Causes and Solutions for High Direct Care Staff Turnover

This quantitative research project explores the reasons and solutions for the high rates of direct care staff turnover. Emails were sent out to social service agency supervisors asking for their approval to allow their employees to participate in an online survey about direct care staff turnover. Agencies that agreed to participate were then emailed a script and a consent form with instructions to email both the script and the consent form to their employees. The ten question online survey explored the direct care staff\u27s opinions on topics such as compensation, support and training. Additionally, there was a qualitative question at the end of the survey asking for direct care staff\u27s input as to possible solutions to reduce direct care staff turnover. Twenty-six individuals participated in the survey. Answers were analyzed and entered into SPSS in order to find correlations in the data. Themes were identified amongst the responses to the qualitative question. A majority of the respondents did not feel they received adequate support from their supervisor or adequate compensation for the work that they do. Answers showed that direct care staff who participated in the survey attributed inadequate compensation as the largest contributor to the high rates of direct care staff turnover. The answers revealed no statistically significant data however, some correlations approached statistical significance. Results from this quantitative research project were consistent with pre-existing literature

Can medio-lateral baseplate position and load sharing induce asymptomatic local bone resorption of the proximal tibia? A finite element study

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Distal femoral bone mineral density decreases following patellofemoral arthroplasty: 1-year follow-up study of 14 patients

The bone mineral density (BMD) of the distal femur decreases by 16-36% within one year after total knee arthroplasty (TKA) because of the femoral component's stress-shielding effect. The aim of this prospective study was to determine the quantitative change from the baseline BMD in the distal femur 1 year after patellofemoral arthroplasty using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA).Journal Articleinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

The use of rapid prototyped implants to simulate knee joint abnormalities for in vitro testing: a validation study with replica implants of the native trochlea

To investigate the biomechanical effect of skeletal knee joint abnormalities, the authors propose to implant pathologically shaped rapid prototyped implants in cadaver knee specimens. This new method was validated by replacing the native trochlea by a replica implant on four cadaver knees with the aid of cadaver-specific guiding instruments. The accuracy of the guiding instruments was assessed by measuring the rotational errors of the cutting planes (on average 3.01 degrees in extension and 1.18 degrees in external/internal rotation). During a squat and open chain simulation, the patella showed small differences in its articulation with the native trochlea and the replica trochlea, which could partially be explained by the rotational errors of the implants. This study concludes that this method is valid to investigate the effect of knee joint abnormalities with a replica implant as a control condition to account for the influence of material properties and rotational errors of the implant

Fixation strength and stability of tibial components of knee prostheses

The replacement of the arthritic human knee joint by an artificial implant (or total knee arthroplasty) is currently a very successful medical intervention. A large majority of the patients enjoys relief of pain and restoration of function for at least ten to fifteen years. As a consequence, it has also become a very popular treatment that is now considered as the treatment of choice in almost all patients with severe knee problems. Thus the number of knee replacements increases from year to year. However, even in the most successful medical intervention, such as total knee arthroplastie, some failures will always occur. In view of the large number of patients involved, even small failure rates amount to large numbers of people experiencing a disappointing result and even undergoing a revision operation. Since failure of a knee prosthesis will usually become apparent by a phenomenon called “aseptic loosening”, one of the design issues that obviously needs further attention is the fixation of the prosthesis to the underlying bone. One of the ideas is the fixation of knee prostheses by bone growing into a porous coating. Current research on joint replacements therefore focuses on the solution of the problem of bone ingrowth. In this thesis, the results are presented of some experiments that contribute to this endeavours. The requisites for bone ingrowth are quite challenging. It seems that bone ingrowth is only possible when the prosthesis is rigidly fixed to the bone initially or else that the coating material for the prosthesis has bioactive capacities. In order to improve the initial stability of implants, one must obviously be able to measure relative movements of the prosthesis with respect to bone. Therefore, the development of a set-up for in vitro tests that enables a complete three-dimensional analysis of the relative movement of a prosthesis subjected to physiological loads was the first goal of the experimental part of this thesis. We used this set-up to analyse a clinically used knee implant and to evaluate the influence of fixation aides and bone quality on the initial stability. One of the so-called bioactive materials that stimulate bone ingrowth even in the absence of optimal mechanical conditions is hydroxyapatite. We used the sheep as an animal model to investigate the influence of hydroxyapatite on bone ingrowth in a knee prosthesis.nrpages: 236status: publishe

Karakterisatie van restspanning en textuur in dunne deklagen d.m.v. rontgendiffraktie

KULeuven Campusbibliotheek Exacte Wetenschappen / UCL - Université Catholique de LouvainSIGLEBEBelgiu

CHANGES IN TKA KINEMATICS AND CONTACT FORCES INDUCED BY MAL-CONFIGURATIONS: A NUMERICAL STUDY

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe