We report the clinical and radiological outcome of total ankle replacement performed in conjunction with hindfoot fusion or in isolation. Between May 2003 and June 2008, 60 ankles were treated with total ankle replacement with either subtalar or triple fusion, and the results were compared with a control group of 288 ankles treated with total ankle replacement alone. After the mean follow-up of...

BACKGROUND Arterial blood pressure is dependent on interactions between the heart and arteries. Resistive and pulsatile components of arterial load can be assessed by systemic vascular resistance (SVR, a microvascular property) and the ratio of stroke volume to pulse pressure (a surrogate of total arterial compliance, TAC), respectively. The relationship between arterial function and cardiovasc...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The pressure reactivity index (PRx) describes cerebral vessel reactivity by correlation of slow waves of intracranial pressure (ICP) and arterial blood pressure. In theory, slow changes in the relative total hemoglobin (rTHb) measured by near-infrared spectroscopy are caused by the same blood volume changes that cause slow waves of ICP. Our objective was to develop a new ...

We investigated non-invasively cardiac contractility and autonomic nervous activity during presyncopal orthostatic stress induced in healthy humans. A graded orthostatic stress (GOS) paradigm, consisting of head-up tilt (HUT) combined with lower body negative pressure (LBNP) of increasing magnitude, was used to reach a presyncopal end-point in 15 healthy adults. Continuous beat-to-beat hemodyna...

BACKGROUND Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) is considered the gold standard for BP measurement, compared to clinic BP measurements (CBP), which are a less valid predictor of target organ damage and cardiovascular events. However, ABPM is considerably more expensive than CBP, leaving BP researchers with a difficult dilemma: Use the less efficient CBP measure, or bear the cost of the m...

Preeclampsia is associated with increased peripheral resistance. This study was performed to determine whether an increase of venous distensibility occurs as well in preeclampsia. We obtained venous distensibility by measuring the venous pressure-volume relation in the forearm with a water-filled plethysmograph. Twenty-one women with normal pregnancy, 12 women with severe preeclampsia, and 8 wo...

In healthy subjects, variation in cardiovascular responses to sympathetic stimulation evoked by submaximal lower body negative pressure (LBNP) is considerable. This study addressed the question whether inter-subject variation in cardiovascular responses coincides with consistent and reproducible responses in an individual subject. In 10 healthy subjects (5 female, median age 22 years), continuo...

During dynamic exercise, a large fall in systemic vascular resistance occurs. Arterial pressure (AP) is, however, maintained through a combination of central command and neural activity from muscle afferents that adjust the autonomic outflow to the circulation. How these signals are calibrated to provide accurate regulation of AP remains unclear. This study tests the hypothesis that the calibra...

BACKGROUND Mechanical ventilation during patient transport frequently utilizes compact portable pneumatic ventilators that have limited ventilator-settings options. New advanced transport ventilators should yield quality improvements, but their user-friendliness needs to be tested. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the ventilator-user interface of 2 new transport ventilators. METHODS This was a 2-cente...

The mechanism of the well-documented increase in aortic pulse pressure (PP) with age is disputed. Investigators assuming a classical windkessel model believe that increases in PP arise from decreases in total arterial compliance (C(tot)) and increases in total peripheral resistance (R(tot)) with age. Investigators assuming a more sophisticated pulse transmission model believe PP rises because i...