Development of an occupational advice intervention for patients undergoing lower limb arthroplasty (the OPAL study)

Background: There are an increasing number of patients of working age undergoing hip and knee replacements. Currently there is variation in the advice and support given about sickness absence, recovery to usual activities and return to work after these procedures. Earlier, sustainable, return to work improves the health of patients and benefits their employers and society. An intervention that encourages and supports early recovery to usual activities, including work, has the potential to reduce the health and socioeconomic burden of hip and knee replacements. Methods/design: A two-phase research programme delivered over 27 months will be used to develop and subsequently test the feasibility of an occupational advice intervention to facilitate return to work and usual activities in patients undergoing lower limb arthroplasty. The 2 phases will incorporate a six-stage intervention mapping process: Phase 1: Intervention mapping stages 1–3: 1 Needs assessment (including rapid evidence synthesis, prospective cohort analysis and structured stakeholder interviews) 2 Identification of intended outcomes and performance objectives 3 Selection of theory-based methods and practical strategies Phase 2: Intervention mapping stages 4–6: 4 Development of components and materials for the occupational advice intervention using a modified Delphi process 5 Adoption and implementation of the intervention 6 Evaluation and feasibility testing The study will be undertaken in four National Health Service (NHS) hospitals in the United Kingdom and two Higher Education Institution. Discussion: OPAL (Occupational advice for Patients undergoing Arthroplasty of the Lower limb) aims to develop an occupational advice intervention to support early recovery to usual activities including work, which is tailored to the requirements of patients undergoing hip and knee replacements. The developed intervention will then be assessed with a specific focus on evaluating its feasibility as a potential trial intervention to improve speed of recovery to usual activities including work

Staggered fermions and chiral symmetry breaking in transverse lattice regulated QED

Staggered fermions are constructed for the transverse lattice regularization scheme. The weak perturbation theory of transverse lattice non-compact QED is developed in light-cone gauge, and we argue that for fixed lattice spacing this theory is ultraviolet finite, order by order in perturbation theory. However, by calculating the anomalous scaling dimension of the link fields, we find that the interaction Hamiltonian becomes non-renormalizable for $g^2(a) > 4\pi$, where $g(a)$ is the bare (lattice) QED coupling constant. We conjecture that this is the critical point of the chiral symmetry breaking phase transition in QED. Non-perturbative chiral symmetry breaking is then studied in the strong coupling limit. The discrete remnant of chiral symmetry that remains on the lattice is spontaneously broken, and the ground state to lowest order in the strong coupling expansion corresponds to the classical ground state of the two-dimensional spin one-half Heisenberg antiferromagnet.Comment: 30 pages, UFIFT-HEP-92-1

Urges to Move and Other Motivation States for Physical Activity in Clinical and Healthy Populations: A Scoping Review Protocol

[EN] Motivation for bodily movement, physical activity and exercise varies from moment to moment. These motivation states may be “affectively-charged,” ranging from instances of lower tension (e.g., desires, wants) to higher tension (e.g., cravings and urges). Currently, it is not known how often these states have been investigated in clinical populations (e.g., eating disorders, exercise dependence/addiction, Restless Legs Syndrome, diabetes, obesity) vs. healthy populations (e.g., in studies of motor control; groove in music psychology). The objective of this scoping review protocol is to quantify the literature on motivation states, to determine what topical areas are represented in investigations of clinical and healthy populations, and to discover pertinent details, such as instrumentation, terminology, theories, and conceptual models, correlates and mechanisms of action. Iterative searches of scholarly databases will take place to determine which combination of search terms (e.g., “motivation states” and “physical activity”; “desire to be physically active,” etc.) captures the greatest number of relevant results. Studies will be included if motivation states for movement (e.g., desires, urges) are specifically measured or addressed. Studies will be excluded if referring to motivation as a trait. A charting data form was developed to scan all relevant documents for later data extraction. The primary outcome is simply the extent of the literature on the topic. Results will be stratified by population/condition. This scoping review will unify a diverse literature, which may result in the creation of unique models or paradigms that can be utilized to better understand motivation for bodily movement and exercise.GA was supported by a fellowship from the Office of Academic Affiliations at the United States Veterans Health Administration, a Robert E. Leet and Clara Guthrie Patterson Trust Mentored Research Award, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee, and American Heart Association Grant #852679 (GA, 2021–2024).We would like to thank Melissa Eden, Ph.D. (Hanover College, IN) for her valuable assistance in refining aspects of the search strategy. Khristdman Cavalcanti helped with technical aspects of the study. Sunao Akashi Slayton, PharmD BCOP (Smilow Cancer Hospital, Yale – New Haven Hospital, CT) evaluated clinical information and provided nomenclatur