OBJECTIVES An estimated 55-90% of patients with rheumatoid arthritis have foot problems. Therapeutic footwear is frequently prescribed as part of usual care, but data on its use and effect is incomplete. This study aimed to investigate the use and effects of therapeutic footwear. METHODS Patients with rheumatoid arthritis receiving custom-made therapeutic footwear for the first time formed an...

BACKGROUND Sociodemographic and health-related factors are often investigated for their association with the active use of electronic health (eHealth). The importance of such factors has been found to vary, depending on the purpose or means of eHealth and the target user groups. Pakistanis are one of the biggest immigrant groups in the Oslo area, Norway. Due to an especially high risk of develo...

Background There is a growing trend for patients to seek the least invasive treatments with less risk of complications and downtime for facial rejuvenation. Thread embedding acupuncture has become popular as a minimally invasive treatment. However, there is little clinical evidence in the literature regarding its effects. Methods This single-arm, prospective, open-label study recruited partic...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a period of rehabilitation in a rheumatic diseases unit. Thirty-nine patients with rheumatoid arthritis were included in two study periods, which involved assessment of six outcome measures on admission and again on discharge in a rehabilitation unit in Dublin. These measures incorporate each level of disease impact – impairment, disabi...

BACKGROUND to our knowledge no research has investigated the effect of home visiting nurse (HVN) interventions on individual instrumental activities of daily living (IADL). OBJECTIVE to investigate the effects of an HVN intervention on the difficulty or dependence in six individual IADLs. DESIGN a secondary analysis of a randomised controlled study comparing an HVN intervention (n = 237) wi...

Orthotic therapy is frequently advocated for the treatment of musculoskeletal pain and injury of the lower limb. The clinical efficacy, mechanical effects, and underlying mechanism of the action of foot orthotics has not been conclusively determined making it difficult for practitioners to agree on a reliable and valid clinical approach to their application and indeed even their fabrication. Th...

Insertion sequences (ISs) are simple transposable elements present in most bacterial and archaeal genomes and play an important role in genomic evolution. The recent expansion of sequenced genomes offers the opportunity to study ISs comprehensively, but this requires efficient and accurate tools for IS annotation. We have developed an open-source program called OASIS, or Optimized Annotation Sy...

BACKGROUND Food insecurity is an important barrier to retention in care and adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) among people living with HIV infection (PLHIV). However, there is a lack of rigorous evidence about how to improve food security and HIV-related clinical outcomes. To address this gap, this randomized trial will evaluate three delivery models for short-term food and nutrition su...

In post-stroke patients, the recurrence of stroke and progression of impairments lead to a bedridden state and dementia. As for their treatments, only anti-hypertension and anti-coagulation therapies to prevent the recurrence of stroke are available. In Asia, post-stroke patients with impairments are often treated with herbal medicine. The present study evaluated the effectiveness of tokishakuy...

This study investigated whether a program of bed exercises increased the effectiveness of a mobility regimen during the acute period of hospitalisation, for patients who had undergone primary hip arthroplasty. Forty-two patients were randomly allocated, using a concealed allocation procedure, to one of two groups. Patients in the control group were mobilised according to a standard post-operati...