Pain, range of motion and activity level as correlates of dynamic balance among elderly people with musculoskeletal disorder

BACKGROUND

Assessment of impairment and disability measures on dynamic balance status of elderly patients is well documented in the rehabilitation of neuromuscular disorders. Few studies however considered similar evaluation in musculoskeletal disorders.

OBJECTIVE

To determine the influence of pain, hip range of motion and level of activity on dynamic balance among elderly people with hip osteoarthritis (OA).

METHODS

Elderly patients with hip OA participated in the cross-sectional survey. The impairment measures were assessed using the visual analogue scale and double-arm universal goniometer whilst their levels of activity were assessed with the Barthel Index. Participants performed Turn-180 on two trials by taking steps clockwise and anti-clockwise round a sturdy arm chair. The total number of steps taken to complete each Turn- 180 was determined. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize data whilst Pearson moment correlation coefficient determined the correlations of the variables at 95% confidence interval.

RESULTS

The study involved 87 participants comprising 40(46%) males and 47(54%) females. The age of the participants ranged from 60 to 74 years with a mean of 65.8±4.5 years. There was a positive and significant correlation (r=0.596; p<0.001) between the participants' pain and steps taken to complete Turn-180. The participants' hip flexibility and the level of activity were also significantly and inversely correlated with the performance of Turn-180.

CONCLUSION

The dynamic balance of the sampled elderly patients was considerably influenced by pain, hip flexibility and level of activity, thereby putting premium on the assessment of the variables during musculoskeletal rehabilitation of elderly patients.

A unique phenothiazine-based fluorescent probe using benzothiazolium as a reactivity regulator for the specific detection of hypochlorite in drinking water and living organisms

As a common disinfectant and an essential reactive oxygen species (ROS), hypochlorite (ClO-) plays vital roles in both water treatment and cell metabolism, but its abnormal level can cause serious harm to human health. Therefore, quantifying ClO- level in drinking water and living organisms is extremely significant. Herein, we decorated different cationic heterocycles on phenothiazine core to construct three fluorescent probes for ClO-. According to the results, only benzothiazolium moiety reasonably adjusted the electron cloud density at sulfur atom of phenothiazine core for the specific oxidation with ClO-, thus endowing the prepared probe PT-BT with a perfect selectivity for ClO-. Meanwhile, PT-BT exhibited a low detection limit (38 nM) and a fast response (within 20 s) toward ClO-. Furthermore, this probe was utilized to fabricate a ready-to-use test strip, which could quantitatively measure ClO- level in real water samples by a portable smartphone sensing platform. Notably, PT-BT targeted mitochondria efficiently, and successfully visualized endogenous ClO- in living cells and zebrafish larvae. Especially, PT-BT was able to monitor the dynamic change of ClO- level in inflammatory mice. These results strongly manifested that probe PT-BT was a promising tool for detecting ClO- in drinking water and living organisms.