The role of the hospital nursing staff in home health-care services.

Hospital nurses have an important role to play in coordinating the hospital and home-care management of patients discharged from hospital. This role becomes even more vital with the growing emphasis on transferring part or all of the traditional hospital care of some patients to primary carers in the community. This policy enables patients to receive treatments as close to their home as possible, as well as shortening the number of inpatient days. The aim for primary-care workers is to take over everyday responsibility for patients receiving outpatient antimicrobial treatment, while providing all necessary support from a hospital base. For the successful transfer from hospital care to home care, both patient and family must be confident in performing the technical medical actions required. It is the main responsibility of the nurse to allay any patient fears of unforeseen difficulties or problems.

Organic sedimentation and macrofauna as forcing factors in marine benthic nanofagellate communities.

We investigated how benthic nanoflagellate communities in marine sediments respond to sedimentation of organic material and to the presence of macrofaunal organisms in controlled boxcosms. An input of 24 g C m(-2) resulted in a sharp increase in densities, from 93 to 477 × 10(3) flagellates cm(-3) within 11 days. At the onset, this increase was paralleled by enhanced bacterial production and bacterial numbers. When bacterial production collapsed, flagellate ingestion rates, varying from 17 to 67 bact flag(-1) h(-1), were sufficient to control bacterial abundance. The presence of macrofauna accelerated the burst in flagellate densities. With macrofauna the same maximum densities were reached, but later densities dropped to relatively low levels. Macrofaunal bioturbation resulted in higher flagellate densities deeper in the sediment (up to 1200% at 3 cm and up to 460% at 6 cm deep).

The influence of orphenadrine HCl in overdose alone and in combination with droperidol on respiration and circulation in the rat.

Orphenadrine HCL was intravenously administered to rats under urethane anesthesia to investigate whether the primary cause of death in orphenadrine intoxication is respiratory arrest or cardiac standstill. The spontaneously breathing animals died from apnoe after a mean dose of 63 + 11 mg/kg. The artificially ventilated animals died from cardiac arrest after a mean dose of 144 +/- 47 mg/kg. It was concluded that primary cause of death is respiratory insufficiency and that hypoventilation can mask the cardiotoxicity of orphenadrine. On the analogy of earlier experiments in dogs the ability of droperidol to counteract the influence of orphenadrine was investigated. Droperidol enhanced the influence of orphenadrine on respiration and had no influence on the cardiotoxic influence of orphenadrine in the rat.