Impact of Non-Pharmacological Interventions on the Mechanisms of Atherosclerosis.

Atherosclerosis remains the leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide characterized by the deposition of lipids and fibrous elements in the form of atheroma plaques in vascular areas which are hemodynamically overloaded. The global burden of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease is steadily increasing and is considered the largest known non-infectious pandemic. The management of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease is increasing the cost of health care worldwide, which is a concern for researchers and physicians and has caused them to strive to find effective long-term strategies to improve the efficiency of treatments by managing conventional risk factors.

Heart rate variability analysis and cardiac dysautonomia in ischemic stroke patients.

Objectives: Autonomic nervous system dysfunction after ischemic stroke predisposes to cardiovascular complications. We aimed to investigate cardiac autonomic activity in ischemic stroke patients using heart rate variability analysis, illustrating the sympathovagal balance at different sympathetic and parasympathetic activation tests.

Patients And Methods: We studied the dynamics of the linear and non-linear heart rate variability parameters in 31 left and 40 right middle cerebral artery ischemic stroke patients in rest condition and during autonomic activation tests (handgrip, standing, deep breathing and Valsalva maneuver).

Cortical modulation of cardiac autonomic activity in ischemic stroke patients.

The cardiovascular system is regulated by the autonomic nervous system, under cortical modulation. Stroke can induce cardiac autonomic imbalance, therefore, causing secondary cardiovascular complications. Heart rate variability (HRV) analysis is a simple method to appraise the autonomic nervous function.

Autonomic impairment in patients with migraine.

Objective: Heart rate variability analysis of electrocardiogram is becoming an increasingly common method to non-invasively evaluate autonomic nervous function. The aim of the study was to investigate cardiac autonomic function in subjects with and without migraine by using 24-hour ambulatory electrocardiographic recordings.

Patients And Methods: We investigated 27 subjects with migraine (10 with migraine with aura and 17 without aura) during headache free periods and 10 age-matched healthy control subjects.

Evaluation of cardiac parameters using electrical impedance plethysmography.

Unlabelled: Impedance plethysmography is a method for determining changes in body tissue volumes, based on the measurement of electric impedance at the body surface. Because it is a non-invasive and cost-effective method to measure and analyze hemodynamics, it would bring to physiologists very important diagnostic information for the continuous care of critical patients with hemodynamic disorders.

Methods: This study aimed at acquiring non-invasively and at analyzing plethysmografic waves by measuring the electrical impedance.

Noninvasive hemodynamic study of the pulmonary circulation.

Unlabelled: Cardiac catheterization is the reference method for the hemodynamic study of the pulmonary circulation. However, cardiac catheterization is an expensive and invasive method. Echocardiography is a reliable noninvasive alternative method.

Echocardiographic predictors of adverse short-term outcomes after heart surgery in patients with mitral regurgitation and pulmonary hypertension.

Background: Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a frequent occurrence and a negative prognostic indicator in patients with mitral regurgitation. Preoperative PH causes higher early and late mortality rates after heart surgery, adverse cardiac events, and postoperative systolic dysfunction in the left ventricle (LV).

Methods: The research consisted of a retrospective study of a group of 171 consecutive patients with mitral regurgitation and preoperative PH who had undergone mitral valve surgery between January 2008 and October 2011.

[Effect of environmental and individual factors in renal lithiasis].

The large number of cases with renal lithiasis occurring in the population of the south-east region of Iasi county has determined us to make a study in this region for the identification of environmental and individual factors involved in the etiopathogenesis of this disease. This study is performed to assert the corelation between the clinical and paraclinical patients data with those obtained through water and soil chemical analisys for identification of determinant environmental and individual factors involved in etiopathogenesis of this disease. This study indicates that the environment factors (water, soil) correlated with personal factors, especially the diet and standard of living are the favouring factors of renal lithiasis.

[Changes of spirographic parameters in type 2 diabetes mellitus].

Unlabelled: Diabetes mellitus (DM), metabolic disease with chronic evolution, affects various organs through its macro- and micro-angiopathic complications which it causes, one of this target organs for diabetes being the lungs.

Objectives: The aim of the study is to evaluate the relationship between type 2 diabetes mellitus and the pulmonary function.

Material And Method: 50 non-smoking patients diagnosed with type 2 DM, without respiratory problems were included in this study.

[Monitoring of the SaO2 and photoplethysmography in chronic disease].

Unlabelled: Non-invasive monitoring of some vital parameters can improve the management of chronic diseases resulting an important increasing of quality of life. Today the high number of the patients, suffering of chronically diseases, put a big pressure to the health system with their demand for homecare monitoring.

Material And Method: In this paper are presented the design of the wearable medical device for long term monitoring of pulse wave and SaO2 using a probe that includes two light emitting diodes (LEDs), one in the visible red spectrum (660 nm) and the other in the infrared spectrum (940 nm).

[Wireless device for monitoring the patients with chronic disease].

Unlabelled: Remote monitoring of chronic diseases can improve health outcomes and potentially lower health care costs. The high number of the patients, suffering of chronically diseases, who wish to stay at home rather then in a hospital increasing the need of homecare monitoring and have lead to a high demand of wearable medical devices. Also, extended patient monitoring during normal activity has become a very important target.

[Monitoring system for cardiovascular parameters of drivers].

Unlabelled: In the world the road traffic accidents are in the 3rd place at WHO cause-of-death statistics. One of the main causes of these accidents is driving fatigue as results of stress. The aim of this study is to monitoring the heart rate variability for identifying the grade of stress of the drivers.

[Multi-objective optimization for fuzzy controller in neuro-muscular rehabilitation].

The multi-objective optimization problem could be generally formulated as minimization of vector objectives subject to a number of constraints and bounds. Among the non-derivative problems, genetic algorithms have been proved to be a good solution in addressing ill-posed problem. We applied the multi-objective optimization to fuzzy controller design in order to obtain a optimal solution that is often a compromise between different objectives.

[E-health application for home monitoring of neuro-muscular rehabilitation].

In many medical fields the recovery of muscular activity or its improvement up to the level of the optimal parameters is required. Apart from the classical solution for rehabilitation (physical exercises) the use of electrical stimulation has become quite frequent of late. The paper presents an interface that detects the electromyographic (EMG) activity, assesses it, and generates appropriate electrical stimuli, by means of a specific type of fuzzy control system, in order to control the dynamics of the EMG.