T'ai chi exercise practiced by patients who are obese and have type 2 diabetes is efficient and safe when supervised by professionals and helps improve parameters, such as BMI, lipid profile, C-reactive protein, and malondialdehyde. Periodic monitoring of blood glucose, blood pressure, heart rate, breathing, physical fitness, and symptoms of discomfort of patients who exercise helps prevent injury. Simple, gentle TCE can be applied as regular daily exercise for patients with type 2 diabetes even when such patients are obese.

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ObjectivesSelf-rated health (SRH) is an assessment and predictor of health based on an individual’s general condition; however, evidence of the value of SRH for predicting frailty remains scarce for older Asian adults. This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between SRH score trajectory and frailty among older individuals in Taiwan.DesignAn 8-year retrospective cohort study.SettingData were retrieved from the Taiwan Longitudinal Study on Aging from 1999 to 2007.ParticipantsRespondents aged 53–69 years old who were not frail or disabled in 1999 (n=1956).Primary and secondary outcome measuresFrailty was defined using the Fried criteria. The group-based trajectory modelling technique was used to estimate SRH trajectories. Logistic regression analysis was used to examine the associations between changes in SRH and frailty.ResultsFour SRH trajectory classes were identified across the 8-year follow-up: 232 participants (11.9%) were classified into the constantly poor SRH group, 1123 (57.4%) into the constantly fair SRH group, 335 (17.1%) into the constantly good SRH group and 266 (13.6%) into the good-to-fair SRH group. After adjusting for gender, age, level of education, income, social participation, health behaviours and major comorbidities, it was found that age, poor income satisfaction, without job and constantly poor SRH were associated with increased risk of frailty, while constantly good SRH (OR 0.04, 95% CI (0.01 to 0.32)) and good-to-fair SRH (OR 0.19, 95% CI (0.06 to 0.63)) were associated with reduced risks of frailty.ConclusionsConstantly poor SRH was associated with an increased risk of frailty in older age. SRH in older adults should be recognised as a predictive tool for future frailty. Diet and exercise interventions may help to prevent frailty among high-risk older individuals with constantly low SRH.

Reproductive technology has increased the childbearing potential for many infertile women, but in vitro fertilization (IVF) failures are common, which often trigger grief responses and coping strategies to manage the stressful life event. The present cross-sectional study investigated 66 women who had experienced at least one failure with IVF treatment. The data were gathered by a self-administered structured questionnaire, and included the participant's personal profile, grief responses and the Jalowiec's coping scale. The most common grief response among the respondents was bargaining, followed by acceptance, depression, anger, denial, and isolation. The order of coping strategies used, from highest-to-lowest, were confrontative, optimistic, self-reliant, fatalistic, supportive, evasive, palliative, and emotive. Use and self-perceived effectiveness among all coping strategies had a high correlation, except emotion. Bargaining, the most common grief response, was associated with a variety of coping strategies. All coping strategies were correlated with grief responses. The results of identifying the grief responses and associated coping strategies of women who have undergone failed IVF treatment may assist nurses and other health care professionals in their efforts to provide appropriate information, care and psychological support.

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AB STRACT: Infer til ity and its treat ment may cause life cri ses in infer tile women. The pur pose of this study is to eval u ate the effects of a cri sis inter ven tion pro gram on improv ing psychosocial responses and enhanc ing cop ing strat e gies for infer tile women attend ing dif fer ent stages of an In-Vitro Fer til iza tionEmbryo Trans fer (IVF-ET) treat ment pro gram. Using an exper i men tal study design, infer tile women attend ing an IVF-ET treat ment pro gram were ran domly assigned to exper i men tal and con trol groups.In the exper i men tal group, infer tile women com pleted and answered a ques tion naire and received nurs ing cri sis inter ven tion at the ini tial stage of treat ment (day 3). This included (1) view ing a video explain ing the ther a peu tic pro cess of IVF-ET, (2) self-hypnosis and mus cle relax ation train ing, and (3) pro vi sion of cog ni tive-behavioral coun sel ing. The same ques tion naire was used again for sub jects at the stage of embryo trans fer and before tak ing a preg nancy test. The women in the con trol group were only inter viewed using the same ques tion naire and at the same times as the exper i men tal group. Anal y sis by repeated mea sure ment ANOVA dem on strated that there was a reduc tion in psychosocial response in terms of inter per sonal rela tion ships, and there was an inter ac tion between inter ven tion effects and stage of treat ment. How ever, there was no sta tis ti cally sig nif i cant dif fer ence in the level of psychosocial responses between the exper i men tal and con trol groups although some mean ing ful find ings were made. How ever, in terms of state of anx i ety, con fron ta tional prob lems, and iso lated mind/body relax ation, there were sig nif i cant dif fer ences between the two groups of infer tile women at some stages of IVF-ET treat ment. The women in the exper i men tal group per ceived a pos i tive effect of the nurs ing inter ven tion in reliev ing their psychosocial responses. The results of this nurs ing cri sis inter ven tion could be help ful in nurs ing prac tice when deal ing with infer tile women attend i ng IVF treat ment pro grams.Key Words: in fer til ity, psychosocial re sponse, in-vitro fer til iza tion, nurs ing cri sis in ter ven tion pro gram.

Adolescent pregnancy carries a high-risk of LBW and premature birth. Inadequate prenatal care and weight gain during pregnancy are contributing factors that could be improved through strategies of health education, family support and case management.

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