Diabetes mellitus is characterised by persistent hyperglycemia in all species. Fructosamine is a glycated protein reflecting blood glucose concentration during the preceding weeks. It has become a valuable analysis to differentiate persistent hyperglycemia from transient stress induced hyperglycemia in cats. It is also used to evaluate current therapy in diabetic patients. Although fructosamine is a well accepted analysis, it is sometimes regarded with scepticism.

Background Calprotectin is a protein expressed in the cytoplasm inside the neutrophile granulocytes. During inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), the neutrophile granulocytes are involved in a complex interaction at the inflammatory area where they die and release their content into the intestinal lumen. Therefore, calprotectin in stool is a suitable marker for diagnosis and measurement of the disease-activity in patients with IBD. The most commonly used method to detect calprotectin in stool is ELISA, but the process of manual preparation of stool samples is time-consuming.Aim The objective of the study was to evaluate an extraction method that could replace manual preparation of fecal samples and to compare different methods for measuring Calprotectin in stool using two ELISA-methods from two manufacturers and one rapidtest.Methods For extraction of calprotectin from stool samples we used sample collector tubes from Epitope Diagnostics and fecal preparation kits from Roche. Two different ELISA-kits for measuring calprotectin concentration in stool were compared.

Palliative care is a care that focuses on providing end of life care but not to delay or hasten death. Despite training, nurses often show a lack of knowledge in attitude, ethics and healthcare issues of palliative care. The nurse in palliative care has a central role in caring of the dying patient and therefore a big responsibility. However, palliative care is a low priority in basic training. The aim of this study is to investigate the roles of nurses in palliative care and if there is a need for increased education in the subject.

Background: Diabetes mellitus Type 1 is one of the most common chronicle diseases in childhood. This signifies big changes in the daily life for the child and its family. Aim: The aim of the study was to illustrate the family?s situation when the child falls ill in Type 1 diabetes. Method: The search for literature has been done both manually and in databases.

Background: Pressure ulcers have during a long time ages caused great suffering for the patients. The factors affecting the occurrence of pressure ulcers can be both internal and external, such as immobility and malnutrition. Nurses´ role is to assess risks and thus pay attention to prevent and treat pressure ulcers. The nurse may use various assessment tools to highlight and document patients at risk for developing pressure ulcers. Aim: This study was to describe health professionals´ thoughts and actions about the pressure ulcers.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of physical activity for people suffering from depression and which nursing interventions nurses can do to make this patients start to exercise. The method used, is a review of articles from Ci-nahl, Cochrane, Elin, PsycInfo, Pubmed and Science Direct, which were analyzed according to Polit och Hunglers criteria for scientific research. The result from the nine studies shows that physical activity has an antidepressive and anxiety reduc-ing effect. Interventions emerged is supporting, encouraging, activating and teach-ing about physical activity as health-promoting measure. Conclusion: Nurses can as an intervention introduce exercise as complementary treatment for people suffering from depression.

This thesis has been carried out in collaboration with two students at the Department of Dental Medicine at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. The aim of this project was to construct a computerized decision support system to facilitate diagnosis of changes in the Oral Mucosa using information collected by the above mentioned students. A program which poses specic questions to the user was constructed with the Java programming language. Depending on how these questions were answered, one or more possible diagnoses were presented by the program. In order to conclude whether or not this program was of any use in terms of time savings, a series of tests were run and timed both when using the program and when not.

Bakgrund: Självskadebeteende startar ofta i tidiga tonåren men orsaken grundar sig i traumatiska upplevelser i barndomen. Beteendet är en medveten handling som utförs för att dämpa den psykiska smärtan och resulterar i en vävnadsskada. Patienterna anser sig ofta bli stigmatiserade och behandlade som objekt när de istället behöver känna stöd och förståelse från personalen i omvårdnaden. Syfte: Att belysa patienter med självskadebeteende, deras upplevelser av sitt beteende och av omvårdnadspersonalens förhållningssätt vid mötet i omvårdnaden. Metod: En litteraturstudie baserad på 11 vetenskapliga artiklar.

The aim of this descriptive literature study was to describe the patients? experience of the need for social support and the choice of coping strategies during treatment for eating disorders. Further, the authors wanted to describe the relationship with the parents and also to highlight the caring relationship between nurse and patient. Results that came to light, concerning the patients? experience, were that patients with eating disorders, in a majority of studies, indicated a deficient social network.

Changes in swallowing function are common in elderly and chronically ill individuals. Therefore it is important to be aware of these changes and their prevalence. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of dysphagia in nursing homes in the municipality of Linköping, and to correlate dysphagia with variables that can be a cause or a consequence of dysphagia. These variables were gender, age, MMT-result, dentition, weight loss, medical diagnose or number of medications. The intention was also to examine the additional information regarding dysphagia supplied by pulse oximetry.Sixty nursing home residents aged 74-101 years were chosen to participate in the study.

Platelet aggregation is a major and common problem in blood samples from cats. This greatly affects the accuracy of counting of the platelets. Because of the difficulties in counting feline platelets, results for patients and reliable reference values for cat platelets are currently so inaccurate as to be almost useless in diagnosis of thrombocytopenia. In this study we used an effective method to prevent platelet aggregation. Blood was collected in CTAD test tubes and prostaglandin E1 was added to the blood sample.

Bakgrund: Dokumentationssystemet för sjuksköterskor har förändrats sedan sjuk-sköterskor blev skyldiga att dokumentera i patientjournalen. Detta har lett till att omvårdnaden har synliggjorts och därmed kan granskas. System för att kvalitetssäkra patientarbetet har med tiden arbetats fram, bl a VIPS-modellen och Melior. Sjuksköterskans dokumentationssystem är dock fortfarande i behov av utveckling. Syfte: Syftet var att undersöka sjuksköterskors skilda uppfattningar om omvårdnadsdokumentation. Metod: På ett sjukhus i södra Sverige genomfördes en fenomenografisk studie genom intervjuer av 11 sjuksköterskor. Resultat: Av 244 uppfattningar från intervjuerna skapades fem huvudkategorier och 12 subkategorier.

Several studies show that the clinical reality in psychiatric care does not correspond to the demand of consumer participation from a variety of policy documents that has been produced recently. Studies also show that there is a lot to do in improving, patients with sever mental illness, becoming more involved in their own care. The nurse has a central role in this work. The Norwegian nursing theorist Jan-Ka?re Hummelvolls holistic, existentialistic model for psychiatric nursing were used as theoretical ground.The aim of this study was to examine how nurses in psychiatric outpatient units, caring for patients with psychotic disorders, experiences consumer participation.Qualitative phenomenological method was used.

Trots att integritet har ett fundamentalt värde i vårt samhälle finns det ingen klar definition av vad begreppet verkligen innebär. Syftet med denna studie var att belysa innebörden av begreppet integritet såsom det visar sig i mötet mellan vårdpersonal och patient. Studien är gjord som en systematisk litteraturstudie och bygger på 10 kvalitativa empiriska studier som behandlar fenomenet integritet. Resultatet visar att integritet är ett begrepp som inrymmer flera dimensioner såsom autonomi, att bli sedd som individ, att bli tagen på allvar, det privata rummet, fysisk integritet, information, kulturell identitet, social identitet samt förlöjligande. Trots att både patienter och vårdgivare till stor del delar uppfattning om hur integritet kan bevaras eller hotas utsätts många patienter för kränkande handlingar i omvårdnadssituationer..

Background: Long-term stress can lead to reduced health among nurses which can result in impaired quality of care. Stress in nurses' work needs to be studied in order to prevent stress and impaired quality of care. Aim: The aim of this study was to describe nurses' experience of occupational stress and factors that contribute to occupational stress. Method: The method used was a literature review. Results: The analysis resulted in five themes which describe nurses' experiences of occupational stress and factors that contribute to occupational stress.