Background: In postoperative pain treatment patients are asked to rate their pain experience on a single uni-dimensional pain scale. Such pain scores are also used as indicator to assess the quality of pain treatment. However, patients may differ in how they interpret the Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) …

Objective To evaluate the effects of a psycho-educational intervention on caregiver burden in partners of patients with postoperative heart failure. Background Since partners of cardiac surgery patients play a significant role in the patient’s recovery, it is important to address their needs during hospitalization …

Background: Delirium is a high prevalent postoperative complication in older cardiac surgery patients and can have drastic consequence for the patient. Preventive interventions, diagnosis and treatment of delirium require specialized knowledge and skills. Objective: To gain insight …

Objective. To investigate the feasibility and effects of additional preoperative high intensity strength training for patients awaiting total knee arthroplasty (TKA). Design. Clinical controlled trial. Patients. Twenty-two patients awaiting TKA. Methods. Patients were allocated to a standard training …

Purpose With current diagnostic methods, the majority of patients with symptomatic colorectal anastomotic leakage (CAL) is identified approximately 1 week after operation. The aim of this study is to determine whether real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for detection of Escherichia coli and …

Already at diagnosis, head and neck cancer patients are at risk for malnutrition. Local symptoms such as swallowing problems are a major cause of malnutrition in these patients.1 Additionally, malnutrition may result from changes in smell and taste/aversion and loss of appetite. Presence of these systemic …

Previous research has shown clinical effectiveness of dermal substitution; however, in burn wounds, only limited effect has been shown. A problem in burn wounds is the reduced take of the autograft, when the substitute and graft are applied in one procedure. Recently, application of topical negative …

Introduction: the purpose of this study was to examine wath the best evidence-based physical therapy treatment following reversed total shoulder arthroplasty is. Method: A systematic search to relevant scientific articles has been held in Pubmed, Cinahl and PEDro to articles concerning rTSA with the …

Colleague van Dijk wrote an interesting article about the perception of pain scores, based on the relationship between two questionnaires and the results on these questionnaires of patients and caregivers (van Dijk et al., 2011). It is a nice article with a good description of the questionnaires and …

OBJECTIVE: To analyse the prevalence of phantom (limb) pain over time and to analyse factors associated with phantom (limb) pain in a prospective cohort of amputees. DESIGN: A multicentre longitudinal study. PATIENTS: One hundred and thirty-four patients scheduled for amputation were included. METHODS: …