Physical activity is crucial in human life, whether in everyday activities or elite sports. It is important to maintain or improve physical performance, which depends on various factors such as the amount of physical activity, the capability, and the capacity of the individual. In daily life, it is significant to be physically active to maintain good health, intense exercise is not necessary, as simple daily activities contribute enough. In sports, it is essential to balance capacity, workload, and recovery to prevent performance decline or injury.With the introduction of wearable technology, it has become easier to monitor and analyse physical activity and performance data in daily life and sports. However, extracting personalised insights and predictions from the vast and complex data available is still a challenge.The study identified four main problems in data analytics related to physical activity and performance: limited personalised prediction due to data constraints, vast data complexity, need for sensitive performance measures, overly simplified models, and missing influential variables. We proposed end investigated potential solutions for each issue. These solutions involve leveraging personalised data from wearables, combining sensitive performance measures with various machine learning algorithms, incorporating causal modelling, and addressing the absence of influential variables in the data.Personalised data, machine learning, sensitive performance measures, advanced statistics, and causal modelling can help bridge the data analytics gap in understanding physical activity and performance. The research findings pave the way for more informed interventions and provide a foundation for future studies to further reduce this gap.
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Objective: To explore the nature and extent of possible residual complaints among Dutch hypothyroid patients using thyroid replacement therapy, we initiated a comprehensive study measuring health-related quality of life (QoL), daily functioning, and hypothyroidism-associated symptoms in patients and control persons. Methods: An online survey measuring thyroid-specific QoL (ThyPRO), daily functioning, and hypothyroidismassociated symptoms (ThySHI) was distributed among treated hypothyroid patients and control individuals. The advertising text was formulated in an open-ended manner. Patients also provided their most recent thyroid blood values and their thyroid medication. Results: There was a large-sized impairment of QoL (Cohen’s d = 1.04, +93 % ThyPRO score) in hypothyroid patients on thyroid replacement therapy (n = 1195) as compared to controls (n = 236). Daily functioning was significantly reduced i.e., general health (-38 %), problems with vigorous- (+64 %) and moderate activities (+77 %). Almost 80 % of patients reported having complaints despite thyroid medication and in-range thyroid blood values, with 75 % expressing a desire for improved treatment options for hypothyroidism (total n = 1194). Hypothyroid patients experienced 2.8 times more intense hypothyroidism-associated symptoms than controls (n = 865, n = 203 resp). Patients’ median reported serum concentrations were: TSH 0.90 mU/L, FT4 17.0 pmol/L, and FT3 2.67 pmol/L, with 52 % having low T3 levels (<3.1 pmol/L). The QoL was not found to be related to age, sex, BMI, menopausal status, stress, serum thyroid parameters, the origin and duration of hypothyroidism, the type of thyroid medication, or the LT4 dose used. Conclusions: Our study revealed major reductions in quality of life and daily functioning, and nearly three times more intense hypothyroidism-associated symptoms in treated hypothyroid patients as compared to controls, despite treatment and largely in-range serum TSH/FT4 concentrations. The QoL was not associated with serum thyroid parameters. We recommend future research into the origin of persisting complaints and the development of improved treatment modalities for hypothyroidism.
BACKGROUND: Over 30 % of older patients experience hospitalization-associated disability (HAD) (i.e., loss of independence in Activities of Daily Living (ADLs)) after an acute hospitalization. Despite its high prevalence, the mechanisms that underlie HAD remain elusive. This paper describes the protocol for the Hospital-Associated Disability and impact on daily Life (Hospital-ADL) study, which aims to unravel the potential mechanisms behind HAD from admission to three months post-discharge.METHODS/DESIGN: The Hospital-ADL study is a multicenter, observational, prospective cohort study aiming to recruit 400 patients aged ≥70 years that are acutely hospitalized at departments of Internal Medicine, Cardiology or Geriatrics, involving six hospitals in the Netherlands. Eligible are patients hospitalized for at least 48 h, without major cognitive impairment (Mini Mental State Examination score ≥15), who have a life expectancy of more than three months, and without disablement in all six ADLs. The study will assess possible cognitive, behavioral, psychosocial, physical, and biological factors of HAD. Data will be collected through: 1] medical and demographical data; 2] personal interviews, which includes assessment of cognitive impairment, behavioral and psychosocial functioning, physical functioning, and health care utilization; 3] physical performance tests, which includes gait speed, hand grip strength, balance, bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA), and an activity tracker (Fitbit Flex), and; 4] analyses of blood samples to assess inflammatory and metabolic markers. The primary endpoint is additional disabilities in ADLs three months post-hospital discharge compared to ADL function two weeks prior to hospital admission. Secondary outcomes are health care utilization, health-related quality of life (HRQoL), physical performance tests, and mortality. There will be at least five data collection points; within 48 h after admission (H1), at discharge (H3), and at one (P1; home visit), two (P2; by telephone) and three months (P3; home visit) post-discharge. If the patient is admitted for more than five days, additional measurements will be planned during hospitalization on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (H2).DISCUSSION: The Hospital-ADL study will provide information on cognitive, behavioral, psychosocial, physical, and biological factors associated with HAD and will be collected during and following hospitalization. These data may inform new interventions to prevent or restore hospitalization-associated disability.
Everyone has the right to participate in society to the best of their ability. This right also applies to people with a visual impairment, in combination with a severe or profound intellectual and possibly motor disability (VISPIMD). However, due to their limitations, for their participation these people are often highly dependent on those around them, such as family members andhealthcare professionals. They determine how people with VISPIMD participate and to what extent. To optimize this support, they must have a good understanding of what people with disabilities can still do with their remaining vision.It is currently difficult to gain insight into the visual abilities of people with disabilities, especially those with VISPIMD. As a professional said, "Everything we can think of or develop to assess the functional vision of this vulnerable group will help improve our understanding and thus our ability to support them. Now, we are more or less guessing about what they can see.Moreover, what little we know about their vision is hard to communicate to other professionals”. Therefore, there is a need for methods that can provide insight into the functional vision of people with VISPIMD, in order to predict their options in daily life situations. This is crucial knowledge to ensure that these people can participate in society to their fullest extent.What makes it so difficult to get this insight at the moment? Visual impairments can be caused by a range of eye or brain disorders and can manifest in various ways. While we understand fairly well how low vision affects a person's abilities on relatively simple visual tasks, it is much more difficult to predict this in more complex dynamic everyday situations such asfinding your way or moving around during daily activities. This is because, among other things, conventional ophthalmic tests provide little information about what people can do with their remaining vision in everyday life (i.e., their functional vision).An additional problem in assessing vision in people with intellectual disabilities is that many conventional tests are difficult to perform or are too fatiguing, resulting in either no or the wrong information. In addition to their visual impairment, there is also a very serious intellectual disability (possibly combined with a motor impairment), which makes it even more complex to assesstheir functional vision. Due to the interplay between their visual, intellectual, and motor disabilities, it is almost impossible to determine whether persons are unable to perform an activity because they do not see it, do not notice it, do not understand it, cannot communicate about it, or are not able to move their head towards the stimulus due to motor disabilities.Although an expert professional can make a reasonable estimate of the functional possibilities through long-term and careful observation, the time and correct measurement data are usually lacking to find out the required information. So far, it is insufficiently clear what people with VZEVMB provoke to see and what they see exactly.Our goal with this project is to improve the understanding of the visual capabilities of people with VISPIMD. This then makes it possible to also improve the support for participation of the target group. We want to achieve this goal by developing and, in pilot form, testing a new combination of measurement and analysis methods - primarily based on eye movement registration -to determine the functional vision of people with VISPIMD. Our goal is to systematically determine what someone is responding to (“what”), where it may be (“where”), and how much time that response will take (“when”). When developing methods, we take the possibilities and preferences of the person in question as a starting point in relation to the technological possibilities.Because existing technological methods were originally developed for a different purpose, this partly requires adaptation to the possibilities of the target group.The concrete end product of our pilot will be a manual with an overview of available technological methods (as well as the methods themselves) for assessing functional vision, linked to the specific characteristics of the target group in the cognitive, motor area: 'Given that a client has this (estimated) combination of limitations (cognitive, motor and attention, time in whichsomeone can concentrate), the order of assessments is as follows:' followed by a description of the methods. We will also report on our findings in a workshop for professionals, a Dutch-language article and at least two scientific articles. This project is executed in the line: “I am seen; with all my strengths and limitations”. During the project, we closely collaborate with relevant stakeholders, i.e. the professionals with specific expertise working with the target group, family members of the persons with VISPIMD, and persons experiencing a visual impairment (‘experience experts’).
Building Blocks for Liveable Neighbourhoods. Four suburbs in the province of Noord-Brabant are case-studies for a new method of urban development. Participation and scenario's are the starting point. The tools for local stakeholders to (literally) shape their own future environment are the end result.Societal issue: Gap between the plannend world and the daily life in city neighbourhoods. People are eager to take responsibility for their living environment but have no tools or knowledge to do it.Benefit to society: The method developed in this design research project enables the different stakeholders to connect, align and be effective in shaping their common future living environment.
PBL is the initiator of the Work Programme Monitoring and Management Circular Economy 2019-2023, a collaboration between CBS, CML, CPB, RIVM, TNO, UU. Holidays and mobility are part of the consumption domains that PBL researches, and this project aims to calculate the environmental gains per person per year of the various circular behavioural options for both holiday behaviour and daily mobility. For both behaviours, a range of typical (default) trips are defined and for each several circular option explored for CO2 emissions, Global warming potential and land use. The holiday part is supplied by the Centre for Sustainability, Tourism and Transport (CSTT) of the BUas Academy of Tourism (AfT). The mobility part is carried out by the Urban Intelligence professorship of the Academy for Built Environment and Logistics (ABEL).The research question is “what is the environmental impact of various circular (behavioural) options around 1) holidays and 2) passenger mobility?” The consumer perspective is demarcated as follows:For holidays, transportation and accommodation are included, but not food, attractions visited and holiday activitiesFor mobility, it concerns only the circular options of passenger transport and private means of transport (i.e. freight transport, business travel and commuting are excluded). Not only some typical trips will be evaluated, but also the possession of a car and its alternatives.For the calculations, we make use of public databases, our own models and the EAP (Environmental Analysis Program) model developed by the University of Groningen. BUAs projectmembers: Centre for Sustainability, Tourism and Transport (AT), Urban Intelligence (ABEL).
