Objective To investigate the effects of early core muscles and manual respiratory function training on stroke patients with dysphagia. Methods From June, 2015 to January, 2016, 60 stroke patients with dysphagia were divided equally into control group and obser-vation group randomly. Both groups accepted routine swallowing function training, electrical stimulation and respiratory function training, while the observation group accepted core muscles training and manual respiratory function training, for four weeks. They were evaluated with Standardized Swallowing Assessment (SSA), forced vital capacity (FVC), maximum ventilatory volume (MVV) and the maximum ex-piratory time before and after treatment. Results All the indices improved in both groups after treatment (P<0.001), and improved more in the observation group than in the control group (P<0.001). Conclusion Core muscles and manual respiratory function training at early stage can obviously improve swallowing and respiratory function of stroke patients with dysphagia.

The paper described the development stages of a hospital performance evaluation scale based on patient experience.An empirical application on 7 856 patients of 26 hospitals in four provinces in the country identified the challenges encountered in the course of its application.These include limits of patients experience,variations on the experience reports incurred by different services experienced by patients,and setting of the patient-inpatient ratio among others.Solutions proposed based on these studies aim at creating a patient experience scale tailored to Chinese patients.

The aim of the study is to evaluate the effects of the single and mixed decoction of Thallus laminariae (kelp) and Glycyrrhiza glabra (licorice) on the metabolism and their difference. The mixed decoction of kelp and licorice and the single decoction were made and intragastrically administered to the SD rats. The effect on system metabolism, the toxicity of liver and kidney were assessed by GC-MS profiling of the endogenous molecules in serum, routine biochemical assays and histographic inspection of tissues from SD rats, separately. The mixed decoction of kelp and licorice induced more obvious pathological abnormalities in SD rats than a single decoction of kelp, while the extracts of licorice did not show any pathological change. Neither the mixed, nor the single decoction showed abnormal histopathology. After intragastric administration of extracts for 5 days, the mixed decoction induced a decrease of ALT (no significant change in the groups of single decoction) and an increase of BUN (so did the single decoction of kelp). Metabolomic profile of the molecules in serum revealed that the metabolic patterns were all obviously affected for the three groups, i.e., the mixed and single decoction of kelp and licorice. The rats given with the single decoction of kelp showed a similar pattern to that of the mixed decoction, indicating that the kelp primarily contributed the perturbation of metabolism for the mixed decoction. All three groups induced a decrease of branched chain amino acids, TCA cycle intermediates and glycolysis intermediates (e.g., pyruvic acid and lactic acid) and an increase of 3-hydroxybutyric acid. Kelp decoction showed stronger potential in reducing TCA cycle intermediates and glycolysis intermediates than the other two groups, while the levels of branched chain amino acids were the lowest after licorice extracts were given. These results suggested that the effect of the mixed decoction on metabolism was closely associated with both kelp and licorice. The continuous administration of single decoction of kelp and the mixed decoction of licorice and kelp resulted in pathological abnormalities in kidney of SD rats. The mixed decoction of kelp and licorice distinctly perturbed sera molecules and hence system metabolism, which showed associated with those of kelp and licorice. Although the metabolic effect was associated with both kelp and licorice, the results suggested kelp contributed to it primarily.

Objective To investigate the effect of exosomal miR-146a-5p expression on gray matter volume in patients with major depressive disorder(MDD).Methods A total of 113 MDD patients(MDD group)and 107 healthy controls(HC)(HC group)were selected.Peripheral blood was collected and exosomes were isolated to quantify miR-146a-5p expression.Brain high-resolution T1 WI images of MDD and HC were obtained via MR,and gray matter volume was computed via SPM12 software.The interaction effect of"Depression×miR-146a-5p expression"on gray matter volume was analyzed using SPM's Flexible factorial design,and the between-group difference was assessed by extracting the mean value,thus to analyze whether MDD-related gray matter volume abnormalities were dependent on miR-146a-5p expression.Results Exosomal miR-146a-5p expression was significantly elevated in MDD group compared to HC group.Voxel-based factorial analysis revealed a relationship between high miR-146a-5p expression in MDD group and reduced gray matter volume in the anterior and posterior cingulate cortices(independent voxel threshold P＜0.001,AlphaSim corrected),and a significantly reduced gray matter volume as compared with HC group was detected in the two regions.Conclusion The exosomal miR-146a-5p is overexpressed in patients with MDD and may be associated with specific cortical atrophy in patients with MDD.