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Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between frailty syndrome and the nutritional status of older patients. Material and methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in a sample of 120 patients hospitalized at the Geriatric Clinic between January 2017 and May 2017. The research tools were the Frailty Instrument of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE-FI), including relevant anthropometric measurements and muscle strength measurement, and the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA). All the calculations were performed using the Statistica 10.0 program. The p-values lower than 0.05 were considered as statistically significant. Results: The mean age of the participants was 71 years (SD=9.03). Most participants were from urban areas. More than half of the participants (53.3%) were women. Based on the SHARE-FI, the frailty syndrome was found in 33.3% of the participants. The mean value in the MNA scale was 24.4 points (SD=3.4). The frailty syndrome was significantly correlated to gender (p<0.025), financial status (p=0.036) and MNA (p<0.01) score. A statistically significant difference was observed between gender (p=0.026), financial status (p=0.016), place of living (p=0.046) and MNA score. Conclusion: This study confirmed significant correlations between the frailty syndrome and the nutritional status of older adults. In terms of prevention and clinical application, it seems important to control the nutritional status of older people and the frailty syndrome. The above-mentioned scales should be used to evaluate patients, analyze the risk and plan the intervention for that group of patients.
Speech interactions are often associated with virtual assistants and smart home devices, designed primarily for private contexts. A less developed domain is speech interfaces in public contexts. In a smart city development project, we explored the potential of distributed conversational speech interfaces in lampposts. Deploying a research-through-design method, we created a lo-fi prototype of the speech interface that test subjects could interact with during experiments in a lab setting. Our first exploratory prototype consisted of a loudspeaker that acted as the interface and preconceived dialogues designed to investigate the boundaries of desirable and acceptable experiences regarding issues such as privacy. Experiencing the interaction with this rudimentary prototype helped people envision potential use cases and reflect on privacy issues: the dialogues revealed subjective limits of what kind of (personal) information people were willing to share with the lamppost. They also elicited thoughts on possible consequences in the social context of citizens. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/atjylha/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/josvanleeuwen/
The Internet offers many opportunities to provide parenting support. An overview of empirical studies in this domain is lacking, and little is known about the design of webbased parenting resources and their evaluations, raising questions about its position in the context of parenting intervention programs. This article is a systematic review of empirical studies (n = 75), published between 1998 and 2010, that describe resources of peer and professional online support for parents. These studies generally report positive outcomes of online parenting support. A number of recent experimental studies evaluated effects, including randomized controlled trials and quasi-experimental designs (totaling 1,615 parents and 740 children). A relatively large proportion of the studies in our sample reported a content analysis of emails and posts (totaling 15,059 coded messages). The results of this review show that the Internet offers a variety of opportunities for sharing peer support and consulting professionals. The fi eld of study refl ects an emphasis on online resources for parents of preschool children, concerning health topics and providing professional support. A range of technologies to facilitate online communication is applied in evaluated websites, although the combination of multiple components in one resource is not very common. The fi rst generation of online resources has already changed parenting and parenting support for a large group of parents and professionals. Suggestions for future development and research are discussed.
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