Objective:To test the efficacy of single family room (SFR) neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) designs, questions regarding patient medical progress and relative patient safety were explored. Addressing these questions would be of value to hospital staff, administrators and designers alike.Study Design:This prospective study documented, by means of Institution Review Board-approved protocols, the progress of patients in two contrasting NICU designs. Noise levels, illumination and air quality measurements were included to define the two NICU physical environments.Result:Infants in the SFR unit had fewer apneic events, reduced nosocomial sepsis and mortality, as well as earlier transitions to enteral nutrition. More mothers sustained stage III lactation, and more infants were discharged breastfeeding in the SFR.Conclusion:This study showed the SFR to be more conducive to family-centered care, and to enhance infant medical progress and breastfeeding success over that of an open ward.

Objective:With neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) evolving from multipatient wards toward family-friendly, single-family room units, the study objective was to compare satisfaction levels of families and health-care staff across these differing NICU facility designs.Study Design:This prospective study documented, by means of institutional review board-approved questionnaire survey protocols, the perceptions of parents and staff from two contrasting NICU environments.Result:Findings showed that demographic subgroups of parents and staff perceived the advantages and disadvantages of the two facility designs differently. Staff perceptions varied with previous experience, acclimation time and employment position, whereas parental perceptions revealed a naiveté bias through surveys of transitional parents with experience in both NICU facilities.Conclusion:Use of transitional parent surveys showed a subject naiveté bias inherent in perceptions of inexperienced parents. Grouping all survey participants demographically provided more informative interpretations of data, and revealed staff perceptions to vary with position, previous training and hospital experience.

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Amphid sensilla, historically considered the primary chemosensory structures of nematodes, were found to be necessary for the detection of only one of the six chemical stimuli that were tested. Only the attraction to cAMP was eliminated by damaging the two lateral lips, which bear the amphid sensilla. The inner labial sensilla, one of which occurs on each of the six lips, are probably the primary receptor structures for the other chemical stimuli. Damaging all six lips, which should destroy all anterior chemosensory input, not only eliminted the attraction to sodium and chloride ions, but reversed the nematodes' response to them. Nematodes with all six lips destroyed showed reversal behavior when exposed to these attractants. Nematodes with damage to all six lips appeared to recover much of their normal chemosensory function within 24 hr after treatment.

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