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Muna Aljahany,1 Haifaa Malaekah,2 Hayat Alzahrani,1 Fatimah Alhamadah,3 Wireen Leila Dator4 1Clinical Sciences Department, Faculty of Medicine, Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; 2Department of Surgery, Dr.Sulaiman Alhabib Hospital, Altakhasussi, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; 3Department of Surgery, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz University Hospital, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; 4Faculty of Nursing, Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi ArabiaCorrespondence: Haifaa MalaekahPrincess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, Airport Road, Riyadh, 11564, Saudi ArabiaTel +966118238711Email h_malaika@hotmail.comObjective: Since 2010, simulation-based learning has become increasingly popular as a well-recognized method of learning used by medical undergraduates in clinical settings. However, the relatively new concept of simulation-based peer-assisted learning has not yet been widely accepted, so it has not been well documented. Therefore, this study evaluated the perceived advantages of simulation-based peer-assisted learning among health professions students and interns and their acceptance of this new concept of learning from a student-instructor.Methods: This was a pilot study conducted with 11 students in various health profession fields at Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University (PNU). The students were given a comprehensive lecture on simulation scenario development and were assigned to four separate interdisciplinary teams for a practical session on simulation scenario writing. Then, they each completed a questionnaire seeking their opinion concerning their experience and concept understanding.Results: The results confirmed the advantages of interprofessional simulation-based peer-assisted learning as it helped in understanding the process as perceived by the study participants. All students expressed their willingness and enthusiasm to use simulation as a technique for peer-assisted learning.Conclusion: The study affirms the importance of developing student teachers’ teaching skills at an institutional level. The future implementation of simulation-based peer-assisted learning is dependent on the students’ awareness of the concept. By exploring a new dimension of medical education, the student teachers could expand their horizon of exposure to holistic case management and interactive learning and equip themselves with practical communication skills to excel in a real-world setting.Keywords: peer-assisted learning, simulation-based learning, student teachers, interprofessional education, teaching skills

Mansour Abdullah Alshehri,1,2 Jamal Alzaidi,3 Sultan Alasmari,3 Ali Alfaqeh,3 Mohammad Arif,3 Sultan Falh Alotaiby,4 Hosam Alzahrani5 1Physiotherapy Department, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, Umm Al-Qura University, Mecca, Saudi Arabia; 2NHMRC Centre of Clinical Research Excellence in Spinal Pain, Injury and Health, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia; 3Medical Rehabilitation Department, Makkah Health Affairs General Directorate, Mecca, Saudi Arabia; 4Physiotherapy Department, Hira General Hospital, Mecca, Saudi Arabia; 5Physiotherapy Department, College of Applied Medical Science, Taif University, Taif, Saudi ArabiaCorrespondence: Mansour Abdullah AlshehriPhysiotherapy Department, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, Umm Al-Qura University, Al Awali, Mecca, 24381, Saudi ArabiaTel +966569693637Email mamshehri@uqu.edu.saBackground: Musculoskeletal pain is a primary burden on individuals as well as social and health care systems. Annually, 2– 3 million pilgrims perform the Hajj in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The Hajj is highly physically demanding because pilgrims generally move by foot for long distances among a series of religious sites, an effort that may exceed their typical levels of physical activity. To understand the impact of musculoskeletal pain on the completion of the Hajj, it is first necessary to evaluate the extent of the problem. Accordingly, this study aimed to estimate the prevalence of musculoskeletal pain and associated factors among pilgrims during the Hajj.Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted during the period of the Hajj. The participants were adult pilgrims ≥ 18 years of age. Data regarding demographics, the prevalence of falls and the point prevalence of musculoskeletal pain by anatomical site were recorded. Participants were allowed to report more than one site of pain. Prevalence, crude and adjusted risk ratios were calculated.Results: A total of 1715 pilgrims were included in the analysis. The prevalence of falls was 13.76%. The prevalence of overall musculoskeletal pain (pain at any site) was 80.46%. Musculoskeletal pain was most commonly reported in the ankle/foot (38.34%), leg (29.89%), lower back (28.47%) and knee (21.84%). In general, musculoskeletal pain at multiple sites was more common in females and in older and obese individuals. However, there were variations in the importance of sex, age and body mass index as associated factors across different pain sites.Conclusion: Musculoskeletal pain is common among pilgrims. Unlike most populations examined in other studies, ankle/foot pain was the most common in pilgrims. These data provide guidance for potential preventative programs and the allocation of resources to optimize pilgrims’ experiences and ability to complete the Hajj.Keywords: musculoskeletal pain, falls, sex, age, BMI, Hajj

Huda Alzahrani,1 Haya Mohammad Almalag,2 Yazed AlRuthia,2,3 Fawaz Al-hussain,4 Bander Balkhi,2,3 Lama Almutairi,1 Reem Algasem,5 Edward B De Vol,6 Manal Rashed Almarzouqi,6 Abdulaziz Alsemari7 1Department of Pharmacy, King Saud University Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; 2Department of Clinical Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; 3Pharmacoeconomics Research Unit, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; 4Department of Medicine, Neurology Division, College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; 5Department of Pharmaceutical Care, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; 6Department of Epidemiology and Scientific Computing, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; 7Department of Neurosciences, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi ArabiaCorrespondence: Yazed AlRuthiaDepartment of Clinical Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi ArabiaTel +996 11 4677483Fax +966 11 4677480Email yazeed@ksu.edu.saBackground: Antiepileptic drug monotherapy is the mainstay of treatment for epilepsy; however, the efficacy of different antiepileptic drugs in reducing the incidence of seizure-related hospitalization among older adults, who are at higher risk of developing epilepsy compared to their younger counterparts, has not been examined.Purpose: The objective of the present study was to compare the rate of seizure-related hospitalization among older adults on levetiracetam compared to different antiepileptic drugs (AEDs).Patients and methods: This was a retrospective cohort study of older adults (≥60 years) in two tertiary care hospitals. Patients who are 60 years of age and older, have a confirmed diagnosis of epilepsy, and are taking a single and the same antiepileptic drug for at least 36 months were included. The patients were followed up for 24 months after 12 months of treatment with no incidence of seizure-related hospitalization via their health records. Multiple Poisson regression with robust error variance was used to estimate the relative risk of hospitalization for patients on levetiracetam compared to different antiepileptic drugs controlling for age, gender, number of prescription medications, dosage strengths, and Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) score.Results: One hundred and thirty-six patients met the inclusion criteria and were included in the study. The recruited patients were on one of the following four antiepileptic drugs: carbamazepine (n=44), levetiracetam (n=39), phenytoin (n=31), and valproic acid (n=22). Patients on levetiracetam were more than twice as likely to be hospitalized due to seizures within the 24 months of follow-up compared to their counterparts on other AEDs (RR=2.76, 95% CI=1.16–6.53, P=0.021).Conclusion: This study suggests that older adults on old generation AEDs such as phenytoin, carbamazepine, and valproic acid appear to have a lower risk of seizure-related hospitalization compared to their counterparts on levetiracetam.Keywords: seizures, hospitalization, levetiracetam, carbamazepine, phenytoin, valproic acid

What does it mean when we say that two simple tilings or two simple tiling spaces are equivalent? There are several different notions that explain this, as we will see in this article. By introducing a topology on tiling spaces, there is a notion of a continuous map f:Ω→Ω between two tiling spaces Ω,Ω′. The map f is a homeomorphism if f is 1−1, onto and f−1 is also continuous. For a homeomorphism between simple tiling hulls, we only need to check whether f is continuous, 1−1 and onto, since f−1 is automatically continuous as ΩT is compact. Next, we want to consider continuous maps respectively homeomorphisms, which interact properly with the action of the isometry group on the tiling spaces.

Welcome to the Book of Abstracts for the 2018 SPARC conference. This year we not only celebrate the work of our PGRs but also the launch of our Doctoral School, which makes this year’s conference extra special. Once again we have received a tremendous contribution from our postgraduate research community; with over 100 presenters, the conference truly showcases a vibrant PGR community at Salford. These abstracts provide a taster of the research strengths of their works, and provide delegates with a reference point for networking and initiating critical debate. With such wide-ranging topics being showcased, we encourage you to take up this great opportunity to engage with researchers working in different subject areas from your own. To meet global challenges, high impact research inevitably requires interdisciplinary collaboration. This is recognised by all major research funders. Therefore engaging with the work of others and forging collaborations across subject areas is an essential skill for the next generation of researchers.

The paper describes a theoretical analysis of the adsorption of nicotinamide and propranolol onto a magnetic-activated carbon (MAC). For a better evaluation of the adsorption mechanism, adsorption isotherms expressing the variation of the adsorption capacity as function of adsorbate concentration were determined at different temperatures ranging from 20 to 45 °C. For both the analytes, experimental tests reveal that adsorption capacity increases with temperature. An advanced multi-layer model derived from the statistical physics is set for the interpretation of the entire adsorption data set. The modelling results show that the propranolol molecules change their adsorption orientation from a mixed (parallel and non-parallel) orientation to a multimolecular process. For nicotinamide, the aggregation of molecules is practically absent, except for the data at lower temperatures. The model allows stating that the adsorption of both the pharmaceutical compounds occurs via the formation of one or two layers on MAC adsorbent, the propranolol showing a higher tendency to form multiple layers. Finally, adsorption energy is estimated suggesting that the adsorption is endothermic and physical interactions are the responsible of the adsorption of both the compounds onto MAC adsorbent.

Aplastic anemia (AA) is a serious hematological disorder, which is solely cured by hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Haploidentical HSCT is an emerging modality with encouraging outcomes in several blood conditions. The present study aims to comprehensively assess the feasibility and safety of haploidentical HSCT in patients with severe and very severe AA. It is a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies related to haploidentical stem cell transplantation in idiopathic AA investigating rates of successful engraftment, acute graft-versus-host disease (aGvHD), chronic GvHD (cGvHD), transplant-related mortality (TRM), and posttransplantation viral infections (including cytomegalovirus [CMV]) in patients with AA. The effects of reduced-intensity conditioning (RIC) and nonmyeloablative conditioning (NMA), as well as various GvHD prophylaxis regimens on these outcomes were evaluated. In total 15 studies were identified, (577 patients, 58.9% males), successful engraftment was observed in 97.3% of patients (95% CI, 95.9-98.7) while grades II-IV aGvHD and cGvHD were reported in 26.6% and 25.0%, respectively. The pooled incidence of TRM was 6.7% per year (95% CI, 4.0-9.4). RIC regimens were associated with higher proportions of successful engraftment (97.7% vs 91.7%, P = 0.03) and aGvHD (29.5% vs 18.7%, P = 0.008) when compared with NMA regimens with no differences in cGvHD or mortality incidence. When compared with methotrexate-containing regimens and other regimens, posttransplant cyclophosphamide-containing regimens reduced the rates of aGvHD (28.6%, 27.8%, and 12.8%, respectively, P = 0.02), CMV viremia (55.7%, 38.6%, and 10.4%, respectively, P < 0.001), and CMV disease in initially viremic patients (2.1%, 33.0%, and 0%, respectively, P < 0.001). We have concluded that Haploidentical HSCT was associated with promising outcomes in terms of successful engraftment and reduced complications. Future prospective trials are needed to identify the preferred conditioning regimen, GvHD prophylaxis, and graft source in the setting of haploidentical transplant for AA.

The worldwide prevalence of insufficient physical activity (PA) and prolonged sedentary behavior (SB) were high before the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Measures that were taken by governments (such as home confinement) to control the spread of COVID-19 may have affected levels of PA and SB. This cross-sectional study among South American adults during the first months of COVID-19 aims to (i) compare sitting time (ST), screen exposure, moderate PA (MPA), vigorous PA (VPA), and moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) before and during lockdown to sociodemographic correlates and (ii) to assess the impact of lockdown on combinations of groups reporting meeting/not-meeting PA recommendations and engaging/not-engaging excessive ST (≥7 h/day). Bivariate associations, effect sizes, and multivariable linear regressions were used. Adults from Argentina (n = 575) and Chile (n = 730) completed an online survey with questions regarding demographics, lifestyle factors, and chronic diseases. Mean reductions of 42.7 and 22.0 min./day were shown in MPA and VPA, respectively, while increases of 212.4 and 164.3 min./day were observed in screen and ST, respectively. Those who met PA recommendations and spent &lt, 7 h/day of ST experienced greatest changes, reporting greater than 3 h/day higher ST and more than 1.5 h/day lower MVPA. Findings from the present study suggest that efforts to promote PA to South American adults during and after COVID-19 restrictions are needed.