Feasibility of a Type 2 Diabetes Prevention Program at Nationwide Level in General Practice: A Pilot Study in Italy.

Background: Lifestyle interventions halt the progression of prediabetes to frank type 2 diabetes (T2D). However, the feasibility of a diabetes prevention program promoting tailored interventions on a national scale and conducted by primary care physicians is unclear.

Methods: General practitioners located in ten different regions throughout Italy enrolled random subjects without known metabolic diseases to identify individuals with prediabetes and prescribe them an intervention based on physical activity.

No Difference in Muscle Basal Oxygenation in a Bedridden Population Pre and Post Rehabilitation.

Long periods of bed rest for elderly population, due to a femur fracture event, can cause a deterioration in the muscular capacity. Therefore, monitoring of the muscle oxidative capacity in this fragile population is necessary to define the muscular oxidative metabolism state before and after a rehabilitation period. The time-domain near-infrared spectroscopy (TD-NIRS) technique enables the absolute values to be calculated for hemodynamic parameters such as oxy- (OHb), deoxy- (HHb), total- (tHb) haemoglobin, and tissue oxygen saturation (SO) of the muscular tissue.

Maximizing rehabilitation outcomes in geriatric hip fracture patients: the impact of surgical variables.

Background And Aim: Hip fracture is a major traumatic event with high mortality and disability rate. Its management in the acute setting and in the rehabilitation process is highly debated. This study evaluates the possible determinants of hip fracture rehabilitation outcome, among which surgical intervention type, weight-bearing status and hospitalization length Methods: The data of 738 hip fracture patients, who completed rehabilitation process in our centre, were collected and patients' functional abilities at the time of admission and discharge were analysed.

Developing a curriculum to improve cardiology fellows' training in pregnancy and cardiovascular disease.

Background: Exposure to pregnant women with cardiovascular disease (CVD) during cardiology fellowship training is limited and without a standard curriculum in the United States. The authors sought to evaluate a dedicated curriculum to teach management of CVD in pregnancy to improve general cardiology fellowship training.

Methods: The authors developed a dedicated CVD in pregnancy curriculum for the general cardiology fellows at a large academic medical center in the fall of 2019.

Role of frailty in functional recovery after hip fracture, the variable impact in restoring autonomy.

Background: In an old or very older adult, frailty is a common geriatric syndrome resulting from aging-associated decline including loss of autonomy related to multiple pathologies.

Aim: The study aims to evaluate the frailty affects on functional and rehabilitative recovery of the elderly patient.

Design: This is a retrospective study of subjects over 65 years old who underwent hip surgery following a traumatic femoral fracture.

Development of an SNP Assay for Marker-Assisted Selection of Soil-Borne AG-2-2-IIIB Resistance in Sugar Beet.

, causing crown and root rot, is a major risk to sugar beet ( L.) cultivation. The development of resistant varieties accelerated by marker-assisted selection is a priority of breeding programs.

Mabs for treating asthma: omalizumab, mepolizumab, reslizumab, benralizumab, dupilumab.

The introduction of biologics for the treatment of patients with refractory asthma represented a marked therapeutic advance. For more than 10 y, the only biologic available has been the monoclonal anti-IgE antibody omalizumab, reserved for patients with asthma caused by perennial allergen. In recent years, other biologics have been licensed for the treatment of severe eosinophilic asthma.

A bio-psycho-social approach in elderly population: outcome of adapted physical activity in patients with osteoarthritis.

Background: The beneficial effect of physical activity on a large spectrum of diseases is well known, with particular importance for elderly people. Among the different types of activity, adapted physical activity (APA) has been applied in a number of disease-related physical deficit.

Objective: The purpose of this study is to determine the outcome of a six months APA program in elder patients with osteoarthritis concerning physical and functional health and as second endpoint to determine the potential effect of AFA on reducing the risk of institutionalization.

Advances in allergen immunotherapy as a treatment of asthma.

: Specific immunotherapy is the only treatment acting on causes and not only on symptoms of respiratory allergy. It was first introduced as subcutaneous immunotherapy (SCIT) with the aim to induce immunological tolerance to the administered allergen(s). In the 1980s, sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT) was developed, mainly to improve the safety, which was a critical issue at that time.

Continuity of care for patients with hip fracture after discharge from rehabilitation facility.

Unlabelled: Background and aims of the work: Hip fracture is a dramatic event especially in the elderly and the return to the pre-fracture functional and social state is often difficult to achieve. In the post-acute, the intensive rehabilitation period aims to recover as much autonomy as possible to these patients, but not always its duration is sufficient to ensure an effective and lasting result in returning home, hence the need for additional rehabilitation services. Our aim was to evaluate the use of additional rehabilitation services by patients who underwent hip fracture after an intensive rehabilitation treatment period performed at our hospital.

What still prevents to acknowledge a major role for pulmonary rehabilitation in COPD treatment?

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a major health issue, particularly in aging people. Despite an increasing availability of drugs to treat COPD, recent data indicate that an actual control of the disease is achieved in a minority of  patients. This makes apparent that additional treatments of COPD should be taken into account, such as pulmonary rehabilitation (PR), which was introduced in the 1960s and has large evidence of clinical effectiveness.

Where should analgesia lead to? Quality of life and functional recovery with tapentadol.

Chronic pain is a major health-care problem worldwide, affecting more than one out of five adults in Europe. Although multiple analgesic agents have been extensively investigated in terms of clinical response and tolerability profile, few studies have focused on the impact of these therapies on patients' quality of life (QoL). Of note, improvement in QoL, together with functional recovery, has been recognized since the late 1990s as two main goals of analgesic therapy.

Tapentadol in the treatment of osteoarthritis: pharmacological rationale and clinical evidence.

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most prevalent joint disease in older people worldwide. Pain owing to OA is considered one of the most frequent causes of chronic pain; however, current pharmacological approaches have some limitations in terms of efficacy and safety. Of note, descending inhibitory pain pathways are often disrupted in chronic OA pain, and pharmacotherapies targeting those pathways - eg, those that block norepinephrine reuptake may be more appropriate for managing chronic pain than pure μ-opioid receptor (MOR) agonists.

Pharmacogenetic Testing in Acute and Chronic Pain: A Preliminary Study.

Pain is one of the most common symptoms that weighs on life's quality and health expenditure. In a reality where increasingly personalized therapies are needed, the early use of genetic tests that highlights the individual response to analgesic drugs could be a valuable help in clinical practice. The aim of this preliminary study is to observe if the therapy set to 5 patients suffering of chronic or acute pain is concordant to the Pharmacogenetic test (PGT) results.

Caregivers' misperception of the severity of hip fractures.

Purpose: The aim of our study was to evaluate how the caregiver of a hip fracture patient perceives the patient's health status and autonomy in the period immediately preceding the acute event and whether these judgments are actually in line with the prognosis predicted by the medical team caring for the patient in the rehabilitation structure.

Patients And Methods: We enrolled 147 patients of both sexes, aged ≥65 years, who were referred to our center following surgical treatment of hip fractures of various nature. At the beginning of the rehabilitation program, each patient's caregiver was asked to complete the Blaylock Risk Assessment Screening Score (BRASS) questionnaire.

Rehabilitation After Urgent or Elective Orthopedic Surgery: The Role of Resilience in Elderly Patients.

Purpose: The aim of this investigation was to assess resilience within an elderly population during postacute rehabilitation for orthopedic surgery and to identify the role of resilience on rehabilitation outcomes by comparing hip fracture and elective patients (total knee and hip arthroplasty).

Design: We conducted a prospective study in an orthopedic rehabilitation department.

Methods: On admission and on discharge, 80 patients aged over 60 years underwent a multidimensional evaluation with the Resilience Scale, the Functional Independence Measure (FIM), the Multidimensional Prognostic Index, and the World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF.

The Role of Autobiographical Story-Telling During Rehabilitation Among Hip-Fracture Geriatric Patients.

Hip fracture is one of the most common health care problems among elderly people. Literature shows that high self-efficacy expectations and positive affect are some of the key issues in functional recovery after hip fracture. The present investigation tested whether self-narration of such life-breaking event influences self-efficacy and depression during the process of rehabilitation.

Low incidence of pneumonia in COPD patients treated with inhaled corticosteroids undergoing pulmonary rehabilitation.

Background: Based on meta-analyses results, it is currently acknowledged that there is an increased risk of pneumonia in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) undergoing inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) treatment. However, this is not found to be true in those with asthma. No data on this risk are available for COPD patients involved in pulmonary rehabilitation program (PR).

Comparison of three PCR-based assays for SNP genotyping in plants.

Background: PCR allelic discrimination technologies have broad applications in the detection of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in genetics and genomics. The use of fluorescence-tagged probes is the leading method for targeted SNP detection, but assay costs and error rates could be improved to increase genotyping efficiency. A new assay, rhAmp, based on RNase H2-dependent PCR (rhPCR) combined with a universal reporter system attempts to reduce error rates from primer/primer and primer/probe dimers while lowering costs compared to existing technologies.

Targeted Next-Generation Sequencing Identification of Mutations in Disease Resistance Gene Analogs (RGAs) in Wild and Cultivated Beets.

Resistance gene analogs (RGAs) were searched bioinformatically in the sugar beet ( L.) genome as potential candidates for improving resistance against different diseases. In the present study, Ion Torrent sequencing technology was used to identify mutations in 21 RGAs.

Can vitamin D deficiency influence muscle performance in postmenopausal women? A multicenter retrospective study.

Background: The presence of the vitamin D receptor (VDR) has been recently demonstrated in human muscle supporting the theory of a role of vitamin D in the proliferation and differentiation of muscle cells. So far only few studies investigated the association between vitamin D and muscle performance in postmenopausal women.

Aim: To define the functional impact of vitamin D deficiency.

Frailty and resilience in an older population. The role of resilience during rehabilitation after orthopedic surgery in geriatric patients with multiple comorbidities.

Hip fracture is common in the elderly and it is usually associated with comorbidities and physiological changes which may have an impact on functioning and quality of life. The concept of resilience may explain why this impact varies among patients. The aim of this open, prospective cohort study was to explore the relationships between resilience, frailty and quality of life in orthopedic rehabilitation patients, and also to assess whether these factors might affect rehabilitation outcome.

lower limbs kinematic assessment of the effect of a gym and hydrotherapy rehabilitation protocol after knee megaprosthesis: a case report.

[Purpose] To quantitatively assess the effect of a personalized rehabilitation protocol after knee megaprosthesis. [Subject and Methods] The gait patterns of a 33-year-old male patient with knee synovial sarcoma were assessed by a computerized analysis before and after 40 rehabilitation sessions. [Results] The rehabilitation protocol improved the gait pattern.

[A MULTIDISCIPLINARY BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL INTEGRATED APPROACH IN ORGANIZATION OF REHABILITATIVE ACTIVITY IN NURSING HOMES (RSA)].

Objectives, social role and organization of Italian nursing homes (RSA) are characterized by a pronounced regional differentiation that causes situations which are difficult to compare about expected outcomes. The definition of a functional outcome is particularly difficult in institutionalized patients and this is due to the failure of a conclusive moment of the rehabilitative treatment. Furthermore we often take care of patients who have already been admitted to intensive and/or extensive rehabilitation units time after time, without further functional profit margin.