Articles: function.
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Multicenter Study Clinical Trial
High Frequency Spinal Cord Stimulation at 10 kHz for the Treatment of Chronic Pain: 6-Month Australian Clinical Experience.
High frequency spinal cord stimulation at 10 kHz (HF10 therapy) represents a prominent advance in spinal cord stimulation (SCS) therapy, having demonstrated enhanced efficacy in patients with back and leg pain and pain relief without paresthesia that is sustained at 24 months post implant. ⋯ Spinal cord stimulation, high frequency stimulation, HF10, paresthesia-free stimulation, back pain, leg pain, cervical pain, neuromodulation.
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Critical care medicine · May 2016
Multicenter StudyEvaluating Physical Outcomes in Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome Survivors: Validity, Responsiveness, and Minimal Important Difference of 4-Meter Gait Speed Test.
To examine the reliability, validity, responsiveness, and minimal important difference of the 4-m gait speed test in acute respiratory distress syndrome survivors. ⋯ The 4-m gait speed is a reliable, valid, and responsive measure of physical function in acute respiratory distress syndrome survivors. The estimated minimal important difference will facilitate sample size calculations for clinical studies evaluating the 4-m gait speed test in acute respiratory distress syndrome survivors.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · May 2016
ReviewInflammation and Epidural-Related Maternal Fever: Proposed Mechanisms.
Intrapartum fever is associated with excessive maternal interventions as well as higher neonatal morbidity. Epidural-related maternal fever (ERMF) contributes to the development of intrapartum fever. ⋯ Here, we consider how inflammatory mechanisms may be modulated by local anesthetic agents and their relevance to ERMF. We also critically reappraise the clinical data with regard to emerging concepts that explain how anesthetic drug-induced metabolic dysfunction, with or without activation of the inflammasome, might trigger the release of nonpathogenic, inflammatory molecules (danger-associated molecular patterns) likely to underlie ERMF.
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COPD is a significant public health challenge, notably set to become the third leading cause of death and fifth leading cause of chronic disability worldwide by the next decade. Skeletal muscle impairment is now recognized as a disabling, extrapulmonary consequence of COPD that is associated with reduced quality of life and premature mortality. Because COPD typically manifests in older individuals, these clinical features may overlie normal age-associated declines in muscle function and performance. ⋯ This review focuses on the perspective that mitochondrial alterations contribute to impaired locomotor muscle performance in patients with COPD by reducing oxidative capacity and thus endurance, as well as by triggering proteolysis and thus contributing to atrophy and weakness. We discuss how the potential underlying mechanisms converge on mitochondria by targeting the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ-coactivator-1α signaling pathway (thereby reducing mitochondrial biogenesis and muscle oxidative capacity and potentially increasing fiber atrophy) and how taking advantage of normal muscle plasticity and mitochondrial biogenesis may reverse this pathophysiology. We propose recent therapeutic strategies aimed at increasing peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ-coactivator-1α levels, such as endurance training and exercise mimetic drugs, with the strong rationale for increasing mitochondrial biogenesis and function and thus improving the muscle phenotype in COPD.
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Acta Anaesthesiol Scand · May 2016
Observational StudyPersistent postsurgical pain after video-assisted thoracic surgery - an observational study.
The risk of persistent postsurgical pain (PPP) and subsequent pain-related functional impairment may potentially be reduced by video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) compared to thoracotomy. The aim of the study was therefore to assess in detail the incidence and consequences on activities of daily living of PPP after VATS. ⋯ The incidence of PPP, nerve damage (based on QST) and pain-related functional impairment following VATS was lower than reported following thoracotomy. No psychological or other factors predicted PPP. These findings call for further large-scale studies to support VATS to decrease PPP.