As the population is aging rapidly, there is a strong increase in the number of individuals with chronic disease and physical limitations. The decrease in skeletal muscle mass and function (sarcopenia) and the increase in fat mass (obesity) are important contributors to the development of physical limitations, …

Introduction: Patient education is a relatively new science within the field of health care. In the past it consisted mainly of the transfer of knowledge and mostly biomedically based advice. Research has shown this to not be effective and sometimes counterproductive. As health care has moved away from …

Background: If nurses have the communication skills and the time, they can play an important role in increasing the intrinsic motivation of patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) to change their lifestyle. Motivational Interviewing (Mo-Int) can be used to further support this role. However, few …

BACKGROUND: Among patients with coronary artery disease (CAD), improvement of lifestyle-related risk factors (LRFs) reduces cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. However, modification of LRFs is highly challenging. OBJECTIVES: This study sought to evaluate the impact of combining community-based lifestyle …

BACKGROUND: Overweight and obesity is a growing health problem worldwide. The most effective strategy to reduce weight is energy restriction (ER). ER has been shown to be beneficial in disease prevention and it reduces chronic inflammation. Recent studies suggest that reducing the protein quantity of …

The primary aims of this study were (1) to evaluate whole-body mechanical efficiency (ME) in a large group of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients with a wide range of degrees of illness and (2) to examine how ME in COPD is related to absolute work rate and indices of disease severity …

One might expect that a perception of obesity being a risk factor and disease, contributes to effective obesity prevention and management strategies. However, obesity rates continue to increase worldwide. The question arises whether obesity is truly perceived as a risk factor and a disease. This paper …

OBJECTIVE: Secondary prevention is an important part of cardiovascular risk management. Since 1996, an inventory of cardiovascular risk factors and their treatment has been carried out periodically among patients with coronary heart disease within the framework of the European Action on Secondary Prevention …

Objective Although regular physical activity is an effective secondary prevention strategy for patients with a chronic disease, it is unclear whether patients change their daily physical activity after being diagnosed. Therefore, the aims of this study were to (1) describe changes in levels of physical …

Current guidelines on secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease recommend nurse-coordinated care (NCC) as an effective intervention. However, NCC programmes differ widely and the efficacy of NCC components has not been studied. To investigate the efficacy of NCC and its components in secondary prevention …