Frailty is increasingly recognized as an important construct which has health implications for older adults. The Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) is a judgement-based frailty tool that evaluates specific ...domains including comorbidity, function, and cognition to generate a frailty score ranging from 1 (very fit) to 9 (terminally ill). The aim of this scoping review is to identify and document the nature and extent of research evidence related to the CFS.
We performed a comprehensive literature search to identify original studies that used the Clinical Frailty Scale. Medline OVID, Scopus, Web of Science, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Cochrane Library and Embase were searched from January 2005 to March 2017. Articles were screened by two independent reviewers. Data extracted included publication date, setting, demographics, purpose of CFS assessment, and outcomes associated with CFS score.
Our search yielded 1688 articles of which 183 studies were included. Overall, 62% of studies were conducted after 2015 and 63% of the studies measured the CFS in hospitalized patients. The association of the CFS with an outcome was examined 526 times; CFS was predictive in 74% of the cases. Mortality was the most common outcome examined with CFS being predictive 87% of the time. CFS was associated with comorbidity 73% of the time, complications 100%, length of stay 75%, falls 71%, cognition 94%, and function 91%. The CFS was associated with other frailty scores 94% of the time.
This scoping review revealed that the CFS has been widely used in multiple settings. The association of CFS score with clinical outcomes highlights its utility in the care of the aging population.
The assessment of bone age and skeletal maturity and its comparison to chronological age is an important task in the medical environment for the diagnosis of pediatric endocrinology, orthodontics and ...orthopedic disorders, and legal environment in what concerns if an individual is a minor or not when there is a lack of documents. Being a time-consuming activity that can be prone to inter- and intra-rater variability, the use of methods which can automate it, like Machine Learning techniques, is of value.
The goal of this paper is to present the state of the art evidence, trends and gaps in the research related to bone age assessment studies that make use of Machine Learning techniques.
A systematic literature review was carried out, starting with the writing of the protocol, followed by searches on three databases: Pubmed, Scopus and Web of Science to identify the relevant evidence related to bone age assessment using Machine Learning techniques. One round of backward snowballing was performed to find additional studies. A quality assessment was performed on the selected studies to check for bias and low quality studies, which were removed. Data was extracted from the included studies to build summary tables. Lastly, a meta-analysis was performed on the performances of the selected studies.
26 studies constituted the final set of included studies. Most of them proposed automatic systems for bone age assessment and investigated methods for bone age assessment based on hand and wrist radiographs. The samples used in the studies were mostly comprehensive or bordered the age of 18, and the data origin was in most of cases from United States and West Europe. Few studies explored ethnic differences.
There is a clear focus of the research on bone age assessment methods based on radiographs whilst other types of medical imaging without radiation exposure (e.g. magnetic resonance imaging) are not much explored in the literature. Also, socioeconomic and other aspects that could influence in bone age were not addressed in the literature. Finally, studies that make use of more than one region of interest for bone age assessment are scarce.
The World Endometriosis Research Foundation established the Endometriosis Phenome and Biobanking Harmonisation Project (EPHect) to create standardized documentation tools (with common data elements) ...to facilitate the comparison and combination of data across different research sites and studies. In 2014, 4 data research standards were published: clinician-reported surgical data, patient-reported clinical data, and fluid and tissue biospecimen collection. Our current objective is to create an EPHect standard for the clinician-reported physical examination (EPHect-PE) for research studies.
An international consortium involving 26 clinical and academic experts and patient partners from 11 countries representing 25 institutions and organizations. Two virtual workshops, followed by the development of the physical examination standards underwent multiple rounds of iterations and revisions.
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The EPHect-PE tool provides standardized assessment of physical examination characteristics and pain phenotyping. Data elements involve examination of back and pelvic girdle; abdomen including allodynia and trigger points; vulva including provoked vestibulodynia; pelvic floor muscle tone and tenderness; tenderness on unidigital pelvic examination; presence of pelvic nodularity; uterine size and mobility; presence of adnexal masses; presence of incisional masses; speculum examination; tenderness and allodynia at an extra-pelvic site (e.g., forearm); and recording of anthropometrics.
The EPHect-PE standards will facilitate the standardized documentation of the physical examination, including the assessment and documentation of examination phenotyping of endometriosis-associated pelvic pain.
Blood and urine tests are commonly performed by clinicians in both ambulatory and hospital settings that detect chronic and acute kidney disease. Thresholds for these tests have been established that ...signal the presence and severity of kidney injury or dysfunction. In the appropriate clinical context of a patient's history and physical examination, an abnormal test result should trigger specific actions for clinicians, including reviewing patient medication use, follow-up testing, prescribing lifestyle modifications, and specialist referral. Tests for kidney disease can also be used to determine the future risk for kidney failure as well as cardiovascular death.
Understanding the genetic and molecular drivers of phenotypic heterogeneity across individuals is central to biology. As new technologies enable fine-grained and spatially resolved molecular ...profiling, we need new computational approaches to integrate data from the same organ across different individuals into a consistent reference and to construct maps of molecular and cellular organization at histological and anatomical scales. Here, we review previous efforts and discuss challenges involved in establishing such a common coordinate framework, the underlying map of tissues and organs. We focus on strategies to handle anatomical variation across individuals and highlight the need for new technologies and analytical methods spanning multiple hierarchical scales of spatial resolution.
Satija, Regev, Marioni, and colleagues recommend approaches to create a reference map of the human body down to the single-cell level—a task made challenging by the diverse human form.
Muscle power has been proposed to be the primary therapeutic target for resistance training interventions aimed at enhancing physical function in older adults. However, no recommendations exist on ...ideal testing protocols to assess muscle power in older adults, and the safety of this procedure has not been adequately evaluated in the literature.
A systematic review was conducted to identify studies evaluating muscle power exerted by older people in resistance exercises through May 2017. Information from muscle power testing protocols regarding familiarization, warm-up, measuring instrument, exercise, intensity, volume, rest intervals, data collection, and analysis was collected, as well as that regarding adverse events. Reporting bias was evaluated according to the recommendations given by the Cochrane Collaboration group.
From 65 studies that met inclusion criteria, 3,484 older subjects and 11,841 muscle power tests distributed in 6,105 testing sessions were identified. A full description of the different muscle power testing protocols was conducted. In addition, a risk of adverse events of 0.15%-0.69% (one adverse event every 144-658 muscle power tests) was found. However, adverse events were poorly reported, with most of the studies showing a high risk of reporting bias.
Major discrepancies were found in muscle power testing protocols among studies. This might limit consensus on designing optimal training programs to improve muscle power and physical function in older adults, and understanding the main mechanisms involved in the age-related loss of muscle power. Finally, muscle power testing was found to be safe in older people with a broad range of health and functional states.
Diagnostic evaluation for infertility in women should be conducted in a systematic, expeditious, and cost-effective manner to identify all relevant factors with initial emphasis on the least invasive ...methods for detection of the most common causes of infertility. The purpose of this committee opinion is to provide a critical review of the current methods and procedures for the evaluation of the infertile female, and it replaces the document of the same name, last published in 2012 (Fertil Steril 2012;98:302–7).
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