The digital divide refers to a lack of technological access, part of which involves exclusion from a blooming arena of social interaction. People without mobile phones or PCs cannot access email, SMS or social networking websites; this includes many groups, such as the elderly, who can become vulnerable without good social contact. By enabling multimodal access to a variety of communication channels, including ubiquitous ones such as televisions and home telephones, this set of people can be included in such interactions. This paper describes a prototype pervasive messaging infrastructure for multimodal communications, and how it can be used as an assistive environment. Our eventual aim is to create a social fabric, a pervasive infrastructure layer to support more complex social experiences in the future.
Aim: We conducted a single institution retrospective review to assess early rates of discontinuation of aromatase inhibitors (AI) due to musculoskeletal adverse effects (MSKAEs) and response to switching to alternative hormonal agents. Patients & methods: A total of 139 patients on adjuvant AI were identified. In total, 41.7% reported MSKAE, with more than half requiring early discontinuation of treatment – 21.6% of initial cohort. Results & conclusion: Out of 30 patients who discontinued AI, six declined further treatment, nine switched to tamoxifen and 15 switched to alternative AI. Rate of symptom improvement were 67, 78 and 27%, respectively. Ten patients (66.7%) on second AI discontinued treatment due to MSKAEs. MSKAEs were the most commonly reported adverse effects leading to discontinuation of AI.
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