Category: Neurosciences

Fear, Vulnerability, and Sacrifice as Factors in ED Use: Ethnographic Research Methods and their Insights

Ethnographic research and social analyses in healthcare settings have long been valued, however their use is not widespread. Qualitative research about patient-centered care makes patients the experts, and providers, policy makers and administrators the students. In this presentation, I discuss a 2015 case study of a 51-year-old low-income Philadelphia man who had two ED visits […]

Implementing a Mid-Trial Adaptation in a Stroke Clinical Trial: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

The use of adaptive designs has been increasing in randomized clinical trials. Sample size re-estimation is a type of adaptation in which nuisance parameters are estimated at an interim point in the trial and the sample size re-computed based on these estimates. However, post-hoc evaluations of the adaptation, including sample size re-estimation, have not frequently […]

Mindfulness Based Interventions for Maternal Child Health

Mindfulness interventions have been found to decrease symptoms and health issues and to improve overall health. We conducted two mindfulness based studies at Thomas Jefferson University to determine effects of mindfulness on maternal child health. The first study that will be presented was a one year pilot Mindfulness in Pregnancy in the Ob/Gyn Dept with […]

Mindfulness Based Interventions to Prevent Toxic Stress

This presentation will describe current research on adverse exposures and the use of mindfulness based programs for new mothers in treatment for opioid addiction. Mindfulness Based Parenting has shown improvements in parenting and behavior change. The presentation will describe the mechanisms of mindfulness based training and findings from research. A pilot project that aims to […]

Why must my child sound like Stephen Hawking: Personalized Synthetic Voices for Pediatric Assistive Communication

Existing speech synthesis technology allows us to record fluent speech from an individual and, using machine learning, develop a Text To Speech (TTS) “voice” that sounds like the individual. This technology is used for “Voice Banking” by patients diagnosed with neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS who are able to create personal TTS voices for use […]

Cognitive Assessment and Aging Physicians: Are Patients or Doctors the Ones at Risk?

The aging of our physician workforce presents a new concern for both workers and patients. Cognitive changes associated with aging can impact clinician performance. In some cases, cognitive aging progresses beyond acceptable age-associated changes into the realm of pathological aging with clinically significant performance consequences. This presentation will describe normative cognitive aging and how this […]