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Environmental Science and Pollution... Sep 2023Face masks, a prime component of personal protective equipment (PPE) items, have become an integral part of human beings to survive under the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic... (Review)
Review
Face masks, a prime component of personal protective equipment (PPE) items, have become an integral part of human beings to survive under the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic situation. The global population requires an estimated 130 billion face masks and 64 billion gloves/month, while the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the daily disposal of approximately 3.5 billion single-use face masks, resulting in a staggering 14,245,230.63 kg of face mask waste. The improper disposal of face mask wastes followed by its mismanagement is a challenge to the scientists as the wastes create pollution leading to environmental degradation, especially plastic pollution (macro/meso/micro/nano). Each year, an estimated 0.15-0.39 million tons of COVID-19 face mask waste, along with 173,000 microfibers released daily from discarded surgical masks, could enter the marine environment, while used masks have a significantly higher microplastic release capacity (1246.62 ± 403.50 particles/piece) compared to new masks (183.00 ± 78.42 particles/piece). Surgical face masks emit around 59 g CO-eq greenhouse gas emissions per single use, cloth face masks emit approximately 60 g CO-eq/single mask, and inhaling or ingesting microplastics (MPs) caused adverse health problems including chronic inflammation, granulomas or fibrosis, DNA damage, cellular damage, oxidative stress, and cytokine secretion. The present review critically addresses the role of face masks in reducing COVID-19 infections, their distribution pattern in diverse environments, the volume of waste produced, degradation in the natural environment, and adverse impacts on different environmental segments, and proposes sustainable remediation options to tackle environmental challenges posed by disposable COVID-19 face masks.
Topics: Humans; COVID-19; Carbon Dioxide; Masks; Pandemics; Plastics; Microplastics
PubMed: 37548785
DOI: 10.1007/s11356-023-29063-x -
Archives of Dermatological Research Nov 2023Home-based photobiomodulation is a popular treatment modality for patients seeking non-invasive aesthetic treatment. Studies demonstrate that photobiomodulation is...
Home-based photobiomodulation is a popular treatment modality for patients seeking non-invasive aesthetic treatment. Studies demonstrate that photobiomodulation is effective for skin rejuvenation, which is aimed at improving the overall appearance of the skin by reducing fine lines and wrinkles and improving skin texture, skin tone, and dyspigmentation. Most current skin rejuvenation research focuses on treatments in women. However, men's aesthetics remains an underserved market. A combined red light (RL) and near-infrared (NIR) light-emitting diode (LED) has been designed specifically to target male skin, which may have different physiological and biophysical properties compared to female skin. Herein, the safety and efficacy of a commercially available RL and NIR (633, 830, and 1072 nm) LED array designed to be worn as a face mask was assessed. Primary outcomes included adverse events and facial rejuvenation as determined by participant-reported satisfaction scales and quantitative digital skin photography and computer analysis after 6 weeks of treatment. The participants reported overall favorable results and improvements in all individual categories, were satisfied with the treatment, and would recommend the product to others. The participants perceived the greatest improvement in fine lines and wrinkles, skin texture, and youthful appearance. Photographic digital analysis demonstrated favorable improvements in wrinkles, UV spots, brown spots, pores, and porphyrins. These results support the use of RL and NIR to treat male skin. Advantages of the LED facemask include its safety, efficacy, convenient home-based use, minimal associated downtime, simple operation, non-invasiveness, and appreciable results in as few as 6 weeks.
Topics: Humans; Male; Female; Masks; Rejuvenation; Skin; Pigmentation Disorders; Skin Aging; Treatment Outcome; Patient Satisfaction; Cosmetic Techniques
PubMed: 37418018
DOI: 10.1007/s00403-023-02663-w -
Einstein (Sao Paulo, Brazil) 2023The World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend the use of face masks in public. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of face...
OBJECTIVE
The World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend the use of face masks in public. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of face masks on pulse rate and partial blood oxygen saturation in patients without cardiorespiratory disorders.
METHODS
A total of 150 volunteers of both sexes were divided into three groups (n=50) according to age (children, young adults, and older adults). The partial blood oxygen saturation and pulse rate were measured for each volunteer using a digital oximeter while wearing a facial mask and remaining at rest. The masks were removed for two minutes, and partial blood oxygen saturation and pulse rate were remeasured. The materials and types of masks used were recorded. The t -test for paired samples was used to compare the mean values obtained before and after removing the masks.
RESULTS
The most frequently used mask was a two-layered cloth (64.7%). A decrease in pulse rate was observed after removing the face mask in males, particularly in children (p=0.006) and young adults (p=0.034). Partial blood oxygen saturation levels increased in young adult males after mask removal (p=0.01).
CONCLUSION
The two-layer cotton tissue face masks are associated with a higher pulse rate and reduced arterial blood oxygen saturation without associated clinical disorders, mainly in adult men with a lower tolerance to breathing and ear discomfort.
Topics: Male; Child; Female; Young Adult; Humans; Aged; Masks; Heart Rate; Lung; Oxygen
PubMed: 37970950
DOI: 10.31744/einstein_journal/2023AO0349 -
Journal of Voice : Official Journal of... Nov 2023The global health pandemic caused by the SARS-coronavirus 2 (COVID-19) has led to the adoption of facemasks as a necessary safety precaution. Depending on the level of...
AIM
The global health pandemic caused by the SARS-coronavirus 2 (COVID-19) has led to the adoption of facemasks as a necessary safety precaution. Depending on the level of risk for exposure to the virus, the facemasks that are used can vary. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of different types of facemasks, typically used by healthcare professionals and the public during the COVID-19 pandemic, on measures of voice.
METHODS
Nineteen adults (ten females, nine males) with a normal voice quality completed sustained vowel tasks. All tasks were performed for each of the six mask conditions: no mask, cloth mask, surgical mask, KN95 mask and, surgical mask over a KN95 mask with and without a face shield. Intensity measurements were obtained at a 1ft and 6ft distance from the speaker with sound level meters. Tasks were recorded with a 1ft mouth-to-microphone distance. Acoustic variables of interest were fundamental frequency (F0), and formant frequencies (F1, F2) for /a/ and /i/ and smoothed cepstral peak prominence (CPPs) for /a/.
RESULTS
Data were analyzed to compare differences between sex and mask types. There was statistical significance between males and females for intensity measures and all acoustic variables except F2 for /a/ and F1 for /i/. Few pairwise comparisons between masks reached significance even though main effects for mask type were observed. These are further discussed in the article.
CONCLUSION
The masks tested in this study did not have a significant impact on intensity, fundamental frequency, CPPs, first or second formant frequency compared to voice output without a mask. Use of a face shield seemed to affect intensity and CPPs to some extent. Implications of these findings are discussed further in the article.
Topics: Adult; Male; Female; Humans; COVID-19; Pandemics; Speech Acoustics; Masks; Acoustics
PubMed: 34261582
DOI: 10.1016/j.jvoice.2021.06.015 -
Journal of Clinical Anesthesia Oct 2023To determine if a nasal positive airway pressure (nasal CPAP) mask would decrease the number of hypoxemic events in obese and obstructive sleep apnea patients undergoing... (Randomized Controlled Trial)
Randomized Controlled Trial
Nasal continuous positive pressure versus simple face mask oxygenation for adult obese and obstructive sleep apnea patients undergoing colonoscopy under propofol-based general anesthesia without tracheal intubation: A randomized controlled trial.
STUDY OBJECTIVE
To determine if a nasal positive airway pressure (nasal CPAP) mask would decrease the number of hypoxemic events in obese and obstructive sleep apnea patients undergoing colonoscopy.
DESIGN
Single-center prospective randomized controlled trial.
SETTING
Tertiary academic center.
PATIENTS
We enrolled 109 patients with diagnosis of obesity and/or obstructive sleep apnea scheduled to undergo colonoscopy under propofol general anesthesia without planned tracheal intubation.
INTERVENTION
Patients were randomly allocated (1:1 ratio) to receive supplementary oxygen at a flow of 10 L/min, either through a nasal CPAP or a simple facemask.
MEASUREMENTS
The primary endpoint was the difference in the mean percentage of time spent with oxygen saturation below 90% between the two groups. Secondary outcomes included the need for airway maneuvers/interventions, average SpO2 during the case, duration and severity of oxygen desaturation, incidence and duration of procedural interruptions, and satisfaction and tolerance scores.
MAIN RESULTS
54 were allocated to the simple face mask and 55 to the nasal CPAP mask arms, respectively. A total of 6 patients experienced a hypoxemic event. Among these patients, the difference in the percentage of time spent with oxygen saturation below 90% was not clinically relevant (p = 1.0). However, patients in the nasal CPAP group required less chin lift (20% vs. 42.6%; p = 0.01) and oral cannula insertion (12.7% vs.29.6%; p = 0.03). The percentage of patients with at least one airway maneuver was higher in the simple face mask arm (68.5% vs. 41.8%; p = 0.005). Patient tolerance to device score was lower in the nasal CPAP group (8.85 vs. 9.56; p = 0.003).
CONCLUSIONS
A nasal CPAP did not prevent hypoxemia and should not be used routinely for colonoscopy in obese or OSA patients if a simple face mask is an alternative therapy. However, potential advantages of its use include fewer airway maneuvers or interventions, which may be desirable in certain clinical settings.
TRIAL REGISTRATION
Clinicaltrials.gov, identifier: NCT05175573.
Topics: Humans; Adult; Masks; Propofol; Prospective Studies; Sleep Apnea, Obstructive; Obesity; Oxygen; Intubation, Intratracheal; Anesthesia, General; Colonoscopy; Continuous Positive Airway Pressure
PubMed: 37406462
DOI: 10.1016/j.jclinane.2023.111196 -
IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks... Jul 2023To pursue comprehensive performance, recent text detectors improve detection speed at the expense of accuracy. They adopt shrink-mask-based text representation...
To pursue comprehensive performance, recent text detectors improve detection speed at the expense of accuracy. They adopt shrink-mask-based text representation strategies, which leads to a high dependence of detection accuracy on shrink-masks. Unfortunately, three disadvantages cause unreliable shrink-masks. Specifically, these methods try to strengthen the discrimination of shrink-masks from the background by semantic information. However, the feature defocusing phenomenon that coarse layers are optimized by fine-grained objectives limits the extraction of semantic features. Meanwhile, since both shrink-masks and the margins belong to texts, the detail loss phenomenon that the margins are ignored hinders the distinguishment of shrink-masks from the margins, which causes ambiguous shrink-mask edges. Moreover, false-positive samples enjoy similar visual features with shrink-masks. They aggravate the decline of shrink-masks recognition. To avoid the above problems, we propose a zoom text detector (ZTD) inspired by the zoom process of the camera. Specifically, zoomed-out view module (ZOM) is introduced to provide coarse-grained optimization objectives for coarse layers to avoid feature defocusing. Meanwhile, zoomed-in view module (ZIM) is presented to enhance the margins recognition to prevent detail loss. Furthermore, sequential-visual discriminator (SVD) is designed to suppress false-positive samples by sequential and visual features. Experiments verify the superior comprehensive performance of ZTD.
PubMed: 37402201
DOI: 10.1109/TNNLS.2023.3289327 -
The New England Journal of Medicine Jun 2024Among critically ill adults undergoing tracheal intubation, hypoxemia increases the risk of cardiac arrest and death. The effect of preoxygenation with noninvasive... (Comparative Study)
Comparative Study Randomized Controlled Trial
BACKGROUND
Among critically ill adults undergoing tracheal intubation, hypoxemia increases the risk of cardiac arrest and death. The effect of preoxygenation with noninvasive ventilation, as compared with preoxygenation with an oxygen mask, on the incidence of hypoxemia during tracheal intubation is uncertain.
METHODS
In a multicenter, randomized trial conducted at 24 emergency departments and intensive care units in the United States, we randomly assigned critically ill adults (age, ≥18 years) undergoing tracheal intubation to receive preoxygenation with either noninvasive ventilation or an oxygen mask. The primary outcome was hypoxemia during intubation, defined by an oxygen saturation of less than 85% during the interval between induction of anesthesia and 2 minutes after tracheal intubation.
RESULTS
Among the 1301 patients enrolled, hypoxemia occurred in 57 of 624 patients (9.1%) in the noninvasive-ventilation group and in 118 of 637 patients (18.5%) in the oxygen-mask group (difference, -9.4 percentage points; 95% confidence interval [CI], -13.2 to -5.6; P<0.001). Cardiac arrest occurred in 1 patient (0.2%) in the noninvasive-ventilation group and in 7 patients (1.1%) in the oxygen-mask group (difference, -0.9 percentage points; 95% CI, -1.8 to -0.1). Aspiration occurred in 6 patients (0.9%) in the noninvasive-ventilation group and in 9 patients (1.4%) in the oxygen-mask group (difference, -0.4 percentage points; 95% CI, -1.6 to 0.7).
CONCLUSIONS
Among critically ill adults undergoing tracheal intubation, preoxygenation with noninvasive ventilation resulted in a lower incidence of hypoxemia during intubation than preoxygenation with an oxygen mask. (Funded by the U.S. Department of Defense; PREOXI ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT05267652.).
Topics: Adult; Aged; Female; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Critical Illness; Heart Arrest; Hypoxia; Intubation, Intratracheal; Masks; Noninvasive Ventilation; Oxygen; Oxygen Inhalation Therapy; Oxygen Saturation
PubMed: 38869091
DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2313680 -
A Transparent Mask and Clear Speech Benefit Speech Intelligibility in Individuals With Hearing Loss.Journal of Speech, Language, and... Nov 2023The purpose of the study is to investigate the impacts of a surgical mask and a transparent mask on audio-only and audiovisual speech intelligibility in noise (i.e., 0...
PURPOSE
The purpose of the study is to investigate the impacts of a surgical mask and a transparent mask on audio-only and audiovisual speech intelligibility in noise (i.e., 0 dB signal-to-noise ratio) in individuals with mild-to-profound hearing loss. The study also examined if individuals with hearing loss can benefit from using a transparent mask and clear speech for speech understanding in noise.
METHOD
Thirty-one individuals with hearing loss (from 22 to 74 years old) completed keyword identification tasks to measure face-masked speech intelligibility in noise. A mixed-effects logistic regression model was used to examine the effects of face masks (no mask, transparent mask, surgical mask), presentation modes (audio only, audiovisual), speaking styles (conversational, clear), noise type (speech-shaped noise [SSN], four-talker babble [4-T babble]), hearing groups (mild hearing loss [MHL], greater than MHL: GHL), and their interactions on binary accuracy of keyword identification.
RESULTS
In the audio-only mode, the GHL group showed reduced speech intelligibility regardless of other factors, whereas the MHL group showed decreased speech intelligibility for the transparent mask more than for the surgical mask. The use of a transparent mask was advantageous for both hearing loss groups. Clear speech remediated the detrimental effects of face masks on speech intelligibility in noise. Both groups tended to perform better in SSN versus 4-T babble.
CONCLUSIONS
The findings indicate that, when using face masks, either a transparent mask or a surgical mask negatively affects speech understanding in noise for individuals with hearing loss. Using a transparent mask and clear speech could be a potential solution to improve speech intelligibility in communication with face masks in noise.
Topics: Humans; Young Adult; Adult; Middle Aged; Aged; Speech Intelligibility; Speech Perception; Hearing Loss; Hearing; Deafness; Speech Disorders
PubMed: 37788660
DOI: 10.1044/2023_JSLHR-22-00636 -
PloS One 2023The use of face masks is one of the preventive measures that Mozambique adopted in order to limit the spread of COVID-19. A study carried out from May 25 to June 6, 2020...
INTRODUCTION
The use of face masks is one of the preventive measures that Mozambique adopted in order to limit the spread of COVID-19. A study carried out from May 25 to June 6, 2020 found that although many wore masks, incorrect use was observed in 27.5% of the population observed. This data collection aimed to measure the degree of mask use compliance during a more protracted, higher second wave of transmission.
METHODOLOGY
A cross-sectional study was conducted in the City of Maputo from 19 to 28 October 2020 through direct observation of mask use of all individuals present in markets, supermarkets and bus terminals. The data were collected using mobile phones with the Open Data Kit Collect (ODK) data collection program. Sociodemographic characteristics, mask use, and type of mask used were documented. Factors associated with incorrect mask use were evaluated considering sex, age, observation period and location.
RESULTS
A total of 49,404 individuals were observed, of whom 24,977(50.6%) were male, 46,484 (94.1%) were adults and 17,549 (35.5%) were observed in the markets. An observed 41,786 (84.6%) wore a mask, of whom 33,851 (81.0%) used it correctly. Not covering the mouth and nose was common; observed in 4,649 (58.5%) of those using incorrectly. Of different types of masks, fabric masks were most often used incorrectly 7,225 (21.4%). The factors associated with incorrect mask use were female gender (OR = 1.2 [1.1-1.3], p <0.001), observation in peri-urban versus urban areas (OR = 1.9 [1.8-2.1], p <0.001) and observation during the afternoon (OR = 1.5 [1.5-1.6], p <0. 001).
CONCLUSION
A high proportion of observed individuals wore a mask in the context of prevention of COVID-19, however some non-use and incorrect use persists. Intensified public awareness of the correct use of the mask is recommended, especially in peri-urban areas and at the end of the day.
Topics: Adult; Humans; Male; Female; COVID-19; Cross-Sectional Studies; Mozambique; Masks; Environment
PubMed: 37531372
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0288957 -
Annals of Emergency Medicine Feb 2024
Topics: Humans; Intubation, Intratracheal; Laryngeal Masks; Algorithms
PubMed: 37831042
DOI: 10.1016/j.annemergmed.2023.09.002