Reflexões sobre o excesso de cesarianas no Brasil e a autonomia das mulheresReflections on the excessive rates of cesareans in Brazil and the empowerment of women
Support during travail, also called social intratravail support, can be accomplished by hospital staff, nurses and midwives as well as by trained companions called "doulas". The purpose of this work is to conduct a literature review on labor support accomplished by "doulas" and report the experience of a secondary-level philanthropical hospital.
Objective: To assess the effectiveness of a program of preventive physical therapy for the elderly using parameters linked to quality of life, functional capacity, and balance. Method: We studied 17 elders enrolled in the Family Health Strategy (ESF, in Portuguese) at the Centro de Saúde Barreiro, in Belo Horizonte. The assessments were carried out using the Brazilian version of the 36-item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) of the Medical Outcomes Study, the Berg Balance Scale, and the Katz Index, before and after the treatment plan of 16 twice-weekly sessions of 50 minutes each. Results: Statistical analysis showed significant improvement in balance (p=0.000) and quality of life in the following aspects: functional capacity (p=0.001), physical limitations (p=0.002), pain (p=0.000), overall health (p=0.000), vitality (p=0.001), social (p=0.007) and emotional aspects (p=0.003) and mental health (p=0.000). Significant improvement was found for functional capacity (p = 0.002) measured by Katz. A significance level of 5% was used for all statistical tests. Analyses were carried out using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software, version 16.0. Conclusion: The preventive physical therapy program significantly improves the quality of life, balance, and functional capacity of older adults and may even contribute to lowering the rates of falls and hospitalizations, possibly reducing health expenditure.
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