Preoperative cognitive performance and its association with postoperative complications in vascular surgery patients: A prospective study.

Background: Cognitive impairment affects nearly half of vascular surgery patients, but its association with postoperative outcomes remains poorly understood. This study explores the link between preoperative cognitive performance and postoperative complications, including postoperative delirium, in vascular surgery patients.

Methods: A prospective cohort study was conducted on vascular surgery patients aged ≥65.

Comparison of Various Functional Assessment Tools to Identify Older Patients Undergoing Aortic Aneurysm Repair at Risk for Postoperative Complications.

Background: To estimate whether the benefits of aortic aneurysm repair will outweigh the risks, determining individual risks is essential. This single-center prospective cohort study aimed to compare the association of functional tools with postoperative complications in older patients undergoing aortic aneurysm repair.

Methods: Ninety-eight patients (≥65 years) who underwent aortic aneurysm repair were included.

The Reliability and Clinical Validation of Automatically-Derived Verbal Memory Features of the Verbal Learning Test in Early Diagnostics of Cognitive Impairment.

Background: Previous research has shown that verbal memory accurately measures cognitive decline in the early phases of neurocognitive impairment. Automatic speech recognition from the verbal learning task (VLT) can potentially be used to differentiate between people with and without cognitive impairment.

Objective: Investigate whether automatic speech recognition (ASR) of the VLT is reliable and able to differentiate between subjective cognitive decline (SCD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

Transferring people with dementia to severe challenging behavior specialized units, an in-depth exploration.

Objectives: One of the main reasons for people with dementia to move to a dementia special care unit of a nursing home is challenging behavior. This behavior is often difficult to manage, and in the Netherlands, residents are sometimes relocated to a severe challenging behavior specialized unit. However, relocation often comes with trauma and should be prevented if possible.

Validation of an Automated Speech Analysis of Cognitive Tasks within a Semiautomated Phone Assessment.

Introduction: We studied the accuracy of the automatic speech recognition (ASR) software by comparing ASR scores with manual scores from a verbal learning test (VLT) and a semantic verbal fluency (SVF) task in a semiautomated phone assessment in a memory clinic population. Furthermore, we examined the differentiating value of these tests between participants with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). We also investigated whether the automatically calculated speech and linguistic features had an additional value compared to the commonly used total scores in a semiautomated phone assessment.

Different Aspects of Physical Load in Small-Sided Field Hockey Games.

Wilmes, E, de Ruiter, CJ, van Leeuwen, RR, Banning, LF, van der Laan, D, and Savelsbergh, GJP. Different aspects of physical load in small-sided field hockey games. J Strength Cond Res 38(2): e56-e61, 2024-Running volumes and acceleration/deceleration load are known to vary with different formats of small-sided games (SSGs) in field hockey.

The 2023 Impact of Inflammatory Bowel Disease in Canada: Special Populations-Children and Adolescents with IBD.

Rates of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in Canadian children and adolescents are among the highest in the world, and the incidence is rising most rapidly in children under five years of age. These young children may have either a typical form of IBD with multi-factorial aetiology, or they may have a monogenic form. Despite the growing number of children in Canada living with this important chronic disease, there are few available medical therapies approved by Health Canada due to the omission of children from most clinical trials of newly developed biologics.

Carotid calcium burden derived from computed tomography angiography as a predictor of all-cause mortality after carotid endarterectomy.

Objective: Carotid endarterectomy (CEA) aims to reduce the risk of stroke in patients with atherosclerotic carotid disease. Preoperative risk assessments that predict complications are needed to optimize the care in this patient group. The current approach, namely relying solely on symptomatology and degree of stenosis, is outdated and calls for innovation.

The Accuracy of Speech and Linguistic Analysis in Early Diagnostics of Neurocognitive Disorders in a Memory Clinic Setting.

Objective: To investigate whether automatic analysis of the Semantic Verbal Fluency test (SVF) is reliable and can extract additional information that is of value for identifying neurocognitive disorders. In addition, the associations between the automatically derived speech and linguistic features and other cognitive domains were explored.

Method: We included 135 participants from the memory clinic of the Maastricht University Medical Center+ (with Subjective Cognitive Decline [SCD; N = 69] and Mild Cognitive Impairment [MCI]/dementia [N = 66]).

Association between Masseter Muscle Area and Thickness and Outcome after Carotid Endarterectomy: A Retrospective Cohort Study.

Low muscle mass is associated with adverse outcomes after surgery. This study examined whether facial muscles, such as the masseter muscle, could be used as a proxy for generalized low muscle mass and could be associated with deviant outcomes after carotid endarterectomy (CEA). As a part of the Vascular Ageing study, patients with an available preoperative CT-scan, who underwent an elective CEA between December 2009 and May 2018, were included.

The Role of Vascular Risk Factors in Biomarker-Based AT(N) Groups: A German-Dutch Memory Clinic Study.

Background: The relation between vascular risk factors (VRFs) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) is important due to possible pathophysiological association.

Objective: To assess the prevalence of VRFs in biomarker-based AT(N) groups and the associations between VRFs, AD cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers, brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and cognition in clinical context.

Methods: We included patients from two memory clinics in University Hospital Aachen (Germany) and Maastricht University Medical Centre (The Netherlands).

Survey response in colorectal surgery. A systematic review.

Background: Survey research is widely used for developing value-based management strategies in colorectal surgery. However, declining response rates threaten the validity of results. Our aim is to identify factors that influence response rate in colorectal surgical surveys and provide recommendations for future survey design.

Role of pre-operative frailty status in relation to outcome after carotid endarterectomy: a systematic review.

Carotid endarterectomy (CEA) is a surgical treatment option to prevent ischemic cerebrovascular accidents. Patients that present with pre-operative frailty might have an elevated risk for unfavorable outcomes after the CEA. A systematic search, using Medline, Embase, Web of Science and Cochrane Database, was performed for relevant literature on frailty in patients undergoing CEA.

Frailty and Kidney Transplantation: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

Unlabelled: Frailty is a multidimensional condition and is the result of the body's age-associated decline in physical, cognitive, physiological, and immune reserves. The aim of this systematic review is to assess the quality of evidence of the included studies, determine the prevalence of frailty among kidney transplant candidates, and evaluate the relationship between frailty and associated patient characteristics and outcomes after kidney transplantation.

Methods: A systematic search was performed for relevant literature on frailty and kidney transplantation.

Surveys in Surgical Education: A Systematic Review and Reporting Guideline.

Objectives: Survey studies are a commonly used method for data collection in surgical education research. Nevertheless, studies investigating survey design and response rates in surgical education research are lacking. The aim of this study was to gain an insight into survey response rates among surgical residents and medical students, and provide an initial reporting guideline for future survey studies in this field.

Risk Factors for Delirium after Vascular Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Background: Vascular surgery is considered a risk factor for the development of postoperative delirium (POD). In this systematic review we provide a report on the incidence and risk-factors of POD after vascular surgery.

Methods: A systematic literature search was conducted using Pubmed with the MeSH terms and key words "delirium" or "confusion", "vascular surgery procedures" and "risk factors or "risk assessment".

Frailty leads to poor long-term survival in patients undergoing elective vascular surgery.

Objective: Frailty has persistently been associated with unfavorable short-term outcomes after vascular surgery, including an increased complication risk, greater readmission rate, and greater short-term mortality. However, a knowledge gap remains concerning the association between preoperative frailty and long-term mortality. In the present study, we aimed to determine this association in elective vascular surgery patients.

Gender Disparities in Authorships and Citations in Transplantation Research.

Background: Over the past decades, there has been a rapid change in the gender ratio of medical doctors, whereas gender differences in academia remain apparent. In transplantation research, a field already understaffed with female doctors and researchers, there is little published data on the development in proportion, citations, and funding of female researchers over the past years.

Methods: To evaluate the academic impact of female doctors in transplantation research, we conducted a bibliometric analysis (01 January 1999 to 31 December 2018) of high-impact scientific publications, subsequent citations, and funding in this field.

Alzheimer's disease biomarkers as predictors of trajectories of depression and apathy in cognitively normal individuals, mild cognitive impairment, and Alzheimer's disease dementia.

Objectives: To examine trajectories of depression and apathy over a 5-year follow-up period in (prodromal) Alzheimer's disease (AD), and to relate these trajectories to AD biomarkers.

Methods: The trajectories of depression and apathy (measured with the Neuropsychiatric Inventory or its questionnaire) were separately modeled using growth mixture models for two cohorts (National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center, NACC, n = 22 760 and Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, ADNI, n = 1 733). The trajectories in ADNI were associated with baseline CSF AD biomarkers (Aβ t-tau, and p-tau) using bias-corrected multinomial logistic regression.

Transitions in frailty state after kidney transplantation.

Purpose: Frailty is the body's failure to return to homeostasis after every day or acute stressful events, causing adverse outcomes. To study its dynamics in kidney transplant recipients (KTR), we determined whether the degree of frailty and its domains are affected by kidney transplantation (KT).

Methods: Between 2015 and 2017, 176 KTR were included.

Transition in Frailty State Among Elderly Patients After Vascular Surgery.

Background: Frailty in the vascular surgical ward is common and predicts poor surgical outcomes. The aim of this study was to analyze transitions in frailty state in elderly patients after vascular surgery and to evaluate influence of patient characteristics on this transition.

Methods: Between 2014 and 2018, 310 patients, ≥65 years and scheduled for elective vascular surgery, were included in this cohort study.

Mitigating language and cultural barriers in healthcare communication: Toward a holistic approach.

Due to ongoing globalization and migration waves, healthcare providers are increasingly caring for patients from diverse cultural and/or ethnic minority backgrounds. Adequate health communication with migrants and ethnic minorities is often more difficult to establish compared to people belonging to the majority groups of a given society, because of a combination of language and cultural barriers. To address this topic, in December 2018 a symposium was organized-under the auspices of the Amsterdam Center for Health Communication-during which speakers from both academia and professional practice discussed the current state-of-the-art and brought forward innovative solutions to improve intercultural communication in healthcare.