Long-Lasting Efficacy of Radio Electric Asymmetric Conveyer Neuromodulation Treatment on Functional Dysmetria, an Adaptive Motor Behavior

BackgroundFluctuating asymmetry (FA) is widely defined as the deviation from perfect bilateral symmetry and is considered an epigenetic measure of environmental stress. Rinaldi and Fontani hypothesized that the FA morpho-functional changes originate from an adaptive motor behavior determined by functional alterations in the cerebellum and neural circuits, not caused by a lesion, but induced by environmental stress. They called this phenomenon functional dysmetria (FD). On this premise, they developed the radio electric asymmetric conveyer (REAC) technology, a neuromodulation technology aimed at optimizing the best neuro-psycho-motor strategies in relation to environmental interaction.AimsPrevious studies showed that specific REAC neuro postural optimization (NPO) treatment can induce stable FD recovery. This study aimed to verify the duration of the NPO effect in inducing the stable FD recovery over timeMaterials and methodsData were retrospectively collected from a population of 29,794 subjects who underwent a specific semiological FD assessment and received the NPO treatment, regardless of the pathology referred.ResultsThe analysis of the data collected by the various participants in the study led us to ascertain the disappearance of FD in 100% of the cases treated, with a stability of the result detected up to 18 years after the single administration of the REAC NPO treatment.ConclusionsThe REAC NPO neurobiological modulation treatment consisting of a single administration surprisingly maintains a very long efficacy in the correction of FD. This effect can be explained as the long-lasting capacity of the NPO treatment to induce greater functional efficiency of the brain dynamics as proven in previous studies

Clinical features and outcomes of elderly hospitalised patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart failure or both

Background and objective: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and heart failure (HF) mutually increase the risk of being present in the same patient, especially if older. Whether or not this coexistence may be associated with a worse prognosis is debated. Therefore, employing data derived from the REPOSI register, we evaluated the clinical features and outcomes in a population of elderly patients admitted to internal medicine wards and having COPD, HF or COPD + HF. Methods: We measured socio-demographic and anthropometric characteristics, severity and prevalence of comorbidities, clinical and laboratory features during hospitalization, mood disorders, functional independence, drug prescriptions and discharge destination. The primary study outcome was the risk of death. Results: We considered 2,343 elderly hospitalized patients (median age 81 years), of whom 1,154 (49%) had COPD, 813 (35%) HF, and 376 (16%) COPD + HF. Patients with COPD + HF had different characteristics than those with COPD or HF, such as a higher prevalence of previous hospitalizations, comorbidities (especially chronic kidney disease), higher respiratory rate at admission and number of prescribed drugs. Patients with COPD + HF (hazard ratio HR 1.74, 95% confidence intervals CI 1.16-2.61) and patients with dementia (HR 1.75, 95% CI 1.06-2.90) had a higher risk of death at one year. The Kaplan-Meier curves showed a higher mortality risk in the group of patients with COPD + HF for all causes (p = 0.010), respiratory causes (p = 0.006), cardiovascular causes (p = 0.046) and respiratory plus cardiovascular causes (p = 0.009). Conclusion: In this real-life cohort of hospitalized elderly patients, the coexistence of COPD and HF significantly worsened prognosis at one year. This finding may help to better define the care needs of this population

Treatment with COLchicine in hospitalized patients affected by COVID-19: The COLVID-19 trial

Objective: To evaluate whether the addition of colchicine to standard of care (SOC) results in better outcomes in hospitalized patients with COVID-19. Design: This interventional, multicenter, randomized, phase 2 study, evaluated colchicine 1.5 mg/day added to SOC in hospitalized COVID-19 patients (COLVID-19 trial) and 227 patients were recruited. The primary outcome was the rate of critical disease in 30 days defined as need of mechanical ventilation, intensive care unit (ICU), or death. Results: 152 non-anti-SARS-CoV-2-vaccinated patients (colchicine vs controls: 77vs75, mean age 69.1±13.1 vs 67.9±15 years, 39% vs 33.3% females, respectively) were analyzed. There was no difference in co-primary end-points between patients treated with colchicine compared to controls (mechanical ventilation 5.2% vs 4%, ICU 1.3% vs 5.3%, death 9.1% vs 6.7%, overall 11 (14.3%) vs 10 (13.3%) patients, P=ns, respectively). Mean time to discharge was similar (colchicine vs controls 14.1±10.4 vs 14.7±8.1 days). Older age (>60 years, P=0.025), P/F40 U/L (P<0.001), pre-existent heart (P=0.02), lung (P=0.003), upper-gastrointestinal (P=0.014), lower-gastrointestinal diseases (P=0.009) and cancer (P=0.008) were predictive of achieving the primary outcome. Diarrhoea (9.1% vs 0%, p=0.0031) and increased levels of AST at 6 days (76.9±91.8 vs 33.5±20.7 U/l, P=0.016) were more frequent in the colchicine group. Conclusion: Colchicine did not reduce the rate and the time to the critical stage. Colchicine was relatively safe although adverse hepatic effects require caution. We confirm that older (>60 years) patients with comorbidities are characterized by worse outcome