Preoperative Sucrosomial Iron Supplementation Increases Haemoglobin and Reduces Transfusion Requirements in Elective Heart Surgery Patients: A Prospective Randomized Study.

Background: Low preoperative haemoglobin is frequently observed in heart surgery patients and is associated with a significant decrease in haemoglobin between post-operative days 2 and 3, known as haemoglobin drift. Overall, these patients tend to receive many RBC transfusions. Since iron homeostasis is often impaired in these patients, restoration of iron availability might override iron-restricted erythropoiesis.

Feasibility and acceptability study on the use of a smartphone application to facilitate balance training in the ageing population.

Objectives: This study aims to investigate the feasibility and acceptability of using an app-based technology to train balance in the older population.

Design: Prospective feasibility study.

Setting: The study was conducted in a university setting and participants' homes.

Reliability and minimal detectable change of the 'Imperial Spine' marker set for the evaluation of spinal and lower limb kinematics in adults.

Objectives: As a step towards the comprehensive evaluation of movement in patients with low back pain, the aim of this study is to design a marker set (three rigid segment spine, pelvic and lower limb model) and evaluate the reliability and minimal detectable change (MDC) of this marker set in healthy adults during gait and sit to stand (STS) tasks using three dimensional motion capture.

Results: The 'Imperial Spine' marker set was used to assess relative peak angles during gait and STS tasks using the minimum recommended sample size (n = 10) for reliability studies with minimum Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) of 0.70, optimum ICC 0.

Assessment of chest wall movement following thoracotomy: a systematic review.

Thoracotomy is a major cause of respiratory impairment, increasing the risk of postoperative pulmonary complications (PPC). Systems assessing ribcage kinematics may detect changes in chest expansion following thoracotomy and may thus aid in the development of patient-tailored chest physiotherapy. Hence, we aimed to identify studies assessing changes in chest wall movement following thoracotomy using objective measures.

Alteration of movement patterns in low back pain assessed by Statistical Parametric Mapping.

Changes in movement pattern in low back pain (LBP) groups have been analysed by reporting predefined discrete variables. However, this approach does not consider the full kinematic data waveform and its dynamic information, potentially exposing the analysis to bias. Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM) has been introduced and applied to 1 dimensional (D) kinematic variables allowing the assessment of data over time.