Lumbar spine fusion surgery versus best conservative care for patients with severe, persistent low back pain.

Aims: People with severe, persistent low back pain (LBP) may be offered lumbar spine fusion surgery if they have had insufficient benefit from recommended non-surgical treatments. However, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) 2016 guidelines recommended not offering spinal fusion surgery for adults with LBP, except as part of a randomized clinical trial. This survey aims to describe UK clinicians' views about the suitability of patients for such a future trial, along with their views regarding equipoise for randomizing patients in a future clinical trial comparing lumbar spine fusion surgery to best conservative care (BCC; the FORENSIC-UK trial).

Epidemiological Profile of Burns in the Elderly in Lagos, Nigeria: A Preliminary Study.

The elderly population is on the increase globally according to the current global demographic changes and is more vulnerable to burn injuries. Despite recent advances in burn care, the outcome of burns in the elderly has only marginally improved when compared with children and younger adults. The objective of this study was to determine the patterns and outcomes of burns in the elderly and eventually proffer prevention strategies.

Fluency in L2: Read and Spontaneous Speech Pausing Patterns of Turkish, Swahili, Hausa and Arabic Speakers of English.

Language learners' actual speech performances constitute an essential aspect of studies on second language learning and teaching. Although there is ample research on fluency and pauses in English, current literature does not touch on this issue from a multilingual perspective by comparing both read and spontaneous speech performances. In this descriptive study, the researchers investigated pausing patterns with 40 Turkish, Swahili, Hausa, and Arabic speakers of English.