This assignment gives your first experience of reading and reacting to journal literature in Allied Health Research.  Many students never realize there's a world beyond the textbooks and so it's all new to them.  You learn that in your specialty there are things printed every day that are new.  You will have to keep up to maintain your professional competency.  Journals are a resource that you can use, both here in school and when you get out in a professional situation.  The assignment is carefully sequenced with clear due dates and instructions. 

I believe that all of you, as future health care professionals, should be aware of how you can keep up on new developments in allied health and the issues that surround them.  Therefore, the objectives of this assignment are to familiarize you with the available literature in medicine and allied health.  

To meet the objectives of the assignment, you will:

·         Read and study, in detail, one current article on a topic covered in class from any of the three journals mentioned above. 

·         You will submit two assigned journal articles as Discussion Forums, and you may submit 2 or more of your own for credit in ALHE4060.  Ask the instructor if you wish to submit more than 2.

Details of What You Need To Do: 

1.       Go to the library and check out the issues of the journal.  You can also use the Internet for a resource.

2.       TIP: Most Journals publish a subject index in their December issue.  This is extremely useful and convenient when performing searches on subjects. 

3.       Look through the selected article ass well as the rest of that issue of the journal and several other recent issues to get a clear understanding of:

4.       what kinds of information is published,

5.       what audience it is intended to serve

6.       Whether references for further information are given. 

7.       Complete the Journal Article Review Form and submit by the due date. 

To receive full credit for this assignment, you must answer all questions on the review form and submit it by the due date.  Here is the information you should submit to your Research website:

Title of Journal

Article________Serum Cholesterol and Leptin:  Their Roles in Suicide and Impulsive-Aggressive Behaviors _

Title of Journal

_______________Psychiatric Times______________________

Volume___________N/A__________ Date __01____/_01___/___2004___ Page Number(s) _____p24_________

·         What organization is responsible for publishing the journal you chose?

CMP Media LLC

·         What is your overall evaluation of this article?

_____Poor          ______Fair            ______Good        __+___Very Good       _____Excellent

·         Why did you choose to review this particular article?

I chose to review this article because it pertains to my research involving how low cholesterol levels are linked to violent suicide.

·         How would you rate this article as a tool for teaching a student about cardiopulmonary physiology, radiography, or another allied health specialty? 

Students:               ____Poor       ____Fair       _____Good     _____Very Good      __+__Excellent

Teachers:               ____Poor       ____Fair       _____Good     _____Very Good      __+__Excellent

Patients:                 ____Poor       ___Fair       __+__Good     _____Very Good      _____Excellent

·         Comment on the readability of this article. 

As a student researching this topic and having taken other college courses pertaining to the medical field this article was easy for me to read.  I feel that it would be a little more difficult for the average person to read if they wanted to learn about how low cholesterol levels are associated with violent suicide because of the author’s use of a lot of medical terms and systems.  A summary of the article using less complicated wording would work better for a person who is not a student, teacher, or person in the field of health care.

·         Course Topics covered:

Serum cholesterol and Leptin’s roles in aggressive behaviors,  cholesterol and its effects on serotonin regulation, neuronal membranes, different behavioral abnormalities such as aggression, suicide, and sleep disturbance, manic episodes in bipolar patients and levels of cholesterol during them, and activities such as physical activity and dietary changes that can be confounding when looking at cholesterol levels in certain situations.  

·         Brief Summary:

This article is about how cholesterol levels in people who have committed or attempted violent acts of suicide are considerably lower than those who have never committed suicide or have committed non-violent acts of suicide.  The article is mainly focusing on the fact that cholesterol plays a major part in regulating how much serotonin is in the brain.  When a patient has high cholesterol they have a high level of serotonin and when a patient has low cholesterol they have a low level of serotonin.  When levels of serotonin are lowered a patient starts to develop more of an impulsive behavior which in turn leads to aggressive acts such as violent acts of suicide. Mainly the article is an attempt to associate the reasons for violent suicide attempts from people with low cholesterol levels with a change in brain function. 

·         Identify and attempt to explain three (3) terms, procedures or concepts that were unfamiliar to you when reviewing this article.

-          Satiety – I had never heard of this word before I read this article.  This word means the state of being satisfied or gratified to the fullest extent. 

-          Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS) – This is a scale used by parents and doctors to determine if a child has bipolar disorder and to what extent they have it.  I was not aware of this type of scale being used to determine if a child has BD or not. 

-          Viscosity – I have seen this term used before but never actually new what it meant.  The term refers to a fluid’s internal resistance to flow. 

·         Detail the strengths/weaknesses of this article.

-          Strengths – This article not only covered the topic at hand, cholesterol levels and aggressive behaviors, but it went further to discuss and explain how and why these levels have such an effect of brain function.  It would have been very easy for the writer to stop by saying that the levels affected brain function without going into detail about it, but as a student I found it very helpful that he did explain how it all worked.

-          Weaknesses – I feel that the only place I could find weakness in this article would be for an average person trying to do research on this subject.  I think that the article is written very well for those who are somehow associated with the medical field but it probably could have been written in a simpler form and still gotten the same point across.

·         How might this article be useful to you in your further studies and career?

I am actually using this article in a current research paper I am writing.  I hope to be able to write a research paper that others will be able to learn about this topic from which I will be able to take with me to use further on in my career.  I have found that this topic is one that is not spoken of much so I as I tell people about my research I would definitely recommend that they read this article for greater explanation. 

·         Does the article include a list of references/citations that can be used to find more information on the topics they cover? 

Yes

Your Name: ______________Laura Urbin________________ Date: __07__/__14____/__06___