ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: Many contemporary designs solely prioritize the therapeutic function of footwear, neglecting other crucial social and environmental considerations. The study aimed to explore challenges to therapeutic footwear usage for foot ulcer prevention. METHODS: A qualitative critical ethnography design was used in this study. Fourteen participants were recruited at the local hospital in Baise City, China. Data were collected through in-depth interview. A thematic analysis approach was conducted for data analyzing. RESULTS: This study identified two themes: (1) workplace and physical condition, (2) diverse cultural practice. It was worth noting that slipper as a convenient and cheap wearing choice, decreased the usage of therapeutic footwear. The emerging activity of modern square dancing resulted in more requirements for its design. And the symbolic meaning of hard working in barefoot was also challengeable to therapeutic footwear utilization to some extent. CONCLUSIONS: Therapeutic footwear intervention design should not only focus on the therapeutic functionality, but also consider about individuals' demands towards working environment and physical status, and particular insights regarding culture and social background. We expected these findings could be evidence for improving therapeutic footwear usage in the future.
ABSTRACT
Objective: To explore the value of sports and functional exercises in preventing falls in elderly patients with cognitive impairment. Methods: PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, VIP, Wanfang Database, and China Biomedical Literature Database (CBM), from inception to January 2023, were used to search the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of sports and functional exercises in elderly patients with cognitive impairment. Two independent researchers extracted the data and evaluated the quality of the included literature. RevMan5.4 software was adopted for data analysis. Results: The results indicated that exercise combined with functional exercise could noticeably enhance the fall effect score and shorten the Timed Up and Go Test (TUGT) time of elderly patients with cognitive impairment compared to simple drug treatment (P < .05). Our results showed that the exercise combined with functional exercise can noticeably prolong the standing time of elderly patients with cognitive impairment upon monocular eye closure. Our results also showed that exercise combined with functional exercise can noticeably improve the fear of falls in elderly patients with cognitive impairment. Conclusion: Sports and functional exercise intervention can promote the balance ability and fall self-efficacy of elderly patients with cognitive impairment and have a positive effect on enhancing patients' fear of falls. The findings need to be further verified and methodological quality needs to be improved. In addition, longer intervention times are required to verify the findings.