The MOMANT study, a caregiver support programme with activities at home for people with dementia: a study protocol of a randomised controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Because of the expected increase in the number of people with dementia, and the associated social and economic costs, there is an urgent need to develop effective and cost-effective care for people with dementia and their caregivers. The intervention proposed here combines two approaches to caregiver support that have shown to be effective in empowering caregivers, i.e., multiple components for caregiver support and actively engaging caregivers to involve the person with dementia in activities at home. The aim is to investigate whether the intervention is effective in improving quality of life in the caregiver and the person with dementia. A further aim will be to investigate whether this intervention can improve caregivers' feeling of competence, experience of caregiving, and mood. METHODS: The study design is a pragmatic, cluster randomised controlled trial with cost-effectiveness analysis. The study participants are informal caregivers and home-living persons with dementia for whom they care, recruited in various regions in the Netherlands. The trial will compare outcomes in two groups of participants: 85 dyads who receive the intervention, and 85 dyads who receive care as usual. The intervention is a caregiver support training that is manual based and consists of 6 group sessions over 2 months. Training takes place in small groups of caregivers led by a health care professional presented at dementia day care centres. Randomisation occurs at the level of the day care centre. Participants are assessed on the outcome measures at baseline, prior to the intervention, and at 3 and 6 months after baseline. DISCUSSION: The study will provide insight into effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of an intervention that has not previously been evaluated or implemented in the Netherlands. The intervention potentially adds to the effective support options for informal caregivers of people with dementia without greatly increasing the workload for health- or social care professionals. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The trial is registered at the Dutch Trial Register at NTR6643 ; August 22nd, 2017.

Multiple timescales in the photoswitching kinetics of crystalline thin films of azobenzene-trimers.

Functional materials that exhibit photoinduced structural phase transitions are highly interesting for applications in optomechanics and mechanochemistry. It is, however, still not fully understood how photochemical reactions, which are often accompanied by molecular motion, proceed in confined and crystalline environments. Here we show that thin films of azobenzene trimers exhibit high structural order and determine the crystallographic unit cell. We demonstrate that thin film can be switched partially reversibly between a crystalline and an amorphous phase. The time constant of the photoinduced amorphisation as measured with real-time x-ray diffraction ([Formula: see text]220 s) lies between the two time constants (120 s and 2870 s) of the ensemble photoisomerisation processes that are measured via optical spectroscopy. Our observation of a photoinduced shrinking of the crystalline domains indicates a cascading process, in which photoisomerisation starts at the surface of the thin film and propagates deeper into the crystalline layer by introducing disorder and generating free volume. This finding is important for the rapidly evolving research field of photoresponsive thin films and smart crystalline materials in general.

Unravelling the multilayer growth of the fullerene C60 in real time.

Molecular semiconductors are increasingly used in devices, but understanding of elementary nanoscopic processes in molecular film growth is in its infancy. Here we use real-time in situ specular and diffuse X-ray scattering in combination with kinetic Monte Carlo simulations to study C60 nucleation and multilayer growth. We determine a self-consistent set of energy parameters describing both intra- and interlayer diffusion processes in C60 growth. This approach yields an effective Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier of EES=110 meV, diffusion barrier of ED=540 meV and binding energy of EB=130 meV. Analysing the particle-resolved dynamics, we find that the lateral diffusion is similar to colloids, but characterized by an atom-like Schwoebel barrier. Our results contribute to a fundamental understanding of molecular growth processes in a system, which forms an important intermediate case between atoms and colloids.

Chain-length dependent growth dynamics of n-alkanes on silica investigated by energy-dispersive x-ray reflectivity in situ and in real-time.

We compare the growth dynamics of the three n-alkanes C(36)H(74), C(40)H(82), and C(44)H(90) on SiO(2) using real-time and in situ energy-dispersive x-ray reflectivity. All molecules investigated align in an upright-standing orientation on the substrate and exhibit a transition from layer-by-layer growth to island growth after about 4 monolayers under the conditions employed. Simultaneous fits of the reflected intensity at five distinct points in reciprocal space show that films formed by longer n-alkanes roughen faster during growth. This behavior can be explained by a chain-length dependent height of the Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier. Further x-ray diffraction measurements after growth indicate that films consisting of longer n-alkanes also incorporate more lying-down molecules in the top region. While the results reveal behavior typical for chain-like molecules, the findings can also be useful for the optimization of organic field effect transistors where smooth interlayers of n-alkanes without coexistence of two or more molecular orientations are required.

The influence of the inactivating agent on the antigen content of inactivated Newcastle disease vaccines assessed by the in vitro potency test.

An in vitro potency test has recently been included in the European Pharmacopoeia (EP) monograph (01/2007:0870) to assess the potency of inactivated Newcastle disease (ND) vaccines. This enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) is an attractive alternative for the existing in vivo potency tests especially with regard to the objective of the European Authorities to Replace, Reduce and Refine the use of laboratory animals for production and quality control of immunobiologicals. In the present study the influence of the inactivant on the antigen content established by ELISA was evaluated. Therefore, oil based vaccines containing similar concentrations of beta-propiolactone (BPL) or formaldehyde inactivated Newcastle disease virus (NDV) were examined by ELISA and in the in vivo potency tests outlined in the EP. The results obtained demonstrate that the use of formaldehyde as inactivant lowered the in vitro potency compared to BPL as inactivant. In contrast, the in vivo potency was not affected. Therefore, the ELISA should not be used to compare the potency of commercial ND vaccines containing formaldehyde inactivated NDV with those containing BPL inactivated NDV. However, the ELISA is considered an attractive alternative for the existing in vivo potency tests since it can be used by vaccine manufacturers for the release of inactivated ND vaccines.