Merits of exercise therapy before and after major surgery

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Advances in medical care have led to an increasing elderly population. Elderly individuals should be able to participate in society as long as possible. However, with an increasing age their adaptive capacity gradually decreases, specially before and after major life events (like hospitalization and surgery) making them...

How many walking and cycling trips made by elderly are beyond commonly used buffer sizes: Results from a GPS study

In choosing appropriate buffer sizes to study environmental influences on physical activity, studies are hampered by insufficient insight into the distance elderly travel actively. This study aims at getting insight into the number of trips walked and cycled within various buffer sizes using GPS measures. Data were obtained from the Elderly And...

The Fountain of Age: A Remarkable 3D Shape that Portrays Health and Functional Differences among the European Elderly

There are very few norms to evaluate and monitor the health and functioning of the elderly. This paper proposes a compact spatial representation of 25 health measurements of European citizens older than 50 years. Data from 44,285 unique individuals were obtained from the EU-wide Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe(SHARE) data...

Can workers with chronic back pain shift from pain elimination to function restore at work? Qualitative evaluation of an innovative work related multidisciplinary programme

Introduction: Workers with chronic low back pain (LBP) mean a heavy human and social-economic burden. Their medical histories often include different treatments without attention to work-relatedness or communication with occupational health providers, leaving them passive and medicalized in (outpatient) health care. So we developed and...

The impact of waiting for total joint replacement on pain and functional status: A systematic review

Objective: To systematically describe changes in pain and functioning in patients with osteoarthritis (OA) awaiting total joint replacement (TJR), and to assess determinants of this change. Methods: MEDLINE®, EMBASE, CINAHL® and Cochrane Database were searched through June 2008. The reference lists of eligible publications were reviewed. Studies...

Robot-mediated ACtive REhabilitation (ACRE2) for the hemiplegic upper limb after a stroke: A pilot study

Although scientific evidence shows that therapy improves movement recovery following a stroke, the duration of the reimbursed therapy available to patients is decreasing. To compensate for the reduction in personal therapy self-training procedures using robotic arms have been developed for hemiplegic patients. In this Dutch pilot study, the...

Katz' ADL index assessed functional performance of Turkish, Moroccan, and Dutch elderly

Background and Objective: We examined the reliability and validity of self-reported limitations encountered in the activities of daily living (ADL) as measure of functional performance, for Turkish, Moroccan, and indigenous Dutch elderly in the Netherlands. Methods: We obtained data on self-reported ADL measured by Katz' ADL index and on five...

Interferon-β therapy reduces CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell reactivity in multiple sclerosis

Therapy with interferon-β (IFN-β) has well-established clinical effects in multiple sclerosis (MS), albeit the immunomodulatory mechanisms are not fully understood. We assessed the prevalence and functional capacity of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in healthy donors, and in untreated and IFN-β-treated MS patients, in response to myelin oligodendrocyte...

Multidisciplinary rehabilitation for subacute low back pain : graded activity or workplace intervention or both? : a randomized controlled trial

To assess the effectiveness of workplace intervention and graded activity, separately and combined, for multidisciplinary rehabilitation of low back pain (LBP). Summary of Background Data. Effective components for multidisciplinary rehabilitation of LBP are not yet established. Methods: Participants sick-listed 2 to 6 weeks due to nonspecific...

The effectiveness of high-intensity versus low-intensity back schools in an occupational setting: A pragmatic randomized controlled trial

Study Design. Randomized controlled trial. Objectives. To compare high- and low-intensity back schools with usual care in occupational health care. Summary of Background Data. The content and intensity of back schools vary widely and the methodologic quality of randomized controlled trials is generally weak. Until now, no back school has proven...