Low Back Pain
Benjamin Apichai in Chinese Medicine for Lower Body Pain, 2021
Good sleeping posture: Sleeping on a relatively firm bed is good for sciatic pain recovery.Supine is the appropriate sleeping posture; both sides of the body receive equal pressure.Place a cushion or pillow below the knees to alleviate lumbar pressure.In the acute stage, lift the lower legs higher by placing more pillows below the tibia.The normal lumbar curvature can also be supported by placing a thin cushion or a rolled towel under the back.A firm mattress is recommended for sleeping.Keep the lumbar region warm.Avoid overexertion.
Breathlessness in Pregnancy: Respiratory Causes
Tony Hollingworth in Differential Diagnosis in Obstetrics and Gynaecology: An A-Z, 2015
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) can develop only with a smoking history of a minimum of 20 pack-years (number of cigarettes smoked per day multiplied by number of years smoked, divided by 20), and so is most likely to occur in pregnant women who are older than 35 years of age. The main symptom is breathlessness on exertion with reduced exercise tolerance. It may be accompanied by a cough with morning sputum production (chronic bronchitis). Examination may reveal reduced breath sounds generally or wheeze during exacerbations. Although confined to older women, this condition is very common, accounting for more admissions to hospital than any other respiratory disease. It often goes undetected as lung function (FEV1, see Lung function section below) can decline significantly before symptoms develop. Spirometry is, therefore, the cornerstone of diagnosis, while chest X-ray may be normal or reveal only hyperexpanded lungs.
Classification of illnesses in the Hippocratic Corpus
Ulrike Steinert in Systems of Classification in Premodern Medical Cultures, 2020
That different environmental and climatic conditions prevailing in different regions have a crucial effect in determining the health of their different inhabitants is, famously, argued in On Airs, Waters and Places (Aer.). The long treatise On Regimen (Vict.) stresses at the outset the impact on the individual of internal constitutional factors such as his/her age and of external environmental factors such as seasonal change. In Epidemics (Epid.), descriptions of local ‘constitutions’ are embedded; these incorporate salient climatic characteristics, seen to influence the health of both community and individual. Similar ideas are implicit in many other works. It may be that observation of a different disease pattern in summer (rather too hot and dry) and winter (rather too cold and wet) had a profound influence on Greek theories of disease aetiology, giving rise to theories of the significance of excess in disease causation. Perhaps these simple observations underlie the common view that excess of some kind – most specially an excess involving heat, or cold, or moisture, or dryness – affecting the body, or some part of it, is an internal cause or precipitating circumstance of disease. Personal excess, such as over-indulgence in food, drink or sex, was commonly viewed as a cause also. Similarly, excess of exertion, such as that due to vigorous physical exercise or strenuous travel, as a cause of extreme fatigue was regarded as a predisposing factor.
Epidemiology of Exertional Rhabdomyolysis in the United States: Analysis of NEISS Database 2000 to 2019
Published in The Physician and Sportsmedicine, 2022
Barry P. Boden, David J. Isaacs, Anwar E. Ahmed, Scott A. Anderson
The most common activity causing ER was exercise without equipment, especially in females. Specifics of the exercise without equipment activity revealed patients performing a combination of push-ups, lunges, and squats, or participating in extreme high intensity aerobic exercise activities. This concurs with other studies reporting high-intensity training programs and workouts focusing on one muscle group with eccentric overload and fast repetitions to failure as risk factors for ER [17,27,28]. Overexertion during weightlifting, especially due to excessive squats and push-ups, is also a known causative factor for ER [4,5]. Novel overexertion associated with an abrupt increase in the weight lifted for the purposes of rapidly improving performance is one of the most common causes of ER [17]. Low baseline fitness is also a risk factor for ER [30]. However, while athletes may have higher fitness levels, there may be an increased tendency of coaches exerting athletes to excess via novel training sessions, which further predisposes to ER [8]. In any setting, common errors in extreme exercise programs include failure to assess and accommodate baseline fitness, all group members participating as a unit despite varying degrees of baseline fitness and/or individual risk factors, and participants being pushed to physiologic extremes.
Age, gender, personality, burnout, job characteristics and job content as predictors of driver fatigue
Published in International Journal of Occupational Safety and Ergonomics, 2022
Patricia Tàpia-Caballero, María-José Serrano-Fernández, Maria Boada-Cuerva, Joan Boada-Grau, Jordi Assens-Serra, Lluís Robert-Sentís
One of the most common causes of collisions is driver fatigue [1–6]. This has usually been considered a subjective complaint that may indicate tiredness, weakness, lack of energy, intense desire to sleep, lack of ability to concentrate, muscle weakness and even dyspnea. Phillips [7] groups the different definitions that can be found and proposes a new definition of fatigue as a suboptimal psychophysiological condition caused by exertion. This fatigue brings about changes in a person’s strategies and use of resources in such a way that their physical activity and mental processing is maintained or reduced [7]. In addition, each person has a different threshold for fatigue. For this reason, fatigue can be considered to be the changes that the organism experiences when a person tries to overcome their limit of exertion, and this can occur due to over-training, to lack of habituation to a task or a specific intensity [8]. Fatigue causes drowsiness while driving and this can cause collisions because it decreases the driver’s ability to maneuver the vehicle and increases the likelihood of their nodding off and falling asleep at the wheel [9]. It is something that produces high mortality rates and losses in infrastructure [10] but that can be minimized if corrective action is taken [11].
Hybrid and surgical procedures for the treatment of persistent and longstanding persistent atrial fibrillation
Published in Expert Review of Cardiovascular Therapy, 2018
Jose M. Sanchez, Ghannam Al-Dosari, Sherman Chu, Ramin Beygui, Tobias Deuse, Nitish Badhwar, Randall J. Lee
Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common cardiac arrhythmia [1]. It affects up to 6 million Americans and has an increasing prevalence with advancing age. It is estimated that 1% of patients with AF are less than 60 years of age, and over one third are over the age of 80 [1–3]. Other factors that can increase the risk of AF include hypertension, diabetes, myocardial infarction, valvular heart disease, and congestive heart failure [3–5]. Common presenting symptoms include palpitations, lack of energy, and dyspnea on exertion. In addition, patients with AF have up to a fivefold increased risk of stroke, a threefold increase in congestive heart failure, and a twofold increase of dementia [6–10]. The risks of dementia, chronic kidney disease, and myocardial infarction are all potentially due to thromboemboli. Not only has AF become a leading public health concern by exceeding 460,000 yearly hospitalizations as the primary diagnosis each year, but it also contributes to over 99,000 annual deaths, and costs up to USD$26.0 billion each year in health-care expenditure [1]. The treatment for AF is important to not only reduce symptoms but also to decrease the risks of stroke and other thromboembolic events.
Related Knowledge Centers
- Biomechanics
- Cortisol
- Exercise
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- Musculoskeletal System
- Refractory Period
- Volition
- Adenosine Triphosphate
- Rating of Perceived Exertion
- Psychological Inertia