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Introduction: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disorder with an inexorably progressive course which leads to a progressive neuromuscular weakness. Weight loss is one of the major bad prognostic factors in ALS. The placement of percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) is of paramount importance in patients with dysphagia to improve the disease outcomes, although some fear exists regarding the possible ventilatory complications during the procedure. The aim of this study was to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of PEG tube insertion under non-invasive ventilation (NIV) in patients with ALS and severe ventilatory impairment. Methods: A retrospective study of all consecutive PEGs placed in our department from May 2011 to January 2018 in patients with ALS was performed. The procedure was performed under non-invasive positive-pressure ventilation for ventilatory support. Results: We included 59 patients with ALS with severe ventilatory impairment, 58% were female, with a mean age of 67.2 ± 10.1 years and a median follow-up of 6 [2-15] months. The main indication for PEG placement was dysphagia (98%). The median time for PEG tube insertion since the established diagnosis of ALS was 12 [6-25] months and 4 [2-18] months since the beginning of bulbar symptoms. The majority of the patients had placed a 20-Fr PEG (63%) and under mild sedation with midazolam (80%), all under NIV. There were no immediate complications during and after the procedure (no episodes of aspiration or orotracheal intubation) and mortality. Conclusion: The placement of PEG is a very important procedure in patients with ALS and severe ventilatory impairment. The interdisciplinary department collaboration permitted the placement of PEG under NIV, in a safe and effective procedure in this special population.

The aim of this systematic review is to synthesize the literature focusing on empirical studies conducted on the attitude of health professionals towards the use of AI in a health care context. Based on this objective, the following research questions were proposed to guide this review: RQ: How can health professionals’ attitudes towards IA application in a healthcare context be characterized in terms of valence (positive vs. negative)? In addition to this research question, we sought to further explore other relevant aspects that may allow a better understanding of health professionals attitudes towards IA use and also allow providing preliminary information that may be relevant to predict their usage intentions. Hence, a set of specific exploratory research questions was also considered: RQ1. What demographic and psychosocial factors have been identified in the literature as predictors of practitioners' attitudes toward the use of AI in healthcare settings? RQ2. What knowledge do healthcare professionals have about medical AI and what sources do they use to gain knowledge about medical AI? RQ3. What are the potential benefits and risks identified by practitioners?

Monitoring how different people – as "social sensors" – evaluate and respond to crisis such as pandemics, allows tailoring crisis communication to the social perceptions of the situation, at different moments. To gather such evidence, we proposed a measure of social perceptions of systemic risk (SPSR), as an indicator of a situational threat compromising risks to physical health, psychological health, the economy, social relations, health system, and others. This indicator was the core of a social sensing approach applied to crisis situations, implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic through a content analysis of more than 130000 public comments from Facebook™ users, in COVID-19 related publications. This content coding allowed creating a SPSR index monitored during a one-year descriptive longitudinal analysis. This index correlated with co-occurring events within the social system, namely epidemiological indicators across measurement cycles (e.g., new deaths; cumulative number of infection cases; Intensive Care Unit hospitalizations) and tended to reflect the epidemiological situation severity (e.g., with the highest level registered during the worst pandemic wave). However, discrepancies also occurred, with high SPSR registered in a low severity situation, i.e. low number of hospitalizations and deaths (e.g., school year beginning), or low SPSR in a high severity situation (e.g., 2nd pandemic wave during Christmas), showing other factors beyond the epidemiological situation contributing to the social perceptions. After each “crisis period” with SPSR peaking, there was a “restoration period”, consistently decreasing towards average levels of the previous measurement cycle. This can either indicate social resilience (recovery and resources potentiation) or risk attenuation after a high-severity period. This study serves as preliminary proof of concept of a crises social sensing approach, enabling monitoring of social system dynamics for various crisis types, such as health crisis or climate crisis.

Norms for Emoji and Emoticons in Seven Evaluative Dimensions

Lusiadas Scientific Journal, Vol. 3 No. 1 (2022): JANUARY | MARCH