INTRODUCTION Spirometry should follow strict quality criteria. The American Thoracic Society (ATS) recommends the use of a noseclip; however there are controversies about its need. ATS also indicates that tests should be done in the sitting position, but there are no recommendations neither about position of the upper limbs and lower limbs nor about who should hold the mouthpiece while performi...

limb bud first appears during the third week of gestation with the upper limb buds appearing a few days before the lower limb buds. complete absence of one or more limbs, called amelia, occurs prior to the eighth week of gestation. we report a case of amelia in a twin gestation.

During the evolution from the lower animals to man, the upper limbs have acquired a great mobility, but at the cost of their stability. The reverse is true for the lower limbs. The muscular anomalies which are common in the upper limbs are largely explainable on a phylogenetic basis. The same is true for the vascular anomalies. However, such anomalies are usually seen singly and they are never ...

BACKGROUND The repetitive strain injury syndrome (RSI) is a worldwide occupational health problem affecting all types of economic activities. We investigated the prevalence and some risk factors for RSI and related conditions, namely 'symptoms of upper limbs' and 'RSI-like condition'. METHODS We conducted a cross-sectional study with 395 bank workers in Recife, Northeast Brazil. Symptoms of u...

BACKGROUND It has previously been demonstrated that an extensive upper limb neurological examination of individual muscle function, sensation in homonymous innervated territories, and nerve trunk allodynia is reliable and that the outcome reflects symptoms. Since this approach may appear complicated and time consuming, this study deals with the value of an examination limited to manual testing ...

We developed a technique for measuring patient limb occlusion pressure (LOP) through a tourniquet cuff that overcomes many limitations of existing LOP measurement techniques. The purpose of the study is to determine whether the LOP measured by the proposed technique is statistically or clinically different from that measured by the gold standard Doppler ultrasound technique. The study used rand...

BACKGROUND Lower and upper body exercise are mandatory constituents of a rehabilitation programme for patients with COPD. However, it is not known how much these exercises may induce pulmonary dynamic hyperinflation (DH). OBJECTIVE To evaluate the DH in patients with COPD exercising the upper and lower parts of the body at the same metabolic demand. METHODS Sixteen patients aged 63 +/- 13 y...

BACKGROUND Many pieces of previous research on measuring blood pressure (BP) using different methods focused on the disparity in the results. However, none of them dealt with the disparity caused by the difference in age and inhalation anesthetics. We attempted to find the variance in accordance with age, body part, and measuring methods (invasive vs noninvasive) and also studied how sevofluran...