Effects of gait modifications on tissue-level knee mechanics in individuals with medial tibiofemoral osteoarthritis: A proof-of-concept study towards personalized interventions.

Gait modification is a common nonsurgical approach to alter the mediolateral distribution of knee contact forces, intending to decelerate or postpone the progression of mechanically induced knee osteoarthritis (KOA). Nevertheless, the success rate of these approaches is controversial, with no studies conducted to assess alterations in tissue-level knee mechanics governing cartilage degradation response in KOA patients undertaking gait modifications. Thus, here we investigated the effect of different conventional gait conditions and modifications on tissue-level knee mechanics previously suggested as indicators of collagen network damage, cell death, and loss of proteoglycans in knee cartilage.

The European Union's responses to the COVID-19 crisis: How to fight a pandemic with the internal market.

In a liberalized market economy, states tend to purchase supplies required for producing publicly funded services, such as healthcare, from the markets instead of producing them themselves. The availability of critical supplies thus becomes a question of supply-side availability and supply chain management, and therefore their availability is conceptualized in terms of security of supply. The European Union's security of supply policy has focused on energy and security and defence.

Weak smoking cessation awareness in primary health care before surgery: a real-world, retrospective cohort study.

Tobacco smoking is a well-established risk factor for postoperative complications. Research on preoperative smoking cessation in primary health care is scarce. This was a retrospective cohort study.