Randomized clinical trial of a family intervention for prostate cancer patients and their spouses

Abstract

This work demonstrates that the principles underlying phase‐contrast MRI may be used to encode spatial rather than flow information along a perpendicular dimension, if this dimension contains an MRI‐visible object at only one spatial location. In particular, the situation applies to 3D mapping of curved 2D structures which requires only two projection images with different spatial phase‐encoding gradients. These phase‐contrast gradients define the field of view and mean spin‐density positions of the object in the perpendicular dimension by respective phase differences. When combined with highly undersampled radial fast low angle shot (FLASH) and image reconstruction by regularized nonlinear inversion, spatial phase‐contrast MRI allows for dynamic 3D mapping of 2D structures in real time. First examples include 3D MRI movies of the acting human hand at a temporal resolution of 50 ms. With an even simpler technique, 3D maps of curved 1D structures may be obtained from only three acquisitions of a frequency‐encoded MRI signal with two perpendicular phase encodings. Here, 3D MRI movies of a rapidly rotating banana were obtained at 5 ms resolution or 200 frames per second. In conclusion, spatial phase‐contrast 3D MRI of 2D or 1D structures is respective two or four orders of magnitude faster than conventional 3D MRI. Magn Reson Med, 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.

Exploring the effectiveness of couples interventions for adults living with a chronic physical illness: A systematic review

“…When compared with a patient-only or control group, couples interventions based on CBST improved cognitive outcomes including self-efficacy [36,49,38,59] and illness appraisals [41,60,61,39,62].…”

“…Interventions using CBST improved somatic/ physical outcomes including symptom perception [41,42,63,61,48], fitness/ muscle strength [49], sexual limitation [64], physical Quality of Life (QOL) [61], Cholesterol [34], and fear of movement [48]. In comparison with a patient-only/ control group, CBST interventions enhanced behaviours such as dyadic coping [43], medication adherence [65], and increased dietary self-efficacy and spousal support [59].…”

“…An exception to this was a RC focused intervention which incorporated planning and decision-making skills, and homework tasks, which increased self-acceptance, reduced fatigue, and improved functional wellbeing [54]. Partners' also benefited from CBST across cognitive outcomes including partner-rated patient self-efficacy [49], self-efficacy for supporting patients to manage pain/ other symptoms, lower caregiver stress [66], less negative caregiver appraisals, uncertainty, and greater personal self-efficacy [61]. Interventions following this approach also increased physical QOL and active coping, and reduced general symptom distress in partners [61].…”

“…When compared with a patient-only or control group, interventions which contained a module which provided techniques for managing and/ or sharing difficult emotions, effectively reduced depression and emotional distress among couples [67,36,43,60,51,64,61,52,39,56,58], and anxiety [45] and perceived stress [44] in partners.…”

“I wish I’d told them”: A qualitative study examining the unmet psychosexual needs of prostate cancer patients during follow-up after treatment

“…There may be good reason for such concerns as psychosocial morbidity in prostate cancer has been shown to be highly prevalent, not only among patients, but particularly among their partners [38,39]. However, there is a paucity of psychosocial assessments and interventions currently available to patients and their partners [40][41][42][43]. This paper offers insight into patients' experiences of follow-up care, including the failure to address certain psychosexual needs, particularly those concerning sexual function.…”