Aims: To report the changes in nutritional status, nutrition-related complaints and risk of sarcopenia in individuals attending a primary care dietitian in the Netherlands after a COVID-19 infection.
Methods: The study was registered on the clinicaltrials.gov registry (NCT04735744).
Objectives: This study identifies work trajectories of patients with persistent complaints after a COVID-19 infection receiving allied healthcare and predictors of return work.
Methods: A prospective cohort of 1333 Dutch working-age patients with persistent complaints after a COVID-19 infection receiving allied healthcare between 2021 and 2022 were used. Sequence analysis was conducted to identify work trajectories over time and logistic regression to investigate predictors of return to work.
Background: A Dutch nationwide prospective cohort study was initiated to investigate recovery trajectories of people recovering from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and costs of treatment by primary care allied health professionals.
Objectives: The study described recovery trajectories over a period of 12 months and associated baseline characteristics of participants recovering from COVID-19 who visited a primary care allied health professional. It also aimed to provide insight into the associated healthcare and societal costs.
Purpose: To quantitatively assess changes in recovery of people recovering from COVID-19 treated by a primary care allied health professional, and to qualitatively describe how they dealt with persistent complaints.
Materials And Methods: This mixed-methods study is part of a Dutch prospective cohort study, from which thirty participants were selected through purposive sampling. Quantitative data on recovery were collected at start of treatment and 6 months.
Background: Patients recovering from COVID-19 often experience persistent problems in their daily activities related to limitations in physical, nutritional, cognitive, and mental functioning. To date, it is unknown what treatment is needed to support patients in their recovery from COVID-19.
Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the primary allied health care of patients recovering from COVID-19 at 6-month follow-up and to explore which baseline characteristics are associated with changes in the scores of outcomes between baseline and 6-month follow-up.
Aims: The effect of excess glucocorticoid receptor (GR) stimulation through glucocorticoid medication or cortisol on glucose metabolism is well established. There are genetic GR variants that result in increased or decreased GR stimulation. We aimed to determine the prevalence of genetic GR variants in different ethnic groups in a cohort of patients with type 2 diabetes, and we aimed to determine their association with age of diabetes onset and metabolic and inflammation parameters.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Perturbation-based balance training (PBT) is an emerging intervention shown to improve balance recovery responses and reduce falls in everyday life in older adults. However, perturbation interventions were heterogeneous in nature and need improvement. This study aims to investigate the effects of a PBT protocol that was designed to address previously identified challenges of PBT, in addition to usual care, on balance control and fear of falling in older adults at increased risk of falling.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Time-lapse monitoring is increasingly used in fertility laboratories to culture and select embryos for transfer. This method is offered to couples with the promise of improving pregnancy chances, even though there is currently insufficient evidence for superior clinical results. We aimed to evaluate whether a potential improvement by time-lapse monitoring is caused by the time-lapse-based embryo selection method itself or the uninterrupted culture environment that is part of the system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSince the mid-2000s, perturbation-based balance training has been gaining interest as an efficient and effective way to prevent falls in older adults. It has been suggested that this task-specific training approach may present a paradigm shift in fall prevention. In this review, we discuss key concepts and common issues and questions regarding perturbation-based balance training.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Several recent research studies show high performance of blood biomarkers to identify Alzheimer's disease also in the pre-dementia mild cognitive impairment (MCI) stage, but data from the routine clinical care memory clinic setting are needed.
Methods: We examined plasma samples of 144 memory clinic patients, including dementia of Alzheimer type (DAT, n = 54), MCI (n = 57), and subjective cognitive decline (SCD, n = 33), who either presented as self-referrals or were referred by general practitioners or neurologists or psychiatrists. The plasma biomarkers, amyloid-beta42 (Aß42), amyloid-beta40 (Aß40), phospho-Tau181 (pTau181), total-tau (tTau), and neurofilament light (NFL), as well as different ratios, were measured using the ultrasensitive single molecule array (Simoa) immunoassay technology.
Introduction: Perturbation-based balance training (PBT) is reported to effectively reduce falls in older adults and may even be superior compared with various exercise programmes. Due to the nature of the intervention, requiring unpredictable balance perturbations, the question arises whether acceptability is an issue in PBT.
Objective: To evaluate the acceptability of PBT in older adults with a recent history of falls.
To assess the prevalence of each symptom listed in the acronym DISCOHAT (worsening of symptoms in Darkness and/or uneven ground, Imbalance, Supermarket effect, Cognitive complaints, Oscillopsia, Head movements worsen symptoms, Autonomic complaints, and Tiredness) in patients with bilateral vestibulopathy (BVP), compared to patients with unilateral vestibulopathy (UVP). A descriptive case-control study was performed on BVP and UVP patients who were evaluated for their vestibular symptoms by two of the authors (RvdB, MCG) at a tertiary referral center, between 2017 and 2020. During history taking, the presence of each DISCOHAT symptom was checked and included in the electronic health record.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Biochem Cell Biol
December 2021
Mitochondria change their shape, size and number, in response to cellular demand, through mitochondrial dynamics. The interaction between mitochondria and the ER, through ER-mitochondrial contact sites, is crucial in mitochondrial dynamics. Several protein complexes tethering mitochondria to the ER include proteins involved in fission or fusion but also proteins involved in calcium homeostasis, which is known to affect mitochondrial dynamics.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn a Dutch non-consanguineous patient having mitochondrial encephalomyopathy with complex I and complex IV deficiency, whole exome sequencing revealed two compound heterozygous variants in SLIRP. SLIRP gene encodes a stem-loop RNA-binding protein that regulates mitochondrial RNA expression and oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS). A frameshift and a deep-intronic splicing variant reduced the amount of functional wild-type SLIRP RNA to 5%.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWhole exome sequencing (WES), analyzed with GENESIS and WeGET, revealed a homozygous deletion in the C1QBP gene in a patient with progressive external ophthalmoplegia (PEO) and multiple mtDNA deletions. The gene encodes the mitochondria-located complementary 1 Q subcomponent-binding protein, involved in mitochondrial homeostasis. Biallelic mutations in C1QBP cause mitochondrial cardiomyopathy and/or PEO with variable age of onset.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe variety of available mitochondrial quantification tools makes it difficult to select the most reliable and accurate quantification tool. Here, we performed elaborate analyses on five open source ImageJ tools. Excessive clustering of mitochondrial structures was observed in four tools, caused by the global thresholding applied by these tools.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGiven that falls most commonly occur during walking due to unexpected balance perturbations like trips and slips, walking-based balance assessment including walking stability and adaptability to such perturbations could be beneficial for fall risk assessment in older adults. This cross-sectional study reanalyzed data from two larger studies conducted with the same walking protocol. Participants completed unperturbed walking trials at speeds of 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Falls are a common cause of injuries and hospitalization among older adults. While conventional balance training appears effective in preventing falls, a relatively large number of training sessions are needed and retention of the effects after the training period is hard to accomplish. This may be because these interventions are not sufficiently task-specific for the mechanism of falls.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHigh mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) copy numbers are essential for oogenesis and embryogenesis and correlate with fertility of oocytes and viability of embryos. To understand the pathology and mechanisms associated with low mtDNA copy numbers, we knocked down mitochondrial transcription factor A (), a regulator of mtDNA replication, during early zebrafish development. Reduction of using a splice-modifying morpholino (MO) resulted in a 42 ± 17% decrease in mtDNA copy number in embryos at 4 days post fertilization.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
March 2020
Packaging design is an important factor when consumers look out for healthy food. The study tested for effects of packaging color and health claims of a fictional fruit yoghurt package on attitude towards the product and subsequently, consumer's buying intention, using a 2 × 2 between-subjects experimental design. We also tested whether interest in healthy food is a moderating factor.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMitochondria have been increasingly recognized as a central regulatory nexus for multiple metabolic pathways, in addition to ATP production via oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS). Here we show that inducing mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) stress in Drosophila using a mitochondrially-targeted Type I restriction endonuclease (mtEcoBI) results in unexpected metabolic reprogramming in adult flies, distinct from effects on OXPHOS. Carbohydrate utilization was repressed, with catabolism shifted towards lipid oxidation, accompanied by elevated serine synthesis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Phlebotomy is an error-prone process in which mistakes are difficult to reveal. This case report describes the effect on laboratory results originating from a blood sample collected in close proximity to an intravenous catheter.
Materials And Methods: A 69-year-old male patient was referred to the Emergency department where pneumonia was suspected.
Mutations in genes involved in mitochondrial dynamics (fusion and fission) have been implicated in many peripheral neuropathies. We hypothesized that defects in these genes could result in a phenotype resembling features of small-fiber neuropathy (SFN). This was investigated in zebrafish by knocking down two genes involved in mitochondrial dynamics gdap1 (possibly fission and motility) and opa1 (fusion) using established morpholinos.
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