3,951 research outputs found
How do muscle and bone strengthening and balance activities (MBSBA) vary across the life course, and are there particular ages where MBSBA are most important?
This narrative review focuses on the role of strength and balance activities throughout the lifecycle to improve physical capacity and reduce all-cause mortality. The evidence suggests strong associations in middle and older age, with poor balance, poor strength or poor physical function having strong associations with mortality. Currently in the UK, the proportions of adults (69% of men and 76% of women) not meeting the strength and balance guidelines (of 2 or more sessions/week) is concerning. This report identifies specific time points in the lifecycle where specific promotion of and engagement with strength and balance activities would be most beneficial for health: 18-24y to maximize bone and muscle mass gains, 40-50y to maintain strength and reduce that downward cycle, and over 65s to preserve balance and strength and maintain independence). This review also suggests specific transition points/events in life where there may be an increase in sedentary behaviour or loss of muscle function (pregnancy, menopause, onset of on diagnosis of disease, retirement, on becoming a carer and following hospitalization), where it would be useful to initiate additional strength and balance exercises to improve future health outcomes
Which strength and balance activities are safe and efficacious for individuals with specific challenges (osteoporosis, vertebral fractures, frailty, dementia)?: A Narrative review
Physical activity guidelines advocate the inclusion of strength and balance activities, twice a week, for adults and older adults, but with caveat that in some individuals there will be certain movements and activities that could lead to adverse events. This scoping review summarizes the evidence about how safe and efficacious these activities are in older adults with specific challenges that might make them more prone to injury (e.g. having recently fractured or at risk of fracture (osteoporosis) or those who are frail or who have cognitive impairment). The review identified that for prevention of falls in people with a falls history and/or frailer older adults, structured exercise programmes that incorporate progressive resistance training (PRT) with increasing balance challenges over time are safe and effective if performed regularly, with supervision and support, over at least 6 months. Some minor adverse effects mainly transient musculoskeletal pain) have been reported. For those with a higher risk of falls and fractures (very poor balance, vertebral fractures), supervised structured exercise programmes are most appropriate. People with diagnosed osteoporosis should be as active as possible and only avoid activities with a high risk of falls if they are naive to those activities. For those in transition to frailty who have poor strength and balance, exercises that are known to help maintain strength and balance (such as Tai Chi) are effective in preventing a decline in falls risk. For the very frail older adult, supervised structured exercise that has PRT, balance training and some endurance work, supervised and progressed by a trained person are advocated
What happened to my legs when I broke my arm?
This case report describes an incident that occurred during the course of a research intervention study. Participants in the study were continually monitored with an activPAL activity monitor. Whilst wearing the monitor a participant had a fall causing musculoskeletal trauma requiring hospital admission. The patient was admitted for an acute hospital stay (3 days) for management of the upper limb injury. The case report presents the measurement of the participant’s sedentary time before the incident, during hospitalisation and post discharge. The report is relevant for education and service design both in hospital and in the community settings as it demonstrates the rapid influence of an upper limb injury and consequences beyond the hospital bed. This report is novel as it presents not only hospitalisation and post hospital activity, but also provides insight into the individual’s actual objective (rather than retrospective self-report) activity patterns before hospitalisation. The infographic presentation has been chosen to allow quick and easy understanding of information
Placing dynamic sensors and actuators on flexible space structures
Input/Output Cost Analysis involves decompositions of the quadratic cost function into contributions from each stochastic input and each weighted output. In the past, these suboptimal cost decomposition methods of sensor and actuator selection (SAS) have been used to locate perfect (infinite bandwidth) sensor and actuators on large scale systems. This paper extends these ideas to the more practical case of imperfect actuators and sensors with dynamics of their own. NASA's SCOLE examples demonstrate that sensor and actuator dynamics affect the optimal selection and placement of sensors and actuators
Fluid-loaded metasurfaces
We consider wave propagation along fluid-loaded structures which take the
form of an elastic plate augmented by an array of resonators forming a
metasurface, that is, a surface structured with sub-wavelength resonators. Such
surfaces have had considerable recent success for the control of wave
propagation in electromagnetism and acoustics, by combining the vision of
sub-wavelength wave manipulation, with the design, fabrication and size
advantages associated with surface excitation. We explore one aspect of recent
interest in this field: graded metasurfaces, but within the context of
fluid-loaded structures.
Graded metasurfaces allow for selective spatial frequency separation and are
often referred to as exhibiting rainbow trapping. Experiments, and theory, have
been developed for acoustic, electromagnetic, and even elastic, rainbow devices
but this has not been approached for fluid-loaded structures that support
surface waves coupled with the acoustic field in a bulk fluid. This surface
wave, coupled with the fluid, can be used to create an additional effect by
designing a metasurface to mode convert from surface to bulk waves. We
demonstrate that sub-wavelength control is possible and that one can create
both rainbow trapping and mode conversion phenomena for a fluid-loaded elastic
plate model.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figure
Short time-scale optical variability of the dwarf Seyfert nucleus in NGC 4395
We present optical spectroscopic observations of the least-luminous known
Seyfert 1 galaxy, NGC 4395, which was monitored every half-hour over the course
of 3 nights. The continuum emission varied by ~35 per cent over the course of 3
nights, and we find marginal evidence for greater variability in the blue
continuum than the red. A number of diagnostic checks were performed on the
data in order to constrain any systematic or aperture effects. No correlations
were found that adequately explained the observed variability, hence we
conclude that we have observed real intrinsic variability of the nuclear
source. No simultaneous variability was measured in the broad H-beta line,
although given the difficulty in deblending the broad and narrow components it
is difficult to comment on the significance of this result. The observed short
time-scale continuum variability is consistent with NGC 4395 having an
intermediate-mass (~10^5 solar masses) central supermassive black hole, rather
than a very low accretion rate. Comparison with the Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 5548
shows that the observed variability seems to scale with black hole mass in
roughly the manner expected in accretion models. However the absolute
time-scale of variability differs by several orders of magnitude from that
expected in simple accretion disc models in both cases.Comment: 16 pages, 14 figures, 5 tables, accepted for publication in MNRA
Co-creating a tailored public health intervention to reduce older adults’ sedentary behaviour
Objective: The increasing health care costs associated with an ageing population and chronic disease burden are largely attributable to modifiable lifestyle factors that are complex and vary between individuals and settings. Traditional approaches to promoting healthy lifestyles have so far had limited success. Recently, co-creating public health interventions with end-users has been advocated to provide more effective and sustainable solutions. The aim of this study was to document and evaluate the co-creation of a public health intervention to reduce sedentary behaviour in older adults.
Design: Community-dwelling older adults (N = 11, mean age = 74 years) and academic researchers attended 10 interactive co-creation workshops together.
Setting: Workshops took place on university campus and the co-creators completed fieldwork tasks outside the workshops.
Method: Workshops were informed by the Participatory and Appreciative Action and Reflection methodology. Data were collected using field notes, video recording and worksheet tasks. Analysis was conducted using a qualitative content analysis approach.
Results: The co-creators developed a tailored intervention delivered through a mode congruent with older adults' lives. Key elements of the intervention included (1) education on sedentary behaviour, (2) resources to interrupt sedentary behaviour, (3) self-monitoring, (4) action planning and (5) evaluating the benefits of interrupting sedentary behaviour.
Conclusion: Co-creation is a feasible approach to develop public health interventions; however, it is limited by the lack of a systematic framework to guide the process. Future work should aim to develop principles and recommendations to ensure co-creation can be conducted in a more scientific and reproducible way. The effectiveness and scalability of the intervention should be assessed
Linearized dynamical model for the NASA/IEEE SCOLE configuration
The linearized equation of motion for the NASA/IEEE SCOLE configuration are developed. The derivation is based on the method of Lagrange and the equations are assembled into matrix second order form
Reach the person behind the dementia: physical therapists' reflections and strategies when composing physical training
Dementia is a disease characterized by cognitive impairment and physical decline that worsens over time. Exercise is one lifestyle factor that has been identified as a potential means of reducing or delaying progression of the symptoms of dementia, maximizing function and independence. The purpose of this study was to explore physical therapists' (PTs) experiences and reflections on facilitating high-intensity functional exercise with older people living with dementia, in residential care home settings. The study used a qualitative design based on interviews, individually or in small groups, with seven PTs engaged as leaders in the training of older people with dementia. The interviews were analyzed with a modified Grounded Theory method with focus on constant comparisons. To increase trustworthiness the study used triangulation within investigators and member checking. The core category "Discover and act in the moment-learn over time" reflects how the PTs continuously developed their own learning in an iterative process. They built on previous knowledge to communicate with residents and staff and to tailor the high intensity training in relation to each individual at that time point. The category "Be on your toes" highlights how the PTs searched for sufficient information about each individual, before and during training, by eliciting the person's current status from staff and by interpreting the person's body language. The category "Build a bond with a palette of strategies" describes the importance of confirmation to build up trust and the use of group members and the room to create an interplay between exercise and social interaction. These findings highlight the continuous iterative process of building on existing knowledge, sharing and reflecting, being alert to any alterations needed for individuals that day, communication skills (both with residents and staff) and building a relationship and trust with residents in the effective delivery of high intensity functional exercise to older people living with dementia in care settings
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