5,177 research outputs found
Factors associated with physical activity participation in adults with chronic cervical spine pain: a systematic review
Objective: To determine the factors associated with physical activity participation in adults with chronic cervical spine pain. Methods: A systematic review was conducted including searches of PubMed (MEDLINE), EMBASE and CINAHL from inception to June 12th, 2016. Grey literature and reference checking was also undertaken. Quantitative studies including factors related to physical activity participation in adults with chronic cervical spine pain were included. Two independent authors conducted the searches, extracted data and completed methodological quality assessment. Results: A total of seven studies met the selection criteria, however, four papers were finally included in the final review. A modified Downs and Black criteria was used to assess methodological quality, each study included was classed as moderate quality. A total of six factors were assessed against physical activity participation for people with chronic neck pain. These included: pain, fear of movement, smoking habits, socioeconomic status, gender, leisure and work time habits. A significant relationship was demonstrated between pain, leisure and work time habits and physical activity. Subjects were less likely to participate in physical activity if they were in pain. Subjects with neck pain were less likely to participate in physical activity in their leisure and work time. Conclusion: This review, based on a small number of heterogeneous studies demonstrated key factors that are likely to affect physical activity in people with chronic neck pain, most notably, pain levels, leisure and work habits. This review suggests that more in-depth, high quality studies are required to fully understand the impact of chronic pain on physical activity
Randomized sham controlled trial of cranial microcurrent stimulation for symptoms of depression, anxiety, pain, fatigue and sleep disturbances in women receiving chemotherapy for early-stage breast cancer
Purpose
Women with breast cancer may experience symptoms of depression, anxiety, pain, fatigue and sleep disturbances during chemotherapy. However, there are few modalities that address multiple, commonly occurring symptoms that may occur in individuals receiving cancer treatment. Cranial electrical stimulation (CES) is a treatment that is FDA cleared for depression, anxiety and insomnia. CES is applied via electrodes placed on the ear that deliver pulsed, low amplitude electrical current to the head. Methods
This phase III randomized, sham-controlled study aimed to examine the effects of cranial microcurrent stimulation on symptoms of depression, anxiety, pain, fatigue, and sleep disturbances in women receiving chemotherapy for early-stage breast cancer. Patients were randomly assigned to either an actual or sham device and used the device daily for 1 h. The study was registered at clinicaltrials.gov, NCT00902330. Results
The sample included N = 167 women with early-stage breast cancer. Symptom severity of depression, anxiety, and fatigue and sleep disturbances were generally mild to moderate. Levels of pain were low. Anxiety was highest prior to the initial chemotherapy and decreased over time. The primary outcome assessment (symptoms of depression, anxiety, fatigue, pain, sleep disturbances) revealed no statistically significant differences between the two groups, actual CES vs. sham. Conclusion
In this study, women receiving chemotherapy for breast cancer experienced multiple symptoms in the mild to moderate range. Although there is no evidence for the routine use of CES during the chemotherapy period for symptom management in women with breast cancer, further symptom management modalities should be evaluated to mitigate symptoms of depression, anxiety, fatigue, pain and sleep disturbances over the course of chemotherapy
Coherent Topological Charge Structure in Models and QCD
In an effort to clarify the significance of the recent observation of
long-range topological charge coherence in QCD gauge configurations, we study
the local topological charge distributions in two-dimensional sigma
models, using the overlap Dirac operator to construct the lattice topological
charge. We find long-range sign coherence of topological charge along extended
one-dimensional structures in two-dimensional spacetime. We discuss the
connection between the long range topological structure found in and
the observed sign coherence along three-dimensional sheets in four-dimensional
QCD gauge configurations. In both cases, coherent regions of topological charge
form along membrane-like surfaces of codimension one. We show that the Monte
Carlo results, for both two-dimensional and four-dimensional gauge theory,
support a view of topological charge fluctuations suggested by Luscher and
Witten. In this framework, the observed membranes are associated with
boundaries between ``k-vacua,'' characterized by an effective local value of
which jumps by across the boundary.Comment: 26 page
Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics in cosmology: a comparative study of implementations
We analyse the performance of twelve different implementations of Smoothed
Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) using seven tests designed to isolate key
hydrodynamic elements of cosmological simulations which are known to cause the
SPH algorithm problems. In order, we consider a shock tube, spherical adiabatic
collapse, cooling flow model, drag, a cosmological simulation, rotating
cloud-collapse and disc stability. In the implementations special attention is
given to the way in which force symmetry is enforced in the equations of
motion. We study in detail how the hydrodynamics are affected by different
implementations of the artificial viscosity including those with a
shear-correction modification. We present an improved first-order
smoothing-length update algorithm that is designed to remove instabilities that
are present in the Hernquist and Katz (1989) algorithm.
For all tests we find that the artificial viscosity is the most important
factor distinguishing the results from the various implementations. The second
most important factor is the way force symmetry is achieved in the equation of
motion. Most results favour a kernel symmetrization approach. The exact method
by which SPH pressure forces are included has comparatively little effect on
the results. Combining the equation of motion presented in Thomas and Couchman
(1992) with a modification of the Monaghan and Gingold (1983) artificial
viscosity leads to an SPH scheme that is both fast and reliable.Comment: 30 pages, 26 figures and 9 tables included. Submitted to MNRAS.
Postscript version available at
ftp://phobos.astro.uwo.ca/pub/etittley/papers/sphtest.ps.g
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