilities, however, are moral worlds. To discuss the ethos of place is to focus on the character or atmosphere of particular dwellings. Architecture, interior design, and the interior creation of built environments have moral, spiritual, and aesthetic dimensions. Discussions of "ethics" need to be less oriented to rules and dilemmas, and more attuned to practical matters of everyday social experience. Instead of developing all-encompassing critiques of medical facilities as impersonal, alienating institutions, scholars from various fields need to explore the incremental steps that can make particular settings more decent, humane, and caring. (+info)
Lumbar support thickness: effect on seated buttock pressure in individuals with and without spinal cord injury.
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We compared the effects of different lumbar support thicknesses on seated buttock pressure in individuals with and without spinal cord injury (SCI). Eighteen subjects with SCI (SCI group) and 18 subjects without SCI (control group) were seated on a pressure-sensing transducer incorporated into an adjustable chair. The output was calibrated so that eight pressure intervals (colors) were displayed. The lumbar support thickness was adjusted to 0, 2.5, 5, and 7.5 cm, and the highest and lowest seated buttock pressures were analyzed. External measurements of the hip angle were taken for each lumbar support condition. High reliability of repeated seated test positions was found (intraclass correlation coefficient = .93). The 5- and 7.5-cm-thick lumbar supports caused a decrease in the highest pressure areas in the control group, but no change in the SCI group. The hip angle was increased with each increment in lumbar support thickness in both groups, but the SCI group's hip angle was consistently less than that of the control group for each lumbar support condition. The results of this study suggest that in individuals with chronic paralysis (greater than or equal to 3 years), the use of a wheelchair lumbar support has a negligible effect on seated buttock pressure. (+info)
1991 survey of recent health sciences library building projects.
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Twenty health sciences libraries reported building planning, expansion, or construction of new facilities in the association's second annual survey of recent building projects. Six projects are new, freestanding structures in which the library occupies all or a major portion of the space. Six other projects are part of new construction for separately administered units in which the library is a major tenant. The final eight projects involve additions to or renovations of existing space. Seven of these twenty libraries were still in projected, predesign, or design stages of awaiting funding approval; of those seven, five were not prepared to release the requested information. Six projects are reported here as illustrative of current building projects. (+info)
Survey of acarin fauna in dust samplings of curtains in the city of Campinas, Brazil.
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The aim of this study was to investigate the mite fauna present in 33 living room and 22 bedroom curtain dust samples from 41 different homes in the southern Brazilian city of Campinas, SP. A total of 148 mite bodies were found. Of these, 83 were found in living-room curtain samples (56.1% of total) and 65 were in bedroom curtain dust samples (43.9%). The most frequently observed mite suborders were: Acaridida (n = 79; 53.4%), Actinedida (n=53; 35.8%), Oribatida (n=14; 9.5%), and Gamasida (n=2; 1.3%). The most frequent families were Pyroglyphidae (n=61; 41.2%), Eriophyidae (n=25; 16.9%), Tarsonemidae (n=15; 10.1%), and Glycyphagidae (n=13; 8.8%). No statistical difference was observed between the number of mites found in the samples from living room and bedroom curtains. (+info)