Uncertainty and probability in neonatal end-of-life decision-making: analysing real-time conversations between healthcare professionals and families of critically ill newborns.

Background: A significant number of critically ill neonates face potentially adverse prognoses and outcomes, with some of them fulfilling the criteria for perinatal palliative care. When counselling parents about the critical health condition of their child, neonatal healthcare professionals require extensive skills and competencies in palliative care and communication. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the communication patterns and contents between neonatal healthcare professionals and parents of neonates with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions regarding options such as life-sustaining treatment and palliative care in the decision-making process.

National Divergences in Perinatal Palliative Care Guidelines and Training in Tertiary NICUs.

Despite established principles of perinatal palliative care (PnPC), implementation into practice has shown inconsistencies. The aim of this study was to assess PnPC services, examine healthcare professionals (HCPs) awareness and availability of PnPC guidelines, and describe HCPs satisfaction with PC and guidelines. A nationwide survey was conducted in Swiss tertiary NICUs between April-November 2019.

Congenital malformations, palliative care and postnatal redirection to more intensive treatment - a review at a Swiss tertiary center.

Purpose: The so-called lethal malformations pose ethical challenges. Most affected fetuses die before or at birth. Live-born neonates commonly receive palliative care.

Ultrasound tissue Doppler imaging reveals no delay in abdominal muscle feed-forward activity during rapid arm movements in patients with chronic low back pain.

Study Design: Cross-sectional study.

Objective: Comparison of the timing of onset of lateral abdominal muscle activity during rapid arm movements in patients with nonspecific chronic low back pain (cLBP) and back-pain-free controls.

Summary Of Background Data: Rapid movements of the arm are normally associated with prior activation of trunk-stabilizing muscles in readiness for the impending postural perturbation.

Muscle thickness changes during abdominal hollowing: an assessment of between-day measurement error in controls and patients with chronic low back pain.

Spine stabilization exercises, in which patients are taught to perform isolated contractions of the transverses abdominus (TrA) during "abdominal hollowing", are a popular physiotherapeutic treatment for low back pain (LBP). Successful performance is typically judged by the relative increase in TrA thickness compared with that of the internal (OI) and external (OE) oblique muscles, measured using ultrasound. The day-to-day measurement error (imprecision) associated with these indices of preferential activation has not been assessed but is important to know since it influences the interpretation of changes after treatment.