The aim of this study has been to create an understanding for the situation of an often forgotten group in foster care, the carers’ own children. Our main focus has been the experience this group has of foster care, their experience of participation in caring for the foster children and their possible need of support and help. Our chosen method has been qualitative interviews with six adult children of foster carers, two men and four women. The theory used in this study has been Sense of Coherence. Our interviewees gave mainly a positive description of being part of a foster family even though they could give examples of difficult situation and of loss. All of them gave different examples of how they had participated in the care of foster children, such as babysitting, defending foster siblings in school and supporting them. Despite their over all positive memories most of them wished they had been offered better support, preferably counseling with advice on how to act in difficult situations. A main focus for the interviewees seemed to be the need for better information as well as education about why the foster children act as they do.

Fibromyalgi är en sjukdom som karaktäriseras av smärta, trötthet och stelhet och sjukdomen är vanligare hos kvinnor än hos män. Syftet med litteraturöversikten var att beskriva personers upplevelse av smärta vid fibromyalgi. KASAM användes som teoretisk förankring. En kvalitativ ansats valdes och sammanlagt har 13 vetenskapliga artiklar sammanställts till ett resultat. Artiklarna har kvalitetsgranskats enligt Hälsohögskolans granskningsprotokoll, med fokus på etiska överväganden. Därefter analyserades de enligt en fem stegsmodell. Resultatet bildade tre teman som innehöll hur personer med fibromyalgi upplevde omgivningens misstro över deras smärta, hur deras sociala liv påverkades och hur detta ledde till ensamhet. Det framkom även att de upplevde begränsningar av olika slag i det dagliga livet, och andra svårigheter som bidrog till att de inte kunde planera sin vardag. Sömn, trötthet och smärta framkom som sammankopplade och bildade en ond cirkel som påverkade varandra. Olika känslor och upplevelser framkom, samt sätt att hantera livet efter sjukdomsdebuten och olika lindrande faktorer. Slutsatsen är att personer med fibromyalgi ofta känner sig misstrodda från omgivningen och även hälso- och sjukvården. Fibromyalgi visade sig påverka personerna på flera olika plan som psykiskt, fysiskt, socialt och emotionellt. / Fibromyalgia is a disease characterized by pain, fatigue and stiffness and the disease is more common in women than in men. The purpose of this literature review was to describe peoples experience of pain in fibromyalgia. SOC was used as the theoretical anchor. A qualitative approach was chosen and a total of 13 scientific papers compiled a result. Articles have been quality assessed under Health Academy review protocols, focusing on ethical considerations. They were analyzed according to a five-stage model. The results formed the three themes which included how people with fibromyalgia experienced ambient distrust over their pain, how their social life were affected and how this led to loneliness. It also showed that the perceived limitations of various kinds in daily life contributed to difficulty in planning their lives. Sleep, fatigue and pain emerged as interconnected, forming a vicious cycle that affected each other. Different feelings and experiences emerged, and ways to deal with life after illness onset and various mitigation factors. The conclusion is that people with fibromyalgia often feel distrusted from the environment and even health care. Fibromyalgia was found to affect people on many levels such as mentally, physically, socially and emotionally.

Epilepsy is a serious neurological disorder characterized by recurrent unprovoked seizures due to abnormal or excessive neuronal activity in the brain. An estimated 50 million people around the world suffer from this condition, and it is classified as the second most serious neurological disease known to humanity, after stroke. With early and accurate detection of seizures, doctors can gain valuable time to administer medications and other such anti-seizure countermeasures to help reduce the damaging effects of this crippling disorder. The time-varying dynamics and high inter-individual variability make early prediction of a seizure state a challenging task. Many studies have shown that EEG signals do have valuable information that, if correctly analyzed, could help in the prediction of seizures in epileptic patients before their occurrence. Several mathematical transforms have been analyzed for its correlation with seizure onset prediction and a series of experiments were done to certify their strengths. New algorithms are presented to help clarify, monitor, and cross-validate the classification of EEG signals to predict the ictal (i.e. seizure) states, specifically the preictal, interictal, and postictal states in the brain. These new methods show promising results in detecting the presence of a preictal phase prior to the ictal state.

Spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) is a dispersed interferometric technology used to obtain tomographic images, typically of tissue for medical applications. OCT is a competing technology with confocal microscopy (CM) and confocal fluorescent microscopy (CFM), which are both used for biopsy imaging for pathology as the gold standard. OCT offers several advantages over CM/CFM: it is able to acquire a full 3D image in a single pass, it requires little or no sample preparation time, and the axial (depth) and lateral (transverse) resolution are not dependent on one another. SD-OCT is limited in imaging depth to a few millimetres due to the quality performance of the spectrograph section of the instrument--that which determines the sensitivity of the SD-OCT system. In this thesis a design for an SD-OCT system is presented that is suitable for biopsy imaging for pathological studies, i.e. an OCT microscope. The purpose of this system is to provide a fast diagnosis to be made in a surgical environment to reduce the amount of tissue removed from a patient and lower the chance of a returned visit at a later date due to insufficient tissue removal. The secondary purpose of the SD-OCT microscope is to serve as a research testbed system for implementing novel hardware advancements. One such technology, called an optical pupil slicer (OPS), will be implemented in the instrument to improve the depth imaging performance of the SD-OCT system over conventional SD-OCT systems. The OPS is a device that generally improves the performance of a dispersive-type spectrograph by increasing the spectral resolution without a loss in throughput, thereby increasing the sensitivity of the SD-OCT system.

Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is a relatively new interferometric technology that allows for high-resolution and non-destructive tomographic imaging. One of its primary current uses is for in vivo and ex vivo examination of medical samples. It is used for non-destructive examination of ocular disease, dermatological examination, blood vessel imaging, and many other applications. Some primary advantages of OCT imaging include rapid imaging of biological tissue with minimal sample preparation, 3D high-resolution imaging with depth penetrations of several millimeters, and the capability to obtain results in real time, allowing for fast and minimally invasive identification of many diseases. Current commercial OCT systems rely heavily on optical fiber-based designs. They depend on the robustness of the fiber to maintain system performance in variable environmental conditions but sacrifice the performance and flexibility of free-space optical designs. We discuss the design and implementation of a free-space OCT interferometer that can automatically maintain its alignment, allowing for the use of a free-space optical design outside of tightly controlled laboratory environments. In addition, we describe how similar enhancements can be made to other optical interferometric systems. By extending these techniques, we can provide similar improvements to many related fields, such as interferometric metrology and Fourier Transform Spectroscopy. Improvements in these technologies can help bring powerful interferometric tools to a wider audience.

Light delivery and sample handling systems are essential for any high performance imaging application. The custom design for two such devices with medical imaging applications are presented. The first device, a galvanometer-stage combination, is for general use optical coherence tomography and can be configured to scan over a large range of sample sizes and types. The second device, constructed in parallel, a rotation-linear stage combination, has been carefully designed for a specific imaging task: assessing tumour margins. The design of the two devices is driven by operational requirements and although requirements vary greatly from application to application, there are several common parameters that must be considered for every system. In this thesis, parameters like total scan time, scan resolution, sampling rate, and sample type flexibility are analysed and are some of the primary factors that influence the viability of a system for further development. This work's contribution to medical imaging research is the design of two light delivery systems and an analysis process that can be applied to future iterations of scan systems. The devices are shown to be flexible enough for use in test-bed systems, while providing the necessary functionality to meet the needs of medical histology and pathology. Controlling the light delivery and sample positioning of an imaging device adds important functionality to a scan system and is not a trivial task when high spatial-resolution scan spacing is required. The careful design of an imaging system to meet the unique requirements of the application enables better information and better resulting decision making. Advanced imagery provides new insights and perspectives to everyday scenes. It is these new perspectives that allow for re-evaluation and examination of problems with a fresh eye.

Syftet med denna studie var att utvärdera Perrongen, en insats med kvalificerade kontaktpersoner för ungdomar i riskzonen för missbruk eller social problematik, och följa upp de ungdomar som medverkat i insatsen. 8 ungdomar deltog i den kvalitativa studien, och intervjuades under ungefär en timme vardera om deras bakgrund, insatstid och om livet efter insatsen med utgångs-punkt i ungdomarnas familj och nätverk. Resultatet var övervägande positivt, och samtliga ungdomar lever idag ett, i olika grader, betydligt mer hälsosamt liv än vid perioden för insatsen. / The aim with the present study was to do an evaluation of Perrongen, a program containing qualified mentors regarding youths being in the danger zone of getting addicted to alcohol and drugs or having problems in their social life, and do a follow-up on the youths taking part in the program. 8 youths took part in the qualitative study, and was interviewed for about an hour each about their background, the time of, and life after, the program with my premise being the family and network of the youths. The results were mainly positive, and all of the participating youths are today living a, on different levels, much healthier life then by the time of the program.

En förutsättning för att undvika depression och istället uppleva posttraumatiskt växande (PTG), efter att ha upplevt belastande livshändelser, kan vara känslan av sammanhang (KASAM). Denna studie syftar till att undersöka om det finns en skillnad mellan belastande livshändelser avseende negativa utfallet depression samt undersöka om en stark KASAM kan vara avgörande för att individen istället utvecklar PTG. I studien undersöks 150 studerande vid Örebro universitet. Av resultatet framgår det att studenterna med högt värde av belastande livshändelser är mer deprimerade än studenterna med lågt värde, oberoende av KASAM. Dock hittades ingen signifikant skillnad mellan belastande livshändelser och KASAM avseende PTG.Huruvida belastande händelser utvecklar en positiv eller negativ förändring hos individen kan istället avgöras av personens tolkning, hantering av situationen. / A basis to avoid depression and instead experience posttraumatic growth (PTG), after stressful life events, may be a sense of coherence (SOC). This study investigates whether there is a difference between stressful life events regarding the negative outcome depression and to examine whether a strong sense of coherence can be essential to develop PTG instead. 150 students at Örebro University were examined. The result showed that students with high value of stressful life events are more depressed than students with low value, independent of SOC. However, no significant difference was found between stressful life events and SOC regarding to PTG.Whether a stressful event develops a positive or negative change in the individual may instead be determined by how the person interprets and handles the situation.

InSwedenhaving a high degree of intelligence is controversial and giftedness is not always seen as an asset.  Twenty-four gifted adolescents from the high-IQ organization MensaSwedenresponded to questions about their sense of coherence as well as to open-ended questions about how their intelligence affected their lives in the contexts of school, friends, and family.  A thematic analysis of the open-ended questions was performed.  Most of the participants wrote about school being under-stimulating and not fitting them.  In the cases where school was seen as stimulating, this was due to individual teachers or school systems other than the traditional Swedish school.  In the context of friends, the adolescents felt support and viewed their friends as an important part of their lives, although good friends were hard to find, especially before secondary school.  Like friends, the family was mostly seen as a positive context where the adolescents could find support.  A majority of the participants felt they had trouble fitting in with people in general, with the exceptions of close friends and family.  The implications of these results are that the Swedish school system needs to be more flexible and that despite school being seen as negative in many cases, friends and family act as buffers to promote adolescents' well-being.

Purpose: Our aim is to get an insight on how home care workers experience, handle and looks upon their work. We also want to form an opinion of how home care workers experience the relationship to the clients they meet. Questions: How does home care workers experience their daily work with their clients? Home care workers daily meet many different sorts of clients with different needs, how do they handle this? What kind of support does home care workers get in their work? Method: A qualitative design with semistructured interviews. Conclusion: The most central conclusion from all of our interviews were: that home care service workers has a very stressful and demanding occupation, that the work has a low status, that the personnel has a big responsibility for the wellbeing of other people and that they often find their work satisfying and fun. To have someone to talk to and exchange ideas with was also mentioned by the informants as a vital part of feeling support in their work. From the Antonovskys theory, a sense of coherence, and Goffmans views of the society, we also find that the larger part of our informants feel a high sense of coherence and that when they have to adjust to their different caretakers they play different roles.