Mean values and reference ranges are presented for serum creatinine and serum urea in Melanesian men and women aged over 50 years from coastal Papua. The values are presented separately for three age groups, 51-60, 61-70 and 71-85 years, but there was no significant difference between them. The values for women were lower than for men in all age groups.
Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Creatinine - blood ; Female ; Middle Aged ; Papua New Guinea ; Reference Values ; Urea - blood

Objective: To perform a systematic review and meta-analysis evaluating the efficacy of middle meningeal artery embolization in terms of both clinical and radiographic outcomes, when performed with different embolic agents. Methods: A systematic literature review and meta-analysis was performed to evaluate the impact of embolic agents on outcomes for middle meningeal artery (MMA) embolization. The use of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) with or without (±) coils, N-butyl cyanoacrylate (n-BCA) ± coils, and Onyx alone were separately evaluated. Primary outcome measures were recurrence, the need for surgical rescue and in-hospital periprocedural complications. Results: Thirty-one studies were identified with a total of 1,134 patients, with 786 receiving PVA, 167 receiving n-BCA, and 181 patients receiving Onyx. There was no difference in the recurrence rate (5.5% for PVA, 4.5% for n-BCA, and 6.5% for Onyx, with P=0.71) or need for surgical rescue (5.0% for PVA, 4.0% for n-BCA, and 6.9% for Onyx, with P=0.89) based on the embolic agent. Procedural complications also did not differ between embolic agents (1.8% for PVA, 3.6% for n-BCA, and 1.6% for Onyx, with P=0.48). Conclusions Rates of recurrence, need for surgical rescue, and periprocedural complication following MMA embolization are not impacted by the type of embolic agent utilized. Ongoing clinical trials may be used to further investigate these findings.

Methods: Patients diagnosed with cervical degenerative spondylolisthesis were identified from a hospital’s medical records. Demographic and surgical characteristics were collected through a structured query language search and manual chart review. Radiographic measurements were made on preoperative MRIs for all vertebral levels diagnosed with spondylolisthesis and adjacent undiagnosed levels between C3 and C6. The facet fluid index was calculated by dividing the facet fluid measurement by the width of the facet. Bivariate analysis was conducted to compare facet characteristics based on radiographic spondylolisthesis and spondylolisthesis stability. Results: We included 154 patients, for whom 149 levels were classified as having spondylolisthesis and 206 levels did not. The average facet fluid index was significantly higher in patients with spondylolisthesis (0.26±0.07 vs. 0.23±0.08, p <0.001). In addition, both fluid width and facet width were significantly larger in patients with spondylolisthesis (p <0.001 each). Cervical levels in the fusion construct demonstrated a greater facet fluid index and were more likely to have unstable spondylolisthesis than stable spondylolisthesis (p <0.001 each). Conclusions Facet fluid index is associated with cervical spondylolisthesis and an increased facet size and fluid width are associated with unstable spondylolisthesis. While cervical spondylolisthesis continues to be an inconclusive finding, vertebral levels with spondylolisthesis, especially the unstable ones, were more likely to be included in the fusion procedure than those without spondylolisthesis.

Objective: This study ascertained the effects of brain games on global cognition among older Filipinos. Methods: A quasi-experimental design was used. The participants were 60 elderly Filipinos, aged 60 to 93 years, residing in Baguio City, and were not engaging in any physical or nutritional interventions to improve cognitive function. None have subclinical cognitive impairments as screened using the Mini-Cognitive Examination. The Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination-III (ACE-III) tool which correlated significantly with standard neuropsychological tests, and provided a high internal reliability score of 0.88, was used. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: Pretest mean scores of both active control and experimental groups increased in the posttest. Additionally, both coloring and brain games had extremely significant effects on global cognition (p=0.0001). Lastly, the unrelated t-test revealed extremely significant difference between the effects of brain games and coloring on global cognition (p=0.0001). conclusions Based on the results, brain games showed evidence of effectiveness in improving global cognition, and that compared to coloring, it is more effective in improving global cognition among older Filipinos. Variables like motivation and expectancy effects influence the improvement in global cognition among older Filipinos. Lastly, cognitive training using brain games show promise as a non-pharmacologic intervention to address cognitive decline.