Jolanta Aleksejuniene
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Dr. Jolanta is a hard-working faculty member at UBC. She supervises many masters and PhD students and a committee member of many research committees. She is able to handle all of that and give each student enough attention. She follows up with each student to make sure that the research projects are on track. She suggests continuously reading materials to students to expand their knowledge. She's special for her resilience & cooperation to make the research experience as smooth as possible.
Graduate Student Supervision
Doctoral Student Supervision (Jan 2008 - Nov 2019)
Introduction: The cleft lip and palate congenital malformation is a common condition, which poses a large burden of care on the young patients and their caregivers. The World Health Organization reported the prevalence of cleft lip with or without cleft palate to be 10 in 10,000 births in the United States and worldwide and 12 in 10,000 births in Canada (IPDTOC, 2011). Post-operative palatal fistula is frequently encountered after the surgical repair of a cleft lip and palate deformity. A wide range of fistula occurrence rates, have been reported in the literature with significant variability. After conducting a systematic scoping review of the cleft palate literature we found that high quality studies were needed in this field. Additionally there were very few Canadian studies available on this subject. We recognized the need to investigate the incidence of palatal fistula at British Columbia’s Children’s Hospital (BCCH) to be able to compare our rates with other centers worldwide. As a result of our research, we realized a gap in the literature, which was the lack of a standardized assessment protocol for the follow up of cleft lip and palate patients.Methods: A retrospective chart review was performed at British Columbia’s Children’s Hospital to examine the incidence of palatal fistula in children with non-syndromic clefts and to identify determinants associated with higher fistula rates.In preparation for the protocol development we conducted electronic database searches and contacted 13 major cleft centers worldwide.Conclusion: The systematic review concluded that the research mainly focused on surgeries and fistula-related risk determinants. The level of evidence was low and the quality was poor. No consistent pattern was detected between fistula occurrence and any of the studied risk determinants. The medical chart audit determined that almost a quarter of patients at BCCH presented with a palatal fistula. The significant risk determinants were severity of the cleft, less experienced surgeons, and the time period in which surgeries were performed. The structured protocol was developed and it will help facilitate data collection of cleft patients prospectively and prevent deficiencies in current medical reporting.
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Master's Student Supervision (2010 - 2018)
The physiological consequences of cycling cadence selection are poorly understood. Purpose: To determine the impact of cadence on cardiorespiratory and metabolic parameters; perceptual responses; power of breathing (Pb); electromyography of the diaphragm (EMGdi) and leg muscles; and microvascular leg blood flow. Methods: Eleven trained cyclists (10M:1F; age=27±6yrs; V̇O2max=60.8±3.7ml·kg-¹·min-¹) completed four 6-min constant-load cycling trials at 10% below their gas exchange threshold (63±5% peak power) while pedaling at 60rpm, 90rpm, 120rpm, and a freely chosen cadence (FCC, 94.3±6.9 rpm), in randomized order, on an electromagnetically braked cycle ergometer. Ventilatory and metabolic parameters were measured using a commercially available metabolic cart. An oesophageal electrode balloon catheter was used to assess Pb and EMGdi. Surface EMG was placed on four leg muscles predominant in cycling. Blood flow index (BFI) was determined on the same muscles of the contralateral limb using near-infrared spectroscopy and indocyanine green. Perceptual responses were measured using the modified 0-10 category ratio Borg scale. Results: With each increase in cadence there was a corresponding increase in V̇O2 (all pairwise comparisons p0.05). Conclusion: Relative blood flow appears to be closely linked with metabolic activity of the muscle, which was significantly elevated during the highest cadence condition. In combination with the substantial rise in respiratory variables and the Pb, cadence may represent the balance between peripheral and central stressors.
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The UBC Children’s Dental Program (CDP) has provided free basic dental treatment for high caries risk children, from marginalized populations, since the mid-1970s. Children are referred to the program by Health Authority Staff in metro Vancouver. Treatment is provided by senior dental students under the supervision of UBC Pediatric Dentistry instructors. However, the students have limited time to provide health education to the accompanying caregivers. Therefore, this project developed a ʺwaiting-room basedʺ dental health education program (DHEP) to engage the caregivers of participating children. Our main objectives were to assess the feasibility and acceptability of the DHEP and its short term effectiveness in changing parental dental health related behaviours.A situational analysis using structured interviews was performed with the caregivers and other stakeholders of the CDP: Health Authority Staff, UBC Pediatric Dentistry instructors and participating dental students. After the assessment of caregivers’ dental knowledge, dental behaviours, attitudes as well as preferences about a dental educational program, the DHEP was developed and implemented in the waiting rooms at UBC’s two children’s dental clinics. Follow-up phone calls with the caregivers assessed their short term self-reports of changes in dental health related behaviours. Comparisons before and after being exposed to our DHEP were made using Chi-square tests; significance was set at P
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Objectives: To describe the oral health-related lifestyle of Vancouver inner city elementary school-aged children and relate different aspects of their oral health-related lifestyle with demographic and socioeconomic factors. Methods: This cross-sectional study used a structured questionnaire with some open-ended items to survey 424 school-aged children in Vancouver inner city elementary schools (53.3% boys and 46.7% girls). There were two versions of the questionnaire: the shortened version was used for grades 1-3 and included only multiple choice questions while the comprehensive version for grade 4-7 comprised both structured and open-ended questions. In the questionnaire, different items were used such as ordinal, interval and qualitative to acquire information about different aspects of oral health-related knowledge, attitudes and behaviours. Results: Overall, there was a deficiency in oral-health related knowledge and corresponding behaviours in all age groups and both genders. Thus awareness about oral health in this cohort of children needs to be improved. The oral health-related lifestyle did not differ between boys and girls except for the interdental cleaning behaviour (P=0.033). Oral health-related lifestyle did not differ according to socio-demographic characteristics except for the difference in consumption of sugar-containing drinks among age groups (P
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Objectives: The aims of the study were: to describe the dental health and treatment needs of inner-city Vancouver elementary-school-aged children and to examine differences in dental health between socioeconomic and ethnic groups. Methods: Principals of all 10 elementary schools in inner-city Vancouver were approached. Principals of 7/10 inner-city Vancouver elementary agreed to have their schools participate in this project. Consent letters were sent to parents/guardians. The clinical data included assessment of dental health and treatment needs. Self-reported data comprised information about ethnicity, gender, place of birth, years lived in Canada, dental insurance, family education and income. Results: A total of 561 children of age 5-12 year were examined (kindergarten and grades 1-7). Of the children from ethnic minorities, 20% were Filipino, 18% south Asia and 14% Vietnamese. Overall, 57% of children had experienced caries. The mean number per child of decayed, missing or filled teeth was 2.67. In total, 32% of children needed dental treatment. Overall, there were no statistically significant differences among different demographic groups regarding dental treatment needs or dental health status, except that children born outside Canada had more decayed teeth as compared to their Canadian born counterparts.Conclusion: With the information from this study it is possible to conclude that there is a difference in dental health status between children born in Canada and foreign born children. On average, foreign born children present with poorer dental health status than their native counterparts. Further research should also aim to determine the cause of the disparity, so that a more targeted approach can be taken to improve dental health status.
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Objectives: To describe the oral health-related lifestyle of Vancouver inner city elementary school-aged children and relate different aspects of their oral health-related lifestyle with demographic and socioeconomic factors. Methods: This cross-sectional study used a structured questionnaire with some open-ended items to survey 424 school-aged children in Vancouver inner city elementary schools (53.3% boys and 46.7% girls). There were two versions of the questionnaire: the shortened version was used for grades 1-3 and included only multiple choice questions while the comprehensive version for grade 4-7 comprised both structured and open-ended questions. In the questionnaire, different items were used such as ordinal, interval and qualitative to acquire information about different aspects of oral health-related knowledge, attitudes and behaviours. Results: Overall, there was a deficiency in oral-health related knowledge and corresponding behaviours in all age groups and both genders. Thus awareness about oral health in this cohort of children needs to be improved. The oral health-related lifestyle did not differ between boys and girls except for the interdental cleaning behaviour (P=0.033). Oral health-related lifestyle did not differ according to socio-demographic characteristics except for the difference in consumption of sugar-containing drinks among age groups (P
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Objectives: The purpose of this randomized controlled experimental study was to examine how the xerostomia products Biotene® Oralbalance moisturizing liquid and MouthKote® oral moisturizer spray influence mineral content of human enamel in vitro. Methods: 104 caries free extracted human teeth were selected and prepared, followed by baseline QLF imaging and exposure to an erosive solution of lactic acid (pH of 4.5) and/or Biotene®, MouthKote®, as well as Oral-B fluoridated rinse. Mineral loss was determined with respect to mean fluorescence loss (ΔF, %), maximum fluorescence loss (ΔQ, %), and lesion area (WS, %/mm²). Within-group and among-group comparisons were made employing independent sample t-tests, paired sample t-tests, and ANOVA for multiple comparisons with Bonferroni post hoc adjustment, or their non-parametric equivalents. For all tests, the threshold for the statistical significance was set at P
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