Based on the available evidence and quality of this evidence, non-specific exercise may or may not help to prevent or reduce DRAM during the ante- and postnatal periods.

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BackgroundMany inpatients receive little or no rehabilitation on weekends. Our aim was to determine what effect providing additional Saturday rehabilitation during inpatient rehabilitation had on functional independence, quality of life and length of stay compared to 5 days per week of rehabilitation.MethodsThis was a multicenter, single-blind (assessors) randomized controlled trial with concealed allocation and 12-month follow-up conducted in two publically funded metropolitan inpatient rehabilitation facilities in Melbourne, Australia. Patients were eligible if they were adults (aged ≥18 years) admitted for rehabilitation for any orthopedic, neurological or other disabling conditions excluding those admitted for slow stream rehabilitation/geriatric evaluation and management. Participants were randomly allocated to usual care Monday to Friday rehabilitation (control) or to Monday to Saturday rehabilitation (intervention). The additional Saturday rehabilitation comprised physiotherapy and occupational therapy. The primary outcomes were functional independence (functional independence measure (FIM); measured on an 18 to 126 point scale), health-related quality of life (EQ-5D utility index; measured on a 0 to 1 scale, and EQ-5D visual analog scale; measured on a 0 to 100 scale), and patient length of stay. Outcome measures were assessed on admission, discharge (primary endpoint), and at 6 and 12 months post discharge.ResultsWe randomly assigned 996 adults (mean (SD) age 74 (13) years) to Monday to Saturday rehabilitation (n = 496) or usual care Monday to Friday rehabilitation (n = 500). Relative to admission scores, intervention group participants had higher functional independence (mean difference (MD) 2.3, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.5 to 4.1, P = 0.01) and health-related quality of life (MD 0.04, 95% CI 0.01 to 0.07, P = 0.009) on discharge and may have had a shorter length of stay by 2 days (95% CI 0 to 4, P = 0.1) when compared to control group participants. Intervention group participants were 17% more likely to have achieved a clinically significant change in functional independence of 22 FIM points or more (risk ratio (RR) 1.17, 95% CI 1.03 to 1.34) and 18% more likely to have achieved a clinically significant change in health-related quality of life (RR 1.18, 95% CI 1.04 to 1.34) on discharge compared to the control group. There was some maintenance of effect for functional independence and health-related quality of life at 6-month follow-up but not at 12-month follow-up. There was no difference in the number of adverse events between the groups (incidence rate ratio = 0.81, 95% CI 0.61 to 1.08).ConclusionsProviding an additional day of rehabilitation improved functional independence and health-related quality of life at discharge and may have reduced length of stay for patients receiving inpatient rehabilitation.Trial registrationAustralian and New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12609000973213 Please see related commentary: http://www.biomedcentral.com/10.1186/1741-7015-11-199.

PROSPERO CRD42015019164.

Background: Metabolic syndrome is characterised by a clustering of metabolic risk factors including abdominal obesity, raised triglycerides, lowered HDL cholesterol, hypertension and impaired glucose tolerance. Multifaceted lifestyle interventions including diet and exercise are recommended as the first-line treatment for the metabolic syndrome. Objective: To investigate the effects of lifestyle interventions that include both diet interventions and supervised exercise on outcomes for people with metabolic syndrome. Methods: A systematic review and meta-regression was conducted. PubMed, EMBASE, MEDLINE and CINAHL were searched from the earliest date possible until November 2018 to identify randomised controlled trials examining the effects of lifestyle interventions compared to usual care on patient health outcomes and components of metabolic syndrome. Post-intervention means and standard deviations were pooled using inverse variance methods and random-effects models to calculate mean differences (MD), standardised mean differences (SMD) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). Results: Searching identified 2598 articles, of which 15 articles reporting data from 10 trials, with 1160 participants were included in this review. Compared to usual care, supervised lifestyle intervention demonstrated significant improvements in all but one of the components of metabolic syndrome. Reductions were seen in waist circumference (−4.9 cm, 95%CI −8.0 to −1.7), systolic blood pressure (−6.5 mmHg, 95%CI −10.7 to −2.3), diastolic blood pressure (−1.9 mmHg, 95%CI −3.6 to −0.2), triglycerides (SMD −0.46, 95%CI −0.88 to −0.04) and fasting glucose (SMD-0.68, 95%CI −1.20 to −0.15). Prevalence of metabolic syndrome was reduced by 39% in intervention group participants compared to control group participants (Risk Ratio 0.61, 95%CI 0.38 to 0.96). Improvements in quality of life were not statistically significant. Conclusion: There is low to moderate quality evidence that supervised multifaceted lifestyle intervention improves multiple risk factors of metabolic syndrome, as well as reducing prevalence of the disease. Health services should consider implementing lifestyle intervention programs for people with metabolic syndrome to improve health outcomes and prevent progression to chronic disease.

Despite evidence to support oncology rehabilitation, there are few programs in Australia and there are challenges that limit it becoming part of standard practice. Programs that exist are multidisciplinary with a focus on exercise with the majority of programs following a cardiac rehabilitation model of care.

The patient-therapist interaction was more important to the patient than the amount or content of their physiotherapy, but Saturday therapy changed patients' perceptions of weekends in rehabilitation.

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