Rehabilitation of Speech and Language Disorders

Came across a weird one today! There's a MeSH called Rehabilitation of Speech and Language Disorders that I came across in the Mesh Database:

It's been around since 1998, so for quite a while. Looks like it could be really useful for questions from Speech Language Pathologists.

However, when I typed it into Ovid, with quotes around the phrase because of the "and", it doesn't map to the MeSH term!

You can see the phrase I typed in at the bottom of the screenshot. I tried it three times so I'm pretty sure I didn't make a typo.

Yet, if I search for the broader term, Rehabilitation, and then select the term Rehabilitation of Speech and Language Disorders from the tree, it is available.

I wonder if the failure to map is due to the fact that no article has been given this particular MeSH. Strange, eh? There are lots of results if you explode this MeSH, but not a single article has ever been labelled with this particular MeSH.

When a healthcare professional says natural history...

When a healthcare professional says the words "natural history", they don't mean the textbook definition. Usually Natural History refers to a field of study which scientists pursued back in the 1800s, exploring the natural world. Eventually this became biology and geology.

However, when a healthcare professional refers to the natural history of a disease, they mean what the disease looks like over time, especially if untreated.

If you're really lucky, you can search "natural history"[all fields] and combine it with the MeSH best describing your disease. You might get one or two results.

If you search "Natural History"[Mesh], you'll get the official definition, which is of no use whatsoever.

You can try "Prognosis"[Mesh], which will almost certainly give results when combined with the MeSH for your disease. However, since "Treatment Outcome"[MeSH] is a narrower term of "Prognosis"[Mesh], you may wish not to explode: "Prognosis"[Mesh:NoExp].

The best MeSH for this concept is "Disease Progression"[Mesh], a very useful-sounding MeSH that one can only find by stumbling across it by accident. Again, if you're lucky, combining this MeSH with your disease MeSH will produce a couple of results. However, "Disease Progression" is one of what I call the "Weird MeSH" - that is, highly useful but often overlooked by indexers and searchers alike.

In some cases, "Watchful Waiting"[Mesh] OR "Conservative Treatment"[Mesh] can be useful. Conservative Treatment was added as a MeSH in 2017, and will likely be a "Weird MeSH", so keywording can also be useful: conservative*[tiab] OR nonsurg*[tiab] OR non-surg*[tiab] OR nonoperati*[tiab] OR non-operati*[tiab]

Sometimes "Survival Rate"[Mesh] OR "Disease-Free Survival"[Mesh] are useful too.

In PubMed, the following keywords may be useful:
prognosis[tiab] OR outcome*[tiab] OR "natural history"[tiab] OR "disease progression"[tiab] OR "disease course"[tiab] OR "disease evolution"[tiab] OR "disease trajectory"[tiab] OR "clinical progression"[tiab] OR "clinical course"[tiab] OR  "clinical evolution"[tiab] OR "clinical trajectory"[tiab] OR "natural progression"[tiab] OR "natural course"[tiab] OR "natural evolution"[tiab] OR "course trajectory"[tiab] OR "benign neglect"[tiab]

If all else fails, you can try a full text search where available.

Medline EBSCO:

TX "natural history" AND MH "Disease Name+"
TX disease N3 progress* AND MH "Disease Name+"
TX clinical progress* AND MH "Disease Name+"
TX natural course AND MH "Disease Name+"
TX natural evolution AND MH "Disease Name+"
TX course trajector* AND MH "Disease Name+"

Google scholar:

"disease name" "natural history"

EMBASE:

disease course/ or exp deterioration/ or exp disease clearance/ or exp disease duration/ or exp disease exacerbation/ or exp general condition deterioration/ or exp general condition improvement/ or exp illness trajectory/ or exp prognosis/ or exp recurrent disease/ or exp reinfection/ or exp relapse/ or exp remission/ or exp survival/

if it's a cancer thing:
exp cancer growth/ or exp cancer inhibition/ or exp cancer recurrence/ or exp cancer regression/ or exp leukemia relapse/ or exp leukemia remission/ or exp metastasis inhibition/ or exp tumor growth/ or exp tumor recurrence/ or exp tumor regression/

 PsycInfo:

 DE "Disease Course" OR DE "Prognosis"

Keywords for a title and abstract search:
prognosis OR outcome* OR natural history OR disease course OR clinical progression OR clinical course OR clinical evolution OR clinical trajectory OR natural progression OR natural course OR natural evolution OR course trajectory OR benign neglect
disease N3 progress*
disease N3 evolution*
disease N3 trajectory

Entry term is "course of illness"
Narrower term of "Disease Course" is Metastasis.

Chronic Pain finally gets its own MeSH

The wait is over! There is now a MeSH for Chronic Pain.

Of course, it's only been applied to articles added after the MeSH term was created (sometime in 2012), but at least in future articles on this topic will receive proper indexing.

And there was much rejoicing...

New search strategy for Chronic Pain in Medline:

"Chronic Pain"[Mesh]
OR
"Pain"[Mesh] AND chronic[all fields]

Canada

Searching for Canadian information with PubMed:

"Canada"[Mesh] OR canad*[all fields] OR canada[pl] OR canada[gr]

With Ovid Medline:

exp Canada / OR canad*.mp. OR canad*.cp. OR canad*.in.

With Ebsco Medline:

MH "Canada+" OR ZT "canada" OR ZF canad* OR TI canad* OR AB canad*

With Ebsco Cinahl:
MH "Canada+" OR ZF canad* OR ZB canad* OR TI canad* OR AB canad*

Emergency Department

Searching for Emergency-related topics in Medline is particularly tricky.

Available MeSH are:

Emergency Service, Hospital
This is what's generally known as the ER or ED in North America, or A&E in the UK. Use if the patron refers to any of those, or "in the Emergency setting".

Emergency Medical Services
Exploding this term will includes the above MeSH as a narrower term, but also includes other MeSH such as "Emergency Service, Psychiatric", "Ambulance", and "Triage". Especially useful if the patron refers to the pre-hospital setting, paramedics, or response in the field.

Emergency Nursing
This doesn't appear as a narrower term of either of the above, and therefore must be included separately if wanted. Usually of use in any questions related to the ER/ED, unless specifically interested in another profession.

Emergency Treatment
This also does not appear as a narrower term of any of the above, and therefore must be included separately if wanted. Used for the actual treatments such as the heimlich manoeuver, and applies to all settings, including interventions by bystanders as well as health professionals.

Emergency Medicine
Although this is supposed to be used to refer to the specialty rather than practical or clinical articles, some clinical articles are labelled Emergency Medicine/methods. Use if not getting many results with the above.

Emergencies
Use is extremely varied. It is sometimes used in conjunction with one or more of the above, but other times it appears without any of the above Emergency-related MeSH when one or more of the above are applicable. However, keyword searching may be more effective if only a subset of the above are needed.

Keywords to expand your search (use Ovid for phrase/truncation combos and proximity)
emergency room*
emergency department*
accident adj2 emergency
emergency setting*
prehospital
pre hospital
paramedic*
emergency nurs*
emergenc*

In CINAHL:
 
MH "Emergency Care+" OR MH "Emergency Medical Services+" OR MH "Emergency Service+" OR MH "Emergencies+" OR MH "Emergency Nursing+" OR MH "Emergency Medicine+" OR MH "Emergency Nurse Practitioners+"

keywords:
emergency room* OR emergency department OR accident w2 emergency OR emergency setting* OR prehospital OR pre hospital OR paramedic* OR emergency nurs* OR emergenc*

In EMBASE:

exp emergency ward/ OR exp emergency/ OR exp emergency health service/ OR exp emergency treatment/ OR exp emergency patient/ OR exp emergency surgery/ OR exp emergency medicine/ OR exp emergency physician/ OR exp emergency nursing/

In PsycInfo:

DE "Emergency Services"

Occupational Therapy

Occupational therapy in Medline:

exp Occupational Therapy/ OR occupational therap*.mp.

Occupational therapy in CINAHL:

MH "Occupational Therapy+" OR MH "Occupational Therapy Assessment" OR MH "Occupational Therapy Practice, Evidence-Based" OR MH "Occupational Therapy Practice, Research-Based" OR MH "Research, Occupational Therapy" OR MH "Occupational Therapy Practice" OR MH "Occupational Therapy Service" OR MH "Occupational Therapists"

Treatment resistance

A search in Medline for treatments when first-line treatment fails:

exp Drug Resistance/ OR exp Treatment Failure/ OR resistan*.mp. OR refractor*.mp. OR intractab*.mp. OR nonrespon*.mp. OR non respon*.mp. OR persisten*.mp.

PsycInfo has:
DE "Treatment Resistant Disorders"
and you can do:
TI ( resistan* OR refractor* OR intractab* OR nonrespon* OR non-respon* OR persisten* ) OR AB ( resistan* OR refractor* OR intractab* OR nonrespon* OR non-respon* OR persisten* )

EMBASE has:
drug resistance/ or multidrug resistance/ or exp treatment failure/

and also, /dr [Drug Resistance] is a subheading, so check your EMTREE terms to see if they provide it, eg. exp posttraumatic stress disorder/dr [Drug Resistance]