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BackgroundImproved patient satisfaction in endoscopy is worthy of study as it is an invasive and potentially uncomfortable procedure. There is growing literature on patient satisfaction assessment in endoscopy as part of improving quality assurance. This study aimed to determine whether virtual reality (VR) technology can decrease patients' pain and nervousness during colonoscopies. MethodsPatients enrolled without sedation were randomly categorised into groups that watched VR (VR group; n=58) and those that did not watch VR (control group; n=59). The primary outcomes were pain score and skin conductance. Secondary endpoints included heart rate, systolic and diastolic arterial pressures, overall patient satisfaction, willingness to repeat the procedure, the difficulty of the procedure, the procedure duration, and bowel preparation. ResultsThe median (interquartile range (IQR)) pain scores were 7 (6-8) and 5 (4-6) in the control and VR groups, respectively (p<0.001). The median (IQR) skin conductance values after colonoscope insertion were 0.660 (0.490-0.840) and 0.390 (0.280-0.600) in the control and VR groups, respectively (p<0.001). Overall, patient satisfaction was significantly improved with the use of VR, along with a significant reduction in the difficulty perceived by the endoscopist. ConclusionVR technology helped to reduce patients' pain and nervousness and to improve patients' satisfaction during colonoscopies.

To observe the effects of Fu's subcutaneous needling (FSN) and acupuncture treatment on the mitochondrial structure and function of the skeletal muscle tissue of rats with sciatica. Forty Sprague–Dawley rats were divided into control, model, acupuncture, and FSN groups (10 each) according to a random number table. The control group was left untreated. Rats in the FSN group were treated with FSN once every 2 days for three times, respectively (days 1, 3, 5, and 7), to cooperate with reperfusion approach. The acupuncture group was treated at the same timeline as that of the FSN group. Changes in the mechanical pain threshold, mitochondrial ultrastructure, mitochondrial citrate synthase (CS) activities, mitochondrial respiratory chain complex II, and mitochondrial COX- I protein expression in the skeletal muscle of rats treated with different treatments were compared with those of the model group. The pain thresholds of the rats were remarkably higher after FSN treatment and acupuncture, and the pain threshold of the FSN group was higher than that of the acupuncture group. Compared with the control group, the mitochondria of the model group had a damaged ultrastructure, were arranged in a disorganized manner, accumulated under the basement membrane, and appeared vacuolated with autophagosomes. The state of mitochondria in the FSN group was close to that in the control group and was remarkably better than that in the acupuncture group. The activities of mitochondrial CS and respiratory chain complex II in the skeletal muscle of the treated rats decreased compared with the control group (P<0.05), and their levels were better in the FSN group than in the acupuncture group (P<0.05). FSN treatment for 1 week considerably improved the pain thresholds and improved the skeletal muscle mitochondrial ultrastructure and mitochondrial function in rats with sciatica.

A novel prefigured-cycle (P-Cycle) algorithm was proposed to improve the protection success ratio for asymmetric traffic in mesh optical networks. The proposed algorithm was simulated in a Pan-European COST239 network environment under an asymmetric dynamic traffic model. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm has lower capacity redundancy and higher utilization rate of configured resources than traditional P-Cycle methods. Network performance can be improved when implementing this algorithm under single-link failure circumstances. The system behavior is analyzed under different traffic volumes and the configuration strategy is also investigated for the heavyload and light-load networks respectively.