Teaching yoga to seniors: essential considerations to enhance safety and reduce risk in a uniquely vulnerable age group.

Background: Seniors age 65 and older represent the fastest-growing sector of the population and, like many Americans, are increasingly drawn to yoga. This presents both an extraordinary opportunity and a serious challenge for yoga instructors who must be both a resource and guardians of safety for this uniquely vulnerable group. A typical class of seniors is likely to represent the most diverse mix of abilities of any age group.

Exercise for people with osteoporosis: translating the science into clinical practice.

The "holy grail" of inquiry regarding exercise and osteoporosis has been identifying a type of exercise that builds bone. Investigation using animal models has provided many insights into how bone responds to mechanical loading, but translating these findings into an exercise prescription for patients with osteoporosis is difficult. Patients expect bone to respond to exercise in a linear fashion, such as they are accustomed to experiencing with muscles in response to progressive strength training or with the cardiopulmonary system in response to endurance training.

A clinical trial of a rehabilitation expert clinician versus usual care for providing manual wheelchairs.

Objectives: To determine the effect of differing methods of dispensing wheelchairs.

Design: Quasi-experimental by day of week.

Setting: Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Group treatment improves trunk strength and psychological status in older women with vertebral fractures: results of a randomized, clinical trial.

Objectives: To assess whether group exercise and coping classes reduce physical and psychological impairments and functional disability in older women with prevalent vertebral fractures (VFs).

Design: Randomized, controlled trial (modified cross-over) with site as unit of assignment; testing at baseline and 3, 6, 9, and 12 months.

Setting: Nine North Carolina retirement communities.

Activity restriction among wheelchair users.

Objectives: To identify factors associated with activity restriction.

Design: Cohort study.

Setting: Patients prescribed a new wheelchair at one of two teaching hospitals (one Veterans Affairs and one private hospital).

Barriers, facilitators, and access for wheelchair users: substantive and methodologic lessons from a pilot study of environmental effects.

We undertook a month-long intensive pilot study of a sample of adult wheelchair-users in Boston, Massachusetts and Durham, North Carolina, USA. The study had four objectives; to: (1) measure experiences of reaching and failing to reach specific destinations; (2) measure encounters with environmental facilitators and barriers, including both those overcome and not overcome; (3) determine the frequencies of destinations, facilitators, and barriers, and (4) test for consistency between daily reports and retrospective reports. Full participation entailed baseline and exit telephone interviews, and 28 daily telephone contacts.