Promotion Of Early Recognition Of Depression To Improve Health Related Quality Of Life In Pediatric Oncology Patients, Jennifer Blankenship

DNP Projects

Background: Depression and anxiety are serious complications of cancer and deemed a challenging diagnosis due to the symptoms of depression mimicking common side effects of chemotherapy and radiation. Signs/symptoms frequently are underrecognized thus appropriate treatment is delayed, compromising the health-related quality of life (HRQOL) for pediatric oncology patients.

Purpose: Analyze existing physician and Advanced Practice Provider (APP) clinical practice regarding depression, via a pre- and post-survey and educational PowerPoint on the use of the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale for Children (CES-DC) to promote early recognition of depression.

Methods: A prospective, single-arm, study was completed in the Kentucky Children’s …

Effectiveness Of Point-Of-Care Ultrasound Education For Advanced Practice Providers, Nicole Brumfield

DNP Projects

Abstract

Background: Provider shortages and demands for inpatient providers have led to an increase in the utilization of Advanced Practice Providers (APPs). The increased use and specialization of APPs has brought attention to education and skills that have been instituted for other provider types but remains missing from the APP curricula. One such example is point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) education. This technology and skill set have been shown to enhance clinical skills, confidence levels, and provide useful information for the provider to enhance clinical decision making for the patient.

Purpose: The purpose of this project was to evaluate the effectiveness of …

Multi-Modal Medical Imaging Analysis With Modern Neural Networks, Gongbo Liang

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

Medical imaging is an important non-invasive tool for diagnostic and treatment purposes in medical practice. However, interpreting medical images is a time consuming and challenging task. Computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) tools have been used in clinical practice to assist medical practitioners in medical imaging analysis since the 1990s. Most of the current generation of CADs are built on conventional computer vision techniques, such as manually defined feature descriptors. Deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) provide robust end-to-end methods that can automatically learn feature representations. CNNs are a promising building block of next-generation CADs. However, applying CNNs to medical imaging analysis tasks is …

Vestibular Function And Sports-Related Concussion: An Exploratory Investigation Of The Consequences Of Sports Related Concussion On Vestibular Function And Outcomes, Carolina Quintana

Theses and Dissertations--Rehabilitation Sciences

Sports-related concussions (SRC), or mild traumatic brain injuries that occur as a result of sports or athletic participation, are said to affect approximately 300,000 young adults and 1.4 million youth athletes in the United States on an annual basis. SRC create a significant burden on the health care system by generating an estimated $60 billion dollars in direct and indirect costs in 2000. In addition to the financial burden these injuries create, they additionally impose both short- and long-term effects for those effected and their overall health. Among the many effects of concussions are physical signs as symptoms such as …

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Norton Cancer Institute’S Prompt Care Clinics, Stephanie L. Fred

DNP Projects

Purpose: The purpose of this project was to evaluate outcomes of implementation of the Norton Cancer Institute (NCI) Prompt Care Clinics (PCCs), to include number of emergency room (ER) visits and number of inpatient admissions. A second purpose of the study was to identify presenting symptoms for patients seen in the NCI PCCs and compare the average charge per case for patients seen in the ER or NCI PCCs with the same diagnosis.

Methods: This study employed a pre-post implementation retrospective review of NCI patient electronic medical records (EPIC) to examine the effectiveness of the NCI PCCs on …

The Impact Of The Nurse Practitioner In Pre-Admission Testing: A Comparative Review, Laurel A. Robinson

DNP Projects

Abstract

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to compare the efficiency of pre-admission testing (PAT) surgical clinic pre and post implementation of the APRN for patient assessment. Cancellation and delay occurrences for scheduled surgeries will be compared during two time periods on patients on the surgical schedule at Norton Women and Children’s Hospital (NWC).

METHODS: This study was a single-center, pre and post implementation retrospective comparative study of the impact of the NP led PAT unit at Norton Women and Children’s Hospital (NWC) in terms of delay and cancellation rates for day-of-surgery. The sample consisted of 411 patients for …

Halo- And Solvato-Fluorochromic Polymer Nanoassemblies For Cancer Theranostics, Derek Alexander Reichel

Theses and Dissertations--Pharmacy

Theranostics is an emerging treatment approach that combines diagnostics with therapy in order to personalize treatment regimens for individual patients and decrease cancer mortality. Previously, nanoparticles entrapping conventional fluorescent dyes were developed for cancer theranostics, but fluorescent nanoparticles did not allow clinicians to significantly improve cancer treatments.

The use of fluorescent dyes that are sensitive to solvent acidity (halo-fluorochromism) and polarity (solvato-fluorochromism) may overcome the limitations of fluorescent nanoparticles and improve cancer therapy by enabling researchers to detect chemical properties within the nanoparticle core environment. The model halo- and solvato-fluorochromic dye Nile blue was attached to the core of nanoscale …

Noncontact Diffuse Correlation Tomography Of Breast Tumor, Lian He

Theses and Dissertations--Biomedical Engineering

Since aggressive cancers are frequently hypermetabolic with angiogenic vessels, quantification of blood flow (BF) can be vital for cancer diagnosis. Our laboratory has developed a noncontact diffuse correlation tomography (ncDCT) system for 3-D imaging of BF distribution in deep tissues (up to centimeters). The ncDCT system employs two sets of optical lenses to project source and detector fibers respectively onto the tissue surface, and applies finite element framework to model light transportation in complex tissue geometries. This thesis reports our first step to adapt the ncDCT system for 3-D imaging of BF contrasts in human breast tumors. A commercial 3-D …