Validation of Fatigue Impact Scale with various item sets - a Rasch analysis.

PURPOSE: Fatigue is a symptom in patients with chronic gastrointestinal (GI) and liver diseases. Different instruments have been developed to assess the severity of fatigue and the 40-item Fatigue Impact Scale (FIS) is among the most widely used. Shorter versions of FIS include the 21-item Modified Fatigue Impact Scale (MFIS), and an eight-item version for everyday use. The study aimed to assess construct validity, reliability, and sufficiency of the raw score of the original FIS with 40 items, and examine the sufficiency of the 21 items from the Modified scale and the eight items of the Daily Fatigue Impact Scale (D-FIS), all of which are embedded in the 40-item scale. METHODS: Patients with chronic GI or liver disease (n = 354) completed the FIS with 40 items. The majority (57%) was under the age of 55 years and approximately half were females (48%). Various item sets of FIS were derived which showed fit to the Rasch model. RESULTS: Local dependency and multidimensionality in FIS and the 21-item Modified scale were resolved with a testlet solution but the D-FIS showed local dependency and multidimensionality and differential item functioning (DIF) still remained. Two new item sets fulfilling unidimensionality and no DIF are suggested, one with 15 items and a six-item scale for daily use. The transformation table shows score-interval scale estimates for all these item sets. CONCLUSIONS: Both the FIS and the Modified scale can be used to measure fatigue albeit requiring some adjustment for DIF. The eight-item D-FIS is more problematic, and its summed score is not valid. Alternative 15- and 6-item versions presented in this paper can offer valid summed scores, and the transformation table allows transformation of raw scores and comparisons across all versions. Implications for rehabilitation The Fatigue Impact Scale and the Modified Fatigue Impact Scale can be used to measure fatigue after adjustments for differential item functioning. Alternative 15- and 6-item versions of Fatigue Impact Scale offer valid summed scores. The summed score for the Daily Fatigue Impact Scale is not valid. A transformation table with raw scores and Rasch transformed interval scale metric makes it possible to compare scores derived from the Fatigue Impact Scale, the Modified Fatigue Impact Scale and the proposed 15- and 6-item versions of Fatigue Impact Scale for research and/or clinical use.

Postoperative Recovery in Frail, Pre-frail, and Non-frail Elderly Patients Following Abdominal Surgery.

BACKGROUND: The objective of this study is to explore the association between frailty and surgical recovery over a 6-month period, in elderly patients undergoing elective abdominal surgery. METHODS: A total of 144 patients were categorized as frail, pre-frail, and non-frail based on five criteria: weight loss, exhaustion, weakness, slowness, and low activity. Recovery to preoperative functional status (activities of daily living (ADL) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL)), cognition, quality of life, and mental health was assessed at 1, 3, and 6 months postoperatively. A repeated measure logistic regression was used to analyze the effect of frailty on recovery over time. The effect of frailty on hospitalization outcomes was also evaluated. RESULTS: Mean age was 78 ± 5 years with 17.4% of patients categorized as frail, 60.4% pre-frail, and 22.2% non-frail. At 6 months, the percent of patients who had recovered to preoperative values were: ADL 90%; IADL 76%; cognition 75.5%; mental health 66%; and quality of life 70%. While more frail patients experienced adverse hospitalization outcomes and fewer had recovered to preoperative functional status, these differences were not found to be statistically significant. Overall, frailty status was not significantly associated with the trajectory of recovery or hospitalization outcomes. CONCLUSION: Strong, institutional commitment to quality surgical care, as well as appropriate strategies for older patients, may have mitigated the impact of frailty on recovery. Further research is needed to examine the role of frailty in the surgical recovery process.

GENERAL HEALTH STATUS AMONG FIREFIGHTERS AND RESCUE OPERATIONS WORKERS.

Research objective - to study the state of health of staff of service of fire extinguishing and accident rescue services department for definition of the priority directions of rendering the treatment-and-prophylactic help and rehabilitation of employees. By means of an information and analytical method the retrospective analysis of reports about the registered diseases, their result and the reasons of temporary disability of staff of service of fire extinguishing and accident rescue services department of Department on emergency situations of Almaty in 2011-2016 has been carried out. Statistical processing of the received results of research is carried out by means of Student's t-criterion. The conducted research showed that the high level of primary incidence is characteristic of the staff of service of fire extinguishing and accident rescue services department, at the same time the most significant are diseases of respiratory organs, traumas, poisoning and some other consequences of influence of the external reasons, diseases of bone and muscular system and connecting tissue, blood circulatory system illness. Studying of the state of health of staff of service of fire extinguishing and rescue services allowed to establish the priority directions of rendering the treatment-and-prophylactic help and rehabilitation. Their contents are defined by need of concentration of efforts on prevention, treatment and rehabilitation of the most widespread diseases causing the maximum damage to health.

Prehabilitation in our most frail surgical patients: are wearable fitness devices the next frontier?

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Frailty is the concept of accumulating physiologic declines that make people less able to deal with stressors, including surgery. Prehabilitation is intervention to enhance functional capacity before surgery. Frailty and prehabilitation among transplant populations and the role of wearable fitness tracking devices (WFTs) in delivering fitness-based interventions will be discussed. RECENT FINDINGS: Frailty is associated with increased complications, longer length of hospital stay and increased mortality after surgery. Frail kidney transplant patients have increased delayed graft function, mortality and early hospital readmission. Frail lung or liver transplant patients are more likely to delist or die on the waitlist. Prehabilitation can mitigate frailty and has resulted in decreased length of hospital stay and fewer postsurgical complications among a variety of surgical populations. Increasingly, WFTs are used to monitor patient activity and improve patient health. Interventions using WFTs have resulted in improved activity, weight loss and blood pressure. SUMMARY: Frailty is a measurable parameter that identifies patients at risk for worse health outcomes and can be mitigated through intervention. Prehabilitation to reduce frailty has been shown to improve postsurgical outcomes in a variety of populations. WFTs are being integrated in healthcare delivery for monitoring and changing health behavior with promising results.

[Rehabilitation for digestive and metabolic diseases. Quo vadis?]. / Rehabilitation bei Verdauungs- und Stoffwechselkrankheiten. Quo vadis?

The position of rehabilitation in gastroenterology, hepatology and metabolic diseases has changed little in the last 25 years. Initial improvements in quality are oriented more to the content of rehabilitative measures and less to organizational basic conditions. Nevertheless, there is an urgent need for action if rehabilitation medicine is to achieve an equivalent and recognized position in the interaction between primary care and other medical specialties. In this article suggestions for expedient prerequisites and utilization options of rehabilitation in the fields of hepatogastroenterology and metabolism will be presented, which are also oriented to the exemplary implemented concepts from Sweden and The Netherlands.

[Effect of rehabilitation on the parameters of quality of life in children with chronic gastroduodenal pathology].

The objective of this study was to evaluate effect of comprehensive rehabilitation on dynamics of characteristics of the quality of life in children with chronic gastroduodenal pathology. The study included 155 children aged 14-15 years examined in the phase of exacerbation of chronic gastroduodenitis (CGD). Sixty one of these patients were given treatment in the "Detskie dyuny" children's sanatorium rehabilitation centre and the remaining 54 received traditional combined therapy services as outpatients (control group). The quality of life was ascertained based on the results of the SF-36 and WHOQOL questionnaires; the Luscher colour test, the CAH scale, and Spielberger-Khanin test anxiety inventory were used to measure the psychophysiological status of the patients. The study has demonstrated high efficacy of comprehensive rehabilitation in children during exacerbation of chronic gastroduodenal pathology that resulted in normalization of their physical and psychophysiological characteristics and improvement of the quality of life.

[Use of resort factors in Novosibirsk region in the treatment of digestion system diseases].

Hydrocarbonate-chloride-sodium mineral water has a prokinetic effect, reduces lithogenicity of bile and decreases the level of glycoproteins in biological fluids improving their rheological characteristics. Saline "rapa" baths decrease intragastric pH, stimulate pancreatic secretion, normalize mucus composition and activate protective-adaptive mechanisms of organism. Pelotherapy modulate gastric juice acidity making antigelicobacteria effect and decrease glycoproteins concentration of digestive sectets.

Disease characteristics as determinants of the labour market position of adolescents and young adults with chronic digestive disorders.

BACKGROUND: Job prospects can be problematic for young patients with chronic digestive disorders. OBJECTIVES: To compare the employment status and disease burden in young adult patients with several chronic digestive disorders with healthy controls, and to determine whether labour participation depends on disease characteristics, such as type of diagnosis and burden of disease. PARTICIPANTS: In total 622 patients categorized into five diagnostic groups--inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) (n=274), chronic liver diseases (n=78), congenital digestive disorders (n=104), food allergy (n=77), celiac disease (n=89)--and a population-based control group (n=248), age 15-24 years. METHODS: Labour participation and burden of disease (i.e. consequences of the disease in daily life) were assessed by a postal questionnaire. Multivariate statistics were computed to investigate the relationship between disease characteristics and labour participation. RESULTS: Patients with IBD or chronic liver diseases were found to have limited job prospects. Patients with chronic liver diseases, IBD and food allergy reported more disease burden regarding several indicators compared with controls. Logistic regression analyses including background characteristics revealed socio-economic status (educational level of parents) and nocturnal toilet use as important determinants of employment. In addition, gender and medication intake were found to be most determinative for a full-time position. CONCLUSIONS: The possible impact of IBD and chronic liver diseases on the labour participation of young adults should be recognized and deserves extra attention from gastroenterologists so that young patients can be supported to increase their job opportunities.

A comparison of two comorbidity instruments in arthritis.

Comorbidity (CM) is a powerful predictor of health outcome and cost, as well as an important confounder in many epidemiologic studies. However, choosing the most appropriate CM measurement instrument is difficult because comparative data on how the available instruments perform in various disease settings are limited. We collected CM data (from the complete medical records) for two population-based prevalence cohorts with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and osteoarthritis (OA) and a comparison cohort without arthritis (NA), using two different CM instruments: the Charlson CM index (Charl), which is based on 17 diagnoses each weighted by mortality risk, and the Index of Coexistent Diseases (ICED), which estimates the severity and frequency of 14 comorbid conditions and provides an assessment of the impairment or disability caused by each. Cox proportional hazards modeling was used to assess the impact of the two types of comorbidity scores (Charl and ICED) on survival after prevalence (index) date, adjusting for the age, sex, and disease status. There were 450, 441, and 889 individuals in the RA, OA, and NA groups, respectively, with a mean follow-up period of 10.6 years. During the follow-up, 293, 307, and 546 deaths occurred in the RA, OA, and NA groups, respectively. The mean age and percent females were: 63.3 years, 74%; 70.7 years, 74%; and 67.5 years, 75% for the RA, OA, and NA groups, respectively. Comorbidity was highest in RA, intermediate in OA, and lowest in NA by both Charl and ICED. Cox proportional hazards modeling demonstrated that both Charl and ICED were highly statistically significant predictors of mortality (P<0.0001) after adjusting for age, sex, and disease state (RA, OA, or NA) and that ICED remained highly significant as a predictor of mortality, even after adjusting for Charl. We conclude that estimating CM from medical records using ICED, an instrument that incorporates an assessment of impairment and disability, is feasible and that such as assessment provides information that independently predicts mortality, even after adjusting for the results of traditional diagnosis-based CM measures, such as Charl.

[The characteristics of the use of low-mineralization sodium chloride mineral water in the rehabilitative treatment of patients with the most common diseases of the internal organs]. / Osobennosti primeneniia malomineralizovannoi khloridnoi natrievoi mineral'noi vody v vosstanovitel'nom lechenii bol'nykh s naibolee rasprostranennymi zabolevaniiami vnutrennikh organov.

The paper describes some therapeutic aspects of sodium chloride mineral water from the springs of Mirgorod (a balneological resort in Ukraine). Methodological approaches to the treatment of patients with most common visceral disease with bottled mineral Mirgorod water are outlined.

[Crenotherapy in sports medicine: the state of the art]. / La crenoterapia nella medicina sportiva: lo stato dell'arte.

The existing relationship linking thermal and sport medicine has developed with time. This is shown by the established beneficial effects of thermal treatments (mineral waters, mud baths, balneotherapy, aerosol applications) in a wide range of sport and non-sport related injuries. The muscle fatigue syndrome is a condition particularly worrisome for sports practising individuals. This condition impairs the cardiovascular system, as well as hematologic, renal and gastrointestinal functions, acting via biochemical and metabolic modifications of the organism, which have effects also on the psyche of the subject. The treatment of this syndrome includes the use of specific mineral waters, which underscores that the correct hydration of the organisms is a precondition to achieve high performance levels. Traumas involving muscles and skeletal segments, and precocious arthrosis occur with higher frequency in sportsmen after continuous and intense stresses. Within the scope of rheumatology, mud-baths and balneotherapy have curative and rehabilitative potentials leading to a reduction, and often a disappearance, of pain with a faster recovery of the locomotory system. The gastrointestinal system is a target of psychic as well as physical stresses displaying symptoms or diseases which may be favourably addressed with the aid of mineral waters. This treatment has proved effective in secretory and motility dysfunctions of the biliary tree allowing a rapid functional recovery. Mineral water treatments are successfully employed in the treatment of urologic disturbance and ORL and dermatological pathologies, where local applications such as mud baths, balneotherapy, showers and aerosols, play a critical role.