Healthcare Facilities Settings: An overview of Environmentally-induced Stress on Health

2015 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tan Yu-Tian ◽  
Choong Weng-Wai ◽  
Mohd. Tajudin Hj. Ninggal

The role of FM practitioners is to create an environment that sustains the primary objectives of the organisation. In managing healthcare facilities, the aim is to serve the healthcare users with efficient and quality medical environments in order to enhance the healing process. However, dysfunction that exists in environmental design is one of the issues often faced by the healthcare FM practitioners these days. Psychological stress is viewed as a consequence of design-behaviour dysfunction when the existing environmental design can no longer fit the need of users. With the possibility of certain environmental features to act as the sources of stressors, it is vital for FM practitioners to discover those features from the surrounding environment that appear to be harmful to the healthcare users. This paper provides an overview of the effect of the surrounding environment on stress. The association between environmentally induced-stress and the impacts of health is further discussed. Lastly, the application of evidence-based practice (EBP) is suggested in order to further the understanding for the association and intervention between environmental stressors and clinical outcomes. 

Molecules ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (21) ◽  
pp. 4876
Author(s):  
Emiliano Primo ◽  
Pablo Bogino ◽  
Sacha Cossovich ◽  
Emiliano Foresto ◽  
Fiorela Nievas ◽  
...  

Sinorhizobium meliloti is a soil bacterium of great agricultural importance because of its ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen in symbiotic association with alfalfa (Medicago sativa) roots. We looked into the involvement of exopolysaccharides (EPS) in its survival when exposed to different environmental stressors, as well as in bacteria–bacteria and bacteria–substrate interactions. The strains used were wild-type Rm8530 and two strains that are defective in the biosynthesis of EPS II: wild-type Rm1021, which has a non-functional expR locus, and mutant Rm8530 expA. Under stress by water deficiency, Rm8530 remained viable and increased in number, whereas Rm1021 and Rm8530 expA did not. These differences could be due to Rm8530′s ability to produce EPS II. Survival experiments under saline stress showed that viability was reduced for Rm1021 but not for Rm8530 or Rm8530 expA, which suggests the existence of some regulating mechanism dependent on a functional expR that is absent in Rm1021. The results of salinity-induced stress assays regarding biofilm-forming capacity (BFC) and autoaggregation indicated the protective role of EPS II. As a whole, our observations demonstrate that EPS play major roles in rhizobacterial survival.


Diversity ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 26
Author(s):  
Tyler Boggs ◽  
Joshua Gross

Extreme environmental features can drive the evolution of extreme phenotypes. Over the course of evolution, certain environmental changes may be so drastic that they lead to extinction. Conversely, if an organism adapts to harsh environmental changes, the adaptations may permit expansion of a novel niche. The interaction between environmental stressors and adaptive changes is well-illustrated by the blind Mexican cavefish, Astyanaxmexicanus, which has recurrently adapted to the stark subterranean environment. The transition from terrestrial rivers and streams (occupied by extant surface morphs of the same species) to the cave has been accompanied by the resorption of eyes, diminished pigmentation and reduced metabolism in cave-dwelling morphs. The principal features of caves most often associated with evolution of these common cave features are the absence of light and limited nutrition. However, a putatively essential cave feature that has received less attention is the frequently low concentration of oxygen within natural karst environments. Here, we review the potential role of limited oxygen as a critical environmental feature of caves in the Sierra de El Abra. Additionally, we review evidence that Astyanax cavefish may have evolved adaptive features enabling them to thrive in lower oxygen compared to their surface-dwelling counterparts.


2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mardelle M. Shepley ◽  
Mara Baum ◽  
Bill Rostenberg

The primary purpose of this study was to provide information regarding the design of healthcare facilities in the context of two important considerations, evidence-based design (EBD) andeco-effective design (EED). The secondary purpose was to test the effectiveness of research involving collaboration between practitioners and academic researchers, and the collaboration between EBD and EED professionals. The research team included designers and staff from a firm specializing in EBD andEED and a university researcher. Methods employed included focus groups, snowball surveys, and questionnaires. Practitioner focus groups specializing in EBD and EED identified critical questions that were translated into a 22-question, Likert and narrative-response survey. EBD and EED experts, via asnowball survey, selected the best practice institutions that would be the most appropriate recipients of a questionnaire that would address the role of EBD and EED. Administrators, representing theseinstitutions, participated in the survey. This study is significant in that it demonstrates that in spite of prior perceptions that EBD and EED are in conflict with one another, administrators perceived the twoas being fundamentally compatible. This conclusion is useful to designers and facility administrators by freeing them to incorporate both of these critical approaches in the design of new facilities. Observations are made regarding the collaborative process between practitioners and researchers.


2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 239-253
Author(s):  
John V. Petrocelli ◽  
Haley F. Watson ◽  
Edward R. Hirt

Abstract. Two experiments investigate the role of self-regulatory resources in bullshitting behavior (i.e., communicating with little to no regard for evidence, established knowledge, or truth; Frankfurt, 1986 ; Petrocelli, 2018a ), and receptivity and sensitivity to bullshit. It is hypothesized that evidence-based communication and bullshit detection require motivation and considerably greater self-regulatory resources relative to bullshitting and insensitivity to bullshit. In Experiment 1 ( N = 210) and Experiment 2 ( N = 214), participants refrained from bullshitting only when they possessed adequate self-regulatory resources and expected to be held accountable for their communicative contributions. Results of both experiments also suggest that people are more receptive to bullshit, and less sensitive to detecting bullshit, under conditions in which they possess relatively few self-regulatory resources.


2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (7) ◽  
pp. 2543-2548
Author(s):  
Petya Kasnakova

The games play a special role in rehabilitation practice. The positive emotions they cause in patients cannot be achieved by other methods and means of modern rehabilitation. The role of game playing activity in practice is crucial to the achievement of one of the important tasks in implementing rehabilitation measures, namely to evacuate the patient from the depressed mental state, to distract him from the disease process and to focus on mobilizing his healing powers. The mood, the emotional charge and the dynamics that the games create are particularly suited to awakening the patient's interest in the healing process, their attraction and their active involvement in the rehabilitation activities. The connection between the actions in the game and the movements in the analytical exercises accelerates the formation of motor habits, physical qualities and skills not only in children but also in adult patients with various pathological injuries. Rehabilitation games are suitable for all ages by enhancing the health of the occupants, developing their mental qualities, improving the activity of the vestibular, visual and motor analyzers. The basis of the motor movement training game methodology and the improvement of motor movement skills is the activation of the thought processes and emotional experiences, the development of the functions of the musculoskeletal system, the cardiovascular system and the respiratory system.


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