Search

Music therapy and the use of music in medical practice have now become rapidly advancing and promising areas of non-invasive alternative medicine. However, the opinions of physicians and therapists on the implementation of this complementary therapy, especially in the process of treating the patient, are constantly different. In addition, the effect of music and individual methodological procedures are not uniform and defined in detail. Therefore, this review study summarizes the results and conclusions of some selected high-quality publications over the last decade and makes suggestions for improvement and further research. It focuses mainly on the evaluation of changes in heart rate variability (HRV) as an indicator of the activity of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) in connection with the application of music in the process of passive music therapy.

In recent years there has been an increase in development of electromagnetic (EM) technology in the telecommunication industry, resulting in an increase in human non-ionizing exposure. This fact has initiated a number of scientific studies on possible health effects of EM fields on human organism. Totally four representative microenvironments were investigated for RF EM fields distribution, namely: city center, residential area, rural area, and extra-village area. Each microenvironment was measured 20 times in accordance with the International Commission for Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) guidelines. The extra-village measurements were taken as the base values that reflect the E-field intensities with the lowest amplitudes. The statistical analysis revealed notable statistical significance (p < 0.001) in almost all measured frequency bands except the Wi-Fi where the p-values were less than 0.05 for the city center and residential area but not significant for rural area. The highest total E-field intensity was measured in the residential area (approximately 1.85 V/m). All measured values were below the legal limits of the Slovak Republic and ICNIRP safety guidelines. However, the ICNIRP safety limits were written in 1998 considering only the thermal effects of RF radiation. They were updated in 2009 without any changes in the limits and still recommend 27.5 – 61 V/m (2 – 10 W/m2) for the RF frequency band of 400–2,000 MHz. The BioInitiative Report of 2012 established the scientific benchmark for possible health risks as 30–60 μW/m2 (approximately 0.1 – 0.15 V/m). Thus, all measured values were above the scientifically derived limits.

Upper airways (UA) are an organic component of the respiratory tract, they serve to respiration, respiratory tract protection and defense, phonation, deglutition, etc. The functions of UA are regulated by motor control of the oral, pharyngeal, and laryngeal muscles.

The aim of our study was to investigate acute post-radiation changes after therapy with ionizing radiation manifested by erythema or dry, squamous and scurfy skin on a breast. We observed 100 female patients suffering from an early stage of breast carcinoma. The entering criteria were: age below 70 years, 100% of the Karnofsky s Score, no tumor bilaterality, tumor in the stage of T1 or T2. The female patients had finished nonradical surgery consisting from quadrantectomy and deviation of the axilla. Our results showed relationships between the localization and the level of breast skin change as well as between adjuvant chemotherapy and the level of breast skin change and, finally, between the size of the average dose of high energy radiation and the level of breast skin change.

Methods that had been applied to study central neuronal circuits regulating cough and respiratory reflexes so far rely on recording performed in vivo, ex vivo, micro injecting and lesion methods. Based on the available data it is clear that this network is complicated, multilevel, holarchical, undergoing reconfiguration under afferent inputs. For many students and researchers it is complicated to get a virtual spatial image of these cooperating neuronal populations. The project was aimed to create graphical three-dimensional computer model of the brainstem using environment MATLAB and the matrix algebra to visualize neuron localization within the brainstem. Relevant data for the model had been taken from recent and also former research papers published in particular areas. This model may help scientists to visualize groups of neurons, help them to find targets for microinjecting or lesion studies together with stereotaxic positioning. The model is upgradeable and highly flexible for future use, research and teaching applications in MATLAB environment. MATLAB is a high-level language and interactive environment that enables you to perform computationally intensive tasks faster than with traditional programming languages