Background: Interstitial lung disease (ILD) is the most frequent pulmonary manifestation of scleroderma and seen in 80% patients with diffuse 20% limited forms scleroderma. 1 Even early stages varying degrees severity, it does not correlate clinical manifestations. 2 Hence, difficult to select for ILD screening based on symptoms. Digital clubbing a common feature has been associated poor progno...

This month, we focus on current research in bed rest in pregnancy. Dr. Lorenz discusses four recent publications, and each is concluded with a "bottom line" that is the take-home message. The complete reference for each can be found in on this page, along with direct links to the abstracts.

This work studied the influence of effluent recirculation upon the kinetics of anaerobic degradation of dairy wastewater in the feedless phase of intermittent upflow anaerobic sludge bed (UASB) reactors. Several laboratory-scale tests were performed with different organic loads in closed circuit UASB reactors inoculated with adapted flocculent sludge. The data obtained were used for determinati...

I n t e r v e n t i o n Patients were allocated to bed rest (n = 84), physiotherapy (n = 83), or continuation of ADLs (n = 83). Bed rest could be done at home or in the hospital and lasted 7 days. Physiotherapy sessions were scheduled twice weekly for 4 to 8 weeks and involved segmental mobilization, disc unloading and loading exercises, and hydrotherapy. Patients in the continuation-of-ADLs gr...

For many years, average bed occupancy level has been the primary measure that has guided hospital bed capacity decisions at both policy and managerial levels. Even now, the common wisdom that there is an excess of beds nationally has been based on a federal target of 85% occupancy that was developed about 25 years ago. This paper examines data from New York state and uses queueing analysis to e...

Bed bug (Cimex lectularius L.) infestations are currently controlled by a variety of non-chemical and chemical methods. There have been few studies on the comparative effectiveness of these control techniques. We evaluated three bed bug management strategies in an apartment building: (1) non-chemical methods only (n = 9); (2) insecticides only (n = 6); and (3) integrated pest management includi...

The pharmacokinetics of ibuprofen were studied under microgravity (µG) conditions and compared with those at normal gravity (1G) in humans. Six healthy human volunteers were given 600 mg oral dose ibuprofen during 1-day simulated µG antiorthostatic bed rest position, then at normal position (1G) in a sequential design with 7 days washout time. Saliva and plasma samples were obtained up to 8 hou...

Background As part of the assessment of all medical patients, vital signs are registered. However, each vital sign on its own (e.g. blood pressure, respiratory rate, pulse or peripheral oxygen saturation) only provide parts of the picture and are not considered global markers of illness. Loss of independence (LOI) (e.g. ability to stand, get into bed or out of a chair unaided) has been proposed...