Activities of daily living and oral hygiene status of older Korean patients in a long-term care facility.

OBJECTIVES: This study investigated the relationship between oral hygiene conditions, activities of daily living (ADL) and cognitive ability in older Korean patients in long-term care facilities. METHODS: Ninety older persons (65+) were randomly sampled from a possible 112 residents in a single facility. They participated in a 2-month-long survey. The Korean Modified Barthel Index was used to measure the ADL, and cognitive ability was measured using the Mini-Mental State Examination, Korean version. Oral hygiene status was measured using the Simplified Oral Hygiene Index and the Tongue Coating Index (TCI). RESULTS: Older participants with complete dependence manifested significantly poorer oral hygiene (P < 0.05). Scores on the TCI were significantly higher in participants who were dentulous with partial dependence (P < 0.05). A multiple regression analysis showed that dependence and being dentulous significantly predicted poorer oral hygiene (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that older participants with complete dependence had poor oral hygiene on tooth surfaces, while participants with partial dependence had poor tongue hygiene. In addition, dentulous older participants had poorer tongue hygiene than edentulous ones. This indicates the need to assess tooth status and provide oral care services via ADL in long-term care facilities.

Dynamic compression improves biosynthesis of human zonal chondrocytes from osteoarthritis patients.

OBJECTIVE: We hypothesize that chondrocytes from distinct zones of articular cartilage respond differently to compressive loading, and that zonal chondrocytes from osteoarthritis (OA) patients can benefit from optimized compressive stimulation. Therefore, we aimed to determine the transcriptional response of superficial (S) and middle/deep (MD) zone chondrocytes to varying dynamic compressive strain and loading duration. To confirm effects of compressive stimulation on overall matrix production, we subjected zonal chondrocytes to compression for 2 weeks. DESIGN: Human S and MD chondrocytes from osteoarthritic joints were encapsulated in 2% alginate, pre-cultured, and subjected to compression with varying dynamic strain (5, 15, 50% at 1 Hz) and loading duration (1, 3, 12 h). Temporal changes in cartilage-specific, zonal, and dedifferentiation genes following compression were evaluated using quantitative real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). The benefits of long-term compression (50% strain, 3 h/day, for 2 weeks) were assessed by measuring construct glycosaminoglycan (GAG) content and compressive moduli, as well as immunostaining. RESULTS: Compressive stimulation significantly induced aggrecan (ACAN), COL2A1, COL1A1, proteoglycan 4 (PRG4), and COL10A1 gene expression after 2 h of unloading, in a zone-dependent manner (P < 0.05). ACAN and PRG4 mRNA levels depended on strain and load duration, with 50% and 3 h loading resulting in highest levels (P < 0.05). Long-term compression increased collagen type II and ACAN immunostaining and total GAG (P < 0.05), but only S constructs showed more PRG4 stain, retained more GAG (P < 0.01), and developed higher compressive moduli than non-loaded controls. CONCLUSIONS: The biosynthetic activity of zonal chondrocytes from osteoarthritis joints can be enhanced with selected compression regimes, indicating the potential for cartilage tissue engineering applications.

PEGylation improves the hypoglycaemic efficacy of intranasally administered glucagon-like peptide-1 in type 2 diabetic db/db mice.

AIMS: PEGylation - covalent modification of therapeutic peptides with polyethylene glycol (PEG) - is viewed as an effective way of prolonging the short lifetime of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1). In this study, we investigated the hypoglycaemic efficacies of PEGylated GLP-1s administered intranasally in type 2 diabetic db/db mice. METHODS: Three types of site-specific (Lys(34)) PEGylated GLP-1 analogues (PEG molecular weight: 1, 2 or 5 kDa) were synthesized. Their metabolic stabilities were evaluated in nasal mucosa enzyme pools. Oral glucose tolerance test was conducted 30, 60 and 120 min after intranasally administering these analogues in type 2 diabetic db/db mice. RESULTS: PEGylated GLP-1 analogues were found to have significantly longer half-lives than native GLP-1 in nasal mucosa enzymes (2.4-fold to 11.0-fold, p < 0.005). Non-PEGylated GLP-1 at 100 nmol/kg was not found to have marked efficacy irrespective of nasal administration time [total hypoglycaemic degree (HD(total)) values 2.8-17.3%]. On the contrary, PEGylated GLP-1s (100 nmol/kg) showed obvious efficacies with maximum HD(total) values of >51.8 +/- 5.8% (p < 0.005 vs. GLP-1). CONCLUSION: This study highlights the pharmacological potential of intranasally administered PEGylated GLP-1s in terms of stabilizing postprandial hyperglycaemia in type 2 diabetic patients.