Studies in health technology and informatics
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2012
Comparative Study Controlled Clinical TrialA comparison of the effects of deep tissue massage and therapeutic massage on chronic low back pain.
This study compared the effectiveness of two different kind of massage: therapeutic and deep tissue on chronic low back pain. ⋯ There was not statistically significant differences between groups according to age and BMI. Statistically significant differences were noted after TM in every test [ODI p=0.010; QBPD p<0.001; VAS p<0.001] and after DTM in every test [ODI p<0.001; QBPD p<0.001; VAS p<0.001]. DTM was statistically significant better therapy than TM in ODI [p=0.038] and VAS [p=0.015]. Further research is needed to verify the results.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2012
The Rib Vertebra Angle Difference and its Measurement in 3D for the evaluation of early onset scoliosis.
The Rib Vertebra Angle Difference (RVAD) as defined by Mehta (1972) is used to predict the progression of early onset scoliosis. No clear physical significance has been established for this measurement. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the RVAD along the thoracic spine and the equivalent measurement on 3D reconstructions of the spine and rib cage of early onset scoliosis patients in order to determine their relationship with the geometry of the chest wall and evolution along the spine. ⋯ Results indicated that RVAD 3D provides additional information to Mehta's RVAD on the torsional nature of the deformity. Considering the importance of clinical indices to assess the progression of early onset scoliosis, this study raises some questions on looking solely at the RVAD measured on radiographs at the apical vertebra of Phase I patients and suggests considering also levels above the apex of the scoliotic curve and 3D measurements. Further investigation is required to fully understand the 3D nature of the spine and rib cage deformities.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2012
Clinical TrialThe effect of pressure pad location of spinal orthosis on the treatment of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS).
Patient with moderate AIS is usually prescribed with spinal orthosis aiming to mechanically support and prevent the spine from further deterioration. In the conventional fitting method, pre-brace X-ray is the main reference, thus, the pressure pad of spinal orthosis may not be accurately located to the strategic areas because the spinal deformities could change 3-dimensionally once pressure pad is applied. A high correlation (r > 0.98) between Cobb's angle and spinous process angle (SPA) was found in the recent studies. ⋯ The assessments of in-brace X-rays showed that the mean Cobb's angle of group A decreased from 28.9° (pre-brace) to 18.6° (immediate in-brace) while the mean Cobb's angle of group B decreased from 27.1° (pre-brace) to 22.5° (immediate in-brace). There was a significant difference (p < 0.05) in the correction of Cobb's angle between the two groups. The results showed that accurate pressure pad location does play an important role in the reduction of Cobb's angle and 3D CUS can be considered as a non-invasive and effective assessment tool to improve orthotic treatment of AIS.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2012
Comparative StudyPerformance comparison of laryngoscopy and suction techniques in a hemorrhagic airway manikin simulator: direct laryngoscopy with Yankauer vs. Storz CMAC with attached suction tip.
Airway management of the hemorrhagic airway can be a difficult skill to master as trainee exposure to this difficult airway may be limited. In this study, we employed a hemorrhagic airway simulator along with a videolaryngoscope and the Storz Boedker-Doerges (BD) suction blade. These devices provided improved intubation performance in this model with respect to traditional direct laryngoscope (DL) and VL blades. This study shows that use of a hemorrhagic simulator could be an effective and valuable training tool in difficult airway intubation training.
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Automated encoding of free-text clinical narratives using concepts from terminological systems is widely performed. However, the majority of natural language processing (NLP) tools and terminological systems involve the English language. As parts of the NLP process are language independent, and tools for various languages are available, an overview is needed to determine the applicability to performing NLP of Dutch medical texts. ⋯ Most of them are suitable for English free text, some of them are (also) usable for Dutch. To enable automated encoding of Dutch free text narratives, further research is needed to create a spelling checker, a negation detector, a domain-specific abbreviation/acronym list, and a concept mapper (to map Dutch terms to concepts in a terminological system). Furthermore evaluation of performance for the Dutch 'medical' language is needed.