| 1. |
- Binda, Federico, 1987-
(author)
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Liquid scintillators as neutron diagnostic tools for fusion plasmas : System characterization and data analysis
- 2018
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The neutrons produced in fusion devices carry information about various properties of the ions that are reacting in the machine. Measurements of the neutron flux and energy distribution can therefore be used to study the behaviour of the plasma ions under different experimental conditions.Several neutron detection techniques are available, each having advantages and disadvantages compared to the others. In this thesis we study neutron measurements performed with NE213 liquid scintillators. One advantage of NE213s compared to other neutron detection techniques is that they are simple to use, small and cheap. On the other hand, their response to neutrons makes the extraction of information about the neutron energy less precise.In the thesis we present the development of methods for the characterization and the data analysis of NE213 detectors. The work was performed using two instruments installed at the Joint European Torus (JET) tokamak in the UK: the “Afterburner” detector, which is an NE213 installed on a tangential line of sight, and the neutron camera, which is a system composed of 19 NE213 detectors installed on different lines of sight (10 horizontal and 9 vertical).The analysis of data from the Afterburner detector was focused on resolving different features of the neutron energy spectra which are related to different properties of the ion velocity distribution.The analysis of data from the neutron camera was directed towards the investigation of the spatial distribution of ions in the plasma. However, the individual characterization of the camera detectors allowed the inclusion of information about the energy distribution of the ions in the analysis.The outcomes of the studies performed indicate that the methods developed give reliable results and can therefore be applied to extract information about the plasma ions. In particular, the possibility of performing neutron emission spectroscopy analysis in each line of sight of a neutron camera is of great value for future studies.
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| 2. |
- Granström, Therese, 1969-
(author)
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Patient-reported and medical outcomes in patients treated for diabetic macular edema : A real-world longitudinal study
- 2020
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Background Diabetes mellitus can lead to complications, when the complication affects the eyes it is called retinopathy. This can affect the macula and lead to severe loss of vision, diabetic macular edema (DME). This condition has traditionally been treated with laser. However, in 2011, anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) injections in the eye were approved as a treatment for diabetic macular edema, and started to be used in eye clinics.Aim The overall aim of this thesis was to describe patient-reported outcomes and medical outcomes (PRO) in people treated for diabetic macular edema in a real-world setting in a long-time follow-up study in Sweden.Methods Participants were enrolled at two eye clinics at two county hospitals in Sweden between 2012 and 2014. Patient-reported outcomes were measured using a vision-specific questionnaire, the 25-question National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire (NEI-VFQ-25) and a generic questionnaire, the Short Form-36 Health Survey (SF-36). Completed questionnaires, medical data such as visual acuity (EDRS), macula swelling (OCT) and social background characteristics were collected before treatment start, at one-year and four-year follow up points. The data was analyzed, descriptive statistics developed and comparative analyses were performed. Interviews were performed before treatment start and were analyzed using qualitative content analysis.Results A total of 59 participants were included at baseline. The mean age was 69 years, with an equal gender distribution. At baseline, the participants scored a low general health with the vision-specific questionnaire. In total, 21 participants were interviewed, and a theme emerged of ‘being at a crossroads and a crucial phase in life with an uncertain outcome’. The participants expressed thoughts and concerns at different levels, including practical concerns about the treatment procedure and more existential thoughts about hope for improved visual acuity or fear of deterioration. The results at the one-year follow up showed that 30 patients had improved visual acuity and reported an improvement in several subscales in the NEI VFQ-25. The remaining 27 participants had no improvement in visual acuity or in the vision specific questionnaire. The four-year follow-up involved 37 people, and the result showed significant improvement in subjective near-vision activities and improved distance visual acuity.Conclusion: Before treatment, the participants reported low general health and expressed concerns about the injection treatment and their vision. One year after treatment started, the results showed significant improvement in several NEI VFQ-25 subscales, decreased macula swelling and improved visual acuity. These positive results remained at the four-year follow-up point.
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| 3. |
- Nord, Catharina, 1956-
(author)
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The visible patient. Hybridity and inpatient ward design in a Namibian context.
- 2003
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Even if one is confident that the staff provide the bestpossible treatment, being admitted into hospital is still astressful situation. In recent decades, architecturalresearchers have elaborated on aspects of the patient'sperspective where the design of the physical environment maypositively enhance the healing experience. The emergingunderstanding reveals that this is not an issue to be solvedsimply by decorative design, for it entails the spatialinterpretation and integration of broader and deeper facets ofhuman response, within which suffering, empathy andprofessional care are embraced.This thesis elucidates the patients' use of space accordingto their cultural perceptions in two inpatient wards in aregional hospital in northwestern Namibia. The study appliescase study methodology with the focus on the interactionbetween patients, visitors and nursing staff in relation to thephysical environment.The theoretical basis within medical anthropologyconceptualises sickness as a cultural event in the dual notionillness and disease, signifying two ways of understandingsickness, the individual and the professional interpretations.The Foucauldian theory on discipline and space suggests thatthe biomedical discipline is spatially represented by themodern hospital, from which aspects of illness areexcluded.The results show that circumstances in the physicalenvironment highly influence the patients' illness experienceby possessing certain qualities or by the activities renderedpossible by spatial conditions. The two wards possess manymodern qualities adding to an enclosed and restrictingenvironment. Patients come from a culturally dynamic andchanging context where new approaches to healthcare andhospital physical space are generated. Whereas patients haveintegrated hospital-based biomedicine as a medical alternative,modern hospital space cannot accommodate certain patient needs.Patients, visitors and nursing staff negotiate space in orderto overcome spatial weaknesses. Family members' overnightaccommodation in the hospital, as well as their voluntarycontribution to patient care, are two important aspects whichare not spatially incorporated.An alternative ward design is suggested in which patients'and family members' active participation in the healing processis encouraged, with support from the nursing staff. The higherflexibility the design offers caters for the spatialintegration of future hybrid processes.
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| 4. |
- Tinghög, Petter, 1973-
(author)
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Migration, Stress and Mental Ill Health : Post-migration Factors and Experiences in the Swedish Context
- 2009
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This predominantly empirical dissertation deals with how socio-economic living conditions and immigrant-specific factors can be linked to immigrants’ mental ill health. It is also explored how cultural representations can affect stress and whether mental ill health is expressed differently among immigrants from Iraq and Iran than among individuals of Nordic origin. Moreover, a conceptual analysis is conducted, where a phenomenological conceptualisation of stress is outlined with a special focus on how this stress approach can be related to culture and migration.The empirical material consists of eleven in-depth interviews with Iraqi and Iranian immigrant women and two population-based surveys.The main findings of this thesis suggest as follows: 1) Mental ill health is more common among foreign-born than among native-born Swedes and can to a great extent be attributed to their poorer socio-economic living conditions. 2) Immigrants’ mental health is independently associated with different types of factors, such as traumatic episodes, socio-cultural adaptation level and socioeconomic living conditions. 3) The self-reporting mental health instruments, HSCL-25 and WHO (ten) Wellbeing Index, produce scores that are comparable between Scandinavians and immigrants of Middle Eastern descent. 4) Nonuniversal representations that can be found in Iraq and Iran can amplify, or even be necessary ingredients in certain types of stressful experiences among immigrant women from these countries. 5) The distinctions between universal and non-universal stress, and between immigrant/minority and non-immigrant/nonminority stress appear to be crucial for an adequate comprehension of immigrants’ stressful experiences.
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| 5. |
- Agic, Haris
(author)
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Hope Rites : An Ethnographic Study of Mechanical Help-Heart Implantation Treatment
- 2012
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis is about cultural aspects of advanced medical technology for treating end-stage heart failure. New medical technologies like mechanical help-hearts save lives, but they also bring new uncertainties, risks, and challenges. Based on nine months of ethnographic field work in a Swedish academic hospital, this study examines the ways of managing uncertainties of end-stage heart failure and of high-tech treatment, and also how these practices tie into the shared understandings of life-threatening chronic illness, the body, and medical technology’s role.This study draws on anthropological discussions of healing rituals as an analytical tool to make sense of social and cultural dimensions of mechanical help-heart implantation treatment. Viewed as a ritual, this treatment creates and maintains hope as a virtue through which possibilities of new medical technology are justified as culturally approved ways of handling the uncertainties of severe heart failure and mechanical help-heart treatment. Ultimately, even when treatment is regarded as successful, the patients may be saved but are never really ‘cured’ and remain, thus, permanently tied to the world of medicine. This new mode of existence is characterized by paradoxical permanent transit between uncertainty and hope.
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| 6. |
- Andersson, Agneta, 1967-
(author)
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Health economic studies on advanced home care
- 2002
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The aim of this thesis was to examine the cost-effectiveness of specific advanced home care and home rehabilitation interventions and to improve economic evaluation methods when applied to advanced home care. This included a comparison of two alternative ways of administering oxygen at home to patients with chronic hypoxaemia, as well as a review of scientific evidence on costs and effects of home rehabilitation after stroke. Also included were studies on prominent methodological issues in advanced home care - the redistribution of care efforts among caregivers and costing of informal care efforts. For patients with chronic hypoxaemia, a randomised, controlled trial showed that mobile liquid oxygen was considerably more costly compared to concentrator treatment. However, the treatment effects showed that liquid oxygen had a better impact on patient quality of life. The literature review revealed that the outcomes and costs of home rehabilitation after stroke are equal to those of alternative treatment strategies. Similar results were obtained in a study comparing hospital-based and home-based stroke rehabilitation, which also showed that there is a considerable redistribution of costs between health care providers and social welfare providers. Studies of patients in advanced home care in the county of Östergötland, Sweden, showed that the cost of informal care constitutes a considerable part of the care effort in all costing approaches used. Also, informal care costs were higher among patients who were men, who were younger, who had their own housing and had a cancer diagnosis. This thesis reveals that advanced home care interventions can differ regarding costs as well as effects, and thus comparisons between alternative home care interventions must also be performed. Further, redistribution effects are important to consider in evaluations. The cost of informal care is substantial in advanced home care. These costs must be included in evaluations with a societal perspective or else the comparisons will be biased.
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| 7. |
- Antelius, Eleonor, 1978-
(author)
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Different Voices - Different Stories : Communication, identity and meaning among people with acquired brain damage
- 2009
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The main purpose of the dissertation is to understand meaning-making practices used by people suffering from acquired brain damage with severe physical and communicative disabilities, in order to create and sustain their identity and personhood in relation to other people. The study emanates from the idea that identity and personhood, also in relation to disability, are created/sustained in ongoing interaction between people in everyday situations, and that the ability to narrate is central to such a creation of identity. Therefore, it is of particular interest to try to understand what communicative and storytelling abilities/possibilities people with severe acquired brain damage have in presenting their identity.The study is ethnographic and based upon a year-long field study of participant observations at a day centre for people with acquired brain damage. Gathered data consist of written field notes, informal interviews conducted with both participants and personnel and approximately 70 hours of video data.The study shows how an identity as ‘severely disabled’ is created in the co-created storytelling between participants and personnel and that this identity seems to mean that one is dependent upon others to get along in everyday life at least if one listens only to spoken stories. Yet the study also shows that there exist different opinions about what this identity as ‘severely disabled’ could mean that there is a wish among the participants to be able to present a desirable identity as “normal”, and that such an identity comes to mean to be independent and self-determined. Normality, however, must be understood in relation to surrounding society (and the grand cultural narratives that surround us). Thus the study shows that normality in relation to severe disabilities is almost impossible to achieve because normality in relation to illness/disease/body contains the hope of a cure or an improvement. The participants in this study, however, have all been labelled as incurable – there is no hope of such a cure or improvement. That, on the other hand, does not mean that the participants do not try to tell such stories anyway in their quest to achieve this desirable identity. However, in order to hear this story we need to listen to stories that usually remain untold. A palpable hierarchy between different modes of language use was identified, where verbal/spoken language is supreme, resulting in the disabled participants not being perceived as competent interactors/communicators due to their difficulties in using verbal communication. Hence their ways of creating/telling stories, through embodiment and enactment, are not recognised as valid ways to create/tell stories; this is discussed in relation to both practical implications for health care settings as well as for further narrative research.
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| 8. |
- Berzell, Martin, 1976-
(author)
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Electronic Healthcare Ontologies : Philosophy, the real world and IT structures
- 2010
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The thesis investigates how the notion of ‘ontology’ has been used in the field of medical informatics and knowledge representation. Partly to investigate what an ‘ontology’ can be said to represent and what requirements we can have on a good ‘ontology’. The author studies the already existing medical terminologies and ‘ontologies’ to elucidate what theories they are based on. The terminological theories of Eugen Wüster and his legacy in medical informatics are studied. It is noted that terminological theories handling linguistic entities are not suited for describing and representing medical theories, since these are assumed to refer to the real world, which consists of more than linguistics entities.In order to find a metaphysical theory in accordance with the world view that medical theories describe, the author turn to the critical realism of Karl Popper, Roy Bhaskar and Ilkka Niiniluoto. These theories, taken together with the metaphysical theories regarding universals of David M Armstrong and Ingvar Johansson, are used as a basis to find out what an ‘ontology’ can be said to represent, and what criteria and requirements we can have on a good ‘ontology’. Among the requirements presented in the thesis are stability, interoperability and the requirement that a good ‘ontology’ must be in accordance with our best available theories.Finally, it is discussed how these requirements and criteria can come into conflict with one another, and how one should reason when handling these trade-offs. The author emphasises the importance of including the medical expertise in the process of creating ‘ontologies’, in order to produce as useful and relevant ‘ontologies’ as possible.
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| 9. |
- Boman, John, 1971-
(author)
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Viljans vägar och villovägar : Den politiska diskussionen om klasskillnader i hälsa under 1980- och 90-talet
- 2002
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- On Devious Paths: The political intention to reduce social inequalities in health in the late 20th century. The ambition of this thesis is to try to detect what happened in the Swedish society when the ideal of equality more and more lost its potential of reality during the 1980s and 1990s. The object in focus is, from this understanding of the contemporary society, to analyse how the Swedish State handled social inequalities in health during this period. This political activity is mainly analysed from Zygmunt Bauman's, Pierre Bourdieu's and Michel Foucault's theories and concepts. Theoretically, the activity can be summarised in three phases: Initially, there was the unreliability on the field that disturbed the political discussion. When a relative reliability was created the field transformed into an apparatus in Pierre Bourdieu's sense. Finally, as a consequence of the apparatisation, the inequalities in health become a non-problem. The thesis is concluded by thoughts about whether there is a fourth phase, when not even the apparatus is able to mediate the complexity of the problems of the area, when the non-problem no longer works as a state legitimation act, when homo valens (the capable human being) instead of homo saluber (the healthy human being) becomes the supreme ideal in society.
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| 10. |
- Bülow, Per, 1953-
(author)
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Efter mentalsjukhuset : en studie i spåren av avinstitutionaliseringen av den psykiatriska vården
- 2004
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The focus of this thesis is the reorganisation of psychiatric care, the deinstitutionalisation process, which has been carried through in Sweden and other countries in the western world. Psychiatric care has been both specialised and decentralised and new actors, outside the medical service, have been involved in care, support and service to people with severe mental illnesses. The deinstitutionalisation process has been followed by a constant debate about its merits and shortcomings. The critics assert that people with severe mental illnesses have been abandoned by an indifferent society, which has resulted in negative consequences like premature death, homelessness and criminalisation. The proponents of the process, on the other hand, state that people who previously lived their lives in mental hospitals and in the margin of the society now have regained their citizenship and can participate in community life.The overall aim of the thesis was to study and illuminate changes in care, support and service in the wake of the deinstitutionalisation process in Sweden. The study is a retrospective, longitudinal cohort study that extended over a period of 15 years, from 1984 to 1998. It takes its starting-point in one of the about thirty mental hospitals in Sweden at that time. Data were collected from "the Cause of death" Register at Statistics Sweden (SCB), the Swedish Police Register, the Social Insurance Office, from medical records, and via inquiry form from contact persons and staff close to the patients. Through the collected data changes in variables such as criminality, mortality, homelessness, treatment in inpatient and outpatient settings, daily activities, living conditions and other social conditions were followed over the lS-year period covering all 138 patients included in the study.The amount of days in hospitals decreased while attendance at outpatient clinics increased. There was a considerable increase in social service delivery in the form of housing and occupational support. However, many patients lacked social contacts outside their regularly visits at outpatient clinics. There were no increases in premature death or suicide and the criminality showed a decline between 1992-1998. The results of the study suggest that there are some reasons to adopt a positive attitude toward the deinstitutionalisation process in Sweden.
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