Education and progression for support workers in mental health

Purpose: This case study details the development of a bespoke programme of learning for Support Workers employed in Mental Health sector. Design: The programme was designed to serve three purposes: to offer a route into Mental Health Nursing; to upskill those who wanted to remain as a Support Worker; to improve the quality of care provided. Findings: The paper shares the perspectives of the local Partnership Trust, a Support Worker on the programme and the Programme Director. Originality/Value: Employers within the Mental Health sector are encouraged to develop their own staff and Universities are urged to think differently about curriculum design

Systematic review of care needs for older patients treated with anticancer drugs

Objective: When treated with anticancer therapies, a number of issues are raised for older patients such as physical needs (coping with symptoms and side-effects) or psychological needs. Geriatric tailored interventions addressing these needs may be effective in terms of improving quality of life of our patients. Methods: A systematic review was performed in September 2017 in MEDLINE. All reports assessing older patients with cancer care needs in the context of anticancer systemic therapy were reviewed. Results: A total of 357 articles were analyzed. From these, 35 studies were included in the analysis. Compared to younger patients, the elderly had less supportive care needs. While older patients asked for less information than their younger counterparts, they still requested information on diagnosis, seriousness of the disease, chances of cure, spread of the disease, recovery, courses of illness, possible consequences, treatment procedures, treatment options, possible side effects and how to deal with them, and what they could do in daily life. When taking into consideration the various needs as assessed by the "Supportive Care Needs Survey", physical and daily living were the most frequently reported needs with emphasis on nutrition, coping with physical symptoms, dealing with side effects of treatment, and performing usual physical tasks and activities. Conclusion: Information demand seemed moderate but a great deal of attention was paid to nutrition and well-being. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

The application of neoglycopeptides in the development of sensitive surface plasmon resonance-based biosensors

The development of a biosensor based on surface plasmon resonance is described for the detection of carbohydrate-binding proteins in solution on a Biacore 2000 instrument, using immobilized glycopeptides as ligands. Their selection was based on previous screenings of solid-phase glycopeptide libraries with Ricinus communis agglutinin (RCA120) and human adhesion/growth-regulatory galectin-1 (h-Gal-1). Glycopeptides were immobilized on Au sensor chips functionalized with mixed self-assembled monolayers of different ratios of 11-mercapto-1-undecanol and 11-mercaptoundecanoic acid, and of 3-mercapto-1- propanol and 11-mercaptoundecanoic acid. The biosensors were optimized for the detection of RCA120, and a detection limit of 0.13nMwas obtained. Subsequent experiments with h-Gal-1 indicated a detection limit of at least 0.9nM for this lectin. Additionally, the effect of interfering proteins on the sensitivity of the optimized biosensor was investigated