The effects of an active-assisted stretching program on functional performance in elderly persons: A pilot study

This study examined the impact of an eight-week active-assisted (AA) stretching program on functionality, mobility, power, and range of motion (ROM) in elderly residents of a residential retirement community. Seventeen volunteers (4 male, 13 female; 88.8 ± 5.36 years) were randomly assigned to an AA or control group. The AA group performed 10 different AA stretches targeting the major joints of the body twice weekly for eight weeks. Controls attended classes requiring limited physical activity. All participants were assessed using four flexibility and six functional tests, one week before and after the eight-week training period. A fully randomized repeated-measures ANCOVA with pretest scores as a covariate was used to detect differences between groups across time. The AA group demonstrated significant increases in ROM for most of the joints evaluated (p < 0.05) and significant increases in all performance measures (p < 0.05). Controls showed no improvements in functional or ROM measures (α = 0.05). Additionally, the AA group showed significantly better performance outcomes across the training period than controls. We conclude that our eight-week flexibility program effectively reduces age-related losses in ROM and improves functional performance in elderly persons with insufficient physical reserves to perform higher-intensity exercises

National Athletic Trainers\u27 Association Position Statement: Safe Weight Loss and Maintenance Practices in Sport and Exercise

Objective: To present athletic trainers with recommendations for safe weight loss and weight maintenance practices for athletes and active clients and to provide athletes, clients, coaches, and parents with safe guidelines that will allow athletes and clients to achieve and maintain weight and body composition goals. Background: Unsafe weight management practices can compromise athletic performance and negatively affect health. Athletes and clients often attempt to lose weight by not eating, limiting caloric or specific nutrients from the diet, engaging in pathogenic weight control behaviors, and restricting fluids. These people often respond to pressures of the sport or activity, coaches, peers, or parents by adopting negative body images and unsafe practices to maintain an ideal body composition for the activity. We provide athletic trainers with recommendations for safe weight loss and weight maintenance in sport and exercise. Although safe weight gain is also a concern for athletic trainers and their athletes and clients, that topic is outside the scope of this position statement. Recommendations: Athletic trainers are often the source of nutrition information for athletes and clients; therefore, they practices, and methods to change body composition. Body composition assessments should be done in the most scientifically appropriate manner possible. Reasonable and individualized weight and body composition goals should be identified by appropriately trained health care personnel (eg, athletic trainers, registered dietitians, physicians). In keeping with the American Dietetics Association (ADA) preferred nomenclature, this document uses the terms registered dietitian or dietician when referring to a food and nutrition expert who has met the academic and professional requirements specified by the ADA\u27s Commission on Accreditation for Dietetics Education. In some cases, a registered nutritionist may have equivalent credentials and be the commonly used term. All weight management and exercise protocols used to achieve these goals should be safe and based on the most current evidence. Athletes, clients, parents, and coaches should be educated on how to determine safe weight and body composition so that athletes and clients more safely achieve competitive weights that will meet sport and activity requirements while also allowing them to meet their energy and nutritional needs for optimal health and performance

Front Psychiatry

OBJECTIVE: During the COVID-19 pandemic, older people and patients with psychiatric disorders had an increased risk of being isolated. The French National Authority for Health has recommended a reinforced follow-up of these patients. Cross-sectional studies reported an increased risk of developing anxiety and depression during pandemic. The aim of our study was to identify factors associated with higher anxiety during the pandemic in older patients with psychiatric disorders. METHODS: STERACOVID is a multicenter cohort study with 117 patients followed-up by phone in two French geriatric psychiatry units. In this work, we used cross-sectional data from a prospective follow-up conducted between January and May 2021. RESULTS: We found that coping strategies, personality, and living conditions were associated with general anxiety (GA) level during the pandemic period. Higher GA was associated with less positive thinking coping strategy, more avoidance strategies, a lower level of extraversion, a higher level of neuroticism, more time spent watching the news, a higher feeling of loneliness, and a lack of physical contact. FINDINGS: Our study identified factors associated with a poorer experience of pandemic crisis. Special attention should be paid to patients with a high level of neuroticism and a high feeling of loneliness. Support could aim to help patients use more functional strategies: reducing avoidance strategies and increasing positive thinking. Finally, reducing time watching news could also be an interesting prevention perspective. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION: clinicaltrials.gov, identifier NCT04760795

Addressing food and nutrition insecurity in the Caribbean through domestic smallholder farming system innovation

Structural conditions underlying the development of CARICOM’s two-tiered agricultural innovation system depict diverse drivers of change over time, versus institutional inertia of export-oriented formal institutions and the neglect of informal domestic markets. Key principles of taking an agroecological approach would include: supporting diversity and redundancy, building connectivity, managing slow variables and feedbacks, improving understanding of socioecological systems as complex adaptive systems, and encouraging polycentric governance systems. In this paper, we review the conditions that have been undermining sustainable food and nutrition security in the Caribbean, focusing on issues of history, economy, and innovation

Self-diffusion ionique du chlorure de sodium dans les mélanges eau-alcool

Les coefficients de self-diffusion des ions Na+ et Cl- ont été déterminés dans des mélanges tertio-butanol-eau et n-butanol- eau. Les valeurs expérimentales obtenues pour D ne peuvent pas être interprétées si on ne tient pas compte des associations ioniques. A partir des paramètres de formation des paires d'ions déterminés par mesures des conductivités des solutions, les résultats expérimentaux sont utilisés pour calculer les coefficients de self-diffusion des paires

Autodiffusion ionique du chlorure de césium dans les mélanges eau-tétrahydrofuranne et eau-dioxanne

Les coefficients d'autodiffusion des ions Cs+ et Cl- ont été déterminés dans les mélanges eau-tétrahydrofuranne et eaudioxanne. Les compositions des solvants mixtes choisis sont telles que, dans les deux cas, la constante diélectrique soit voisine de 15. Les valeurs expérimentales obtenues pour les coefficients d'autodiffusion sont interprétées dans le cadre du modèle des paires d’ions; elles permettent le calcul du coefficient d'autodiffusion de la paire d’ion CsCl à partir des paramètres d'association déterminés par mesures des conductivités des solutions. Il n'y a pas d’incohérence au modèle choisi pour chacun des systèmes