Adapting the "Chester step test" to predict peak oxygen uptake in children.

Aim Of The Study: Maximal exercise testing may be difficult to perform in clinical practice, especially in obese children who have low cardiorespiratory fitness and exercise tolerance. We aimed to elaborate a model predicting peak oxygen consumption (VO2) in lean and obese children with use of the submaximal Chester step test.

Methods: We performed a maximal step test, which consisted of 2-minute stages with increasing intensity to exhaustion, in 169 lean and obese children (age range: 7-16 years).

Role of pain in measuring shoulder strength abduction and flexion with the Constant-Murley score.

Objectives: The Constant-Murley score (CS) has been used for more than 25 years to assess shoulder function. Strength by itself accounts for 25% of the total score. The measurement at 90° abduction seems to be sometimes limited by pain, particularly with tendinopathy or subacromial impingement.

The respiration pattern as an indicator of the anaerobic threshold.

The anaerobic threshold (AT) is a good index of personal endurance but needs a laboratory setting to be determined. It is important to develop easy AT field measurements techniques in order to rapidly adapt training programs. In the present study, it is postulated that the variability of the respiratory parameters decreases with exercise intensity (especially at the AT level).

Subjective perceptions as prognostic factors of time to fitness for work during a 4-year period after inpatient rehabilitation for orthopaedic trauma.

Introduction: Time to fitness for work (TFW) was measured as the number of days that were paid as compensation for work disability during the 4 years after discharge from the rehabilitation clinic in a population of patients hospitalised for rehabilitation after orthopaedic trauma. The aim of this study was to test whether some psychological variables can be used as potential early prognostic factors of TFW.

Material And Methods: A Cox proportional hazards model was used to estimate the associations between predictive variables and TFW.

Epidemiology and contemporary risk profile of traumatic spinal cord injury in Switzerland.

Background: Traumatic spinal cord injury (TSCI) has a high personal and socio-economic impact. Effective public health prevention policies that aim to reduce this burden are reliant on contemporary information of the risk and underlying causes of TSCI. This study contextualizes Swiss annual incidence rates within the European context, and provides detailed estimates by age, gender and etiology towards informing targeted intervention strategies.