Prevalence and severity of freezing of gait in a Danish cohort of people with Parkinsonʼs disease

\ua9 2023, Almindelige Danske Laegeforening. All rights reserved.INTRODUCTION. Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a widespread neurodegenerative disorder characterised by wide range of symptoms. Freezing of gait (FoG), a transient feeling that the patient’s feet are nailed to the floor, resulting in an inability to move, is a particularly distressful symptom. The assessment of FoG can be challenging. Often, clinicians are reliant on patients’ subjective experiences and patient questionnaires such as the Freezing of Gait Questionnaire (FOGQ) and its updated version, the New FOGQ (NFOGQ).Until now, the NFOGQ has not been validated and piloted for use in Danish. Therefore, few attempts have been made to assess the prevalence and severity of FoG in Danish patients with PD. METHODS. This report describes a two-step process of adapting the NFOGQ into Danish and piloting its use among a cohort of patients with PD. A satisfactory translation (Danish NFOGQ) was produced and successfully piloted. RESULTS. The translation showed robust test-retest reliability after two weeks. Patients fully understood the questionnaire. Using the Danish NFOGQ in an online prevalence survey, we found that 35.7% of respondents had experienced FoG and that the prevalence correlated with disease duration. CONCLUSION. The Danish NFOGQ appears to be appropriate for assessing FoG in Danish patients with PD in both clinical and research settings

Denial of long-term issues with agriculture on tropical peatlands will have devastating consequences

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Advances in the study of moving sediments and evolving seabeds

Sands and mud are continually being transported around the world's coastal seas due to the action of tides, wind and waves. The transport of these sediments modifies the boundary between the land and the sea, changing and reshaping its form. Sometimes the nearshore bathymetry evolves slowly over long time periods, at other times more rapidly due to natural episodic events or the introduction of manmade structures at the shoreline. For over half a century we have been trying to understand the physics of sediment transport processes and formulate predictive models. Although significant progress has been made, our capability to forecast the future behaviour of the coastal zone from basic principles is still relatively poor. However, innovative acoustic techniques for studying the fundamentals of sediment movement experimentally are now providing new insights, and it is expected that such observations, coupled with developing theoretical works, will allow us to take further steps towards the goal of predicting the evolution of coastlines and coastal bathymetry. This paper presents an overview of our existing predictive capabilities, primarily in the field of non-cohesive sediment transport, and highlights how new acoustic techniques are enabling our modelling efforts to achieve greater sophistication and accuracy. The paper is aimed at coastal scientists and managers seeking to understand how detailed physical studies can contribute to the improvement of coastal area models and, hence, inform coastal zone management strategie