Background: Increased aortic stiffness has been found to be associated with cognitive function decline, but the evidence is still under debate. It is of great significance to elucidate the evidence in this debate to help make primary prevention decisions to slow cognitive decline in our routine clinical practice.Methods: Electronic databases of PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library were systematically searched to identify peer-reviewed articles published in English from January 1, 1986, to March 16, 2020, that reported the association between aortic stiffness and cognitive function. Studies that reported the association between aortic pulse wave velocity (PWV) and cognitive function, cognitive impairment, and dementia were included in the analysis.Results: Thirty-nine studies were included in the qualitative analysis, and 29 studies were included in the quantitative analysis. The aortic PWV was inversely associated with memory and processing speed in the cross-sectional analysis. In the longitudinal analysis, the high category of aortic PWV was 44% increased risk of cognitive impairment (OR 1.44; 95% CI 1.24–1.85) compared with low PWV, and the risk of cognitive impairment increased 3.9% (OR 1.039; 95% CI 1.005–1.073) per 1 m/s increase in aortic PWV. Besides, meta-regression analysis showed that age significantly increased the association between high aortic PWV and cognitive impairment risk.Conclusion: Aortic stiffness measured by aortic PWV was inversely associated with memory and processing speed and could be an independent predictor for cognitive impairment, especially for older individuals.
Aim
To investigate nurses’ core emergency competencies for handling the coronavirus disease‐19 (COVID‐19) and analyse the factors associated with those competencies.
Background
COVID‐19 has become a major global public health event. Nursing staff have played an important role in COVID‐19 prevention and control. Understanding their emergency competencies for handling COVID‐19, and the potential disadvantages will help governments to develop targeted training policies and improve nurses’ capacities in relation to pandemics and emergency preparedness.
Introduction
COVID‐19 is a disastrous infectious disease, but the competencies of nurses in China to handle COVID‐19 have not been well documented.
Methods
We conducted a cross‐sectional survey on nurses from 22 provinces of China in February 2020. The scores of self‐report questionnaires were used to analyse their competencies for core emergency care, and linear regression analysis was used to explore influential factors.
Results
A total of 2570 nurses participated. The study revealed that nurses had a good grasp of COVID‐19 knowledge, but the majority of nurses lacked experience in isolation ward work and emergency training. We found that age, professional title, work department, major work content, total work time, disaster rescue history, emergency training and infectious disease training were associated with core emergency competencies.
Conclusions
Chinese nurses were qualified for handling COVID‐19 but still need to strengthen the accumulation of practical experience.
Implications for nursing
Nurses should actively participate in emergencies to strengthen their operational capacity, whether in training or actual practice.
Implications for nursing/health policy
Managers should improve relevant policies to ensure that nurses have more opportunities to participate in the practical training of health emergencies and explore effective training methods to improve the ability of nurses to respond to these.
The relationship between exercise and stroke recurrence is controversial. This study was designed to test whether an association exists between exercise and ischemic stroke recurrence in first-ever ischemic stroke survivors. Data were collected from January 2010 to June 2016. Baseline information was obtained during face-to-face interviews, and follow-up phone interviews were conducted every 3 months. Exercise type, frequency, intensity, and duration were recorded. Discrete-time survival analysis was used to determine the relationship between exercise and stroke recurrence. 760 first-ever ischemic stroke survivors who were able to exercise were enrolled. After adjusting for covariates, patients who exercised 3.5–7 h per week and more than 7 h per week had a lower relapse risk than patients who did not exercise (3.5–7: OR 0.415; > 7: OR 0.356). Moreover, if the fluctuation of exercise duration was over 4 h, the patients had a higher risk of stroke recurrence than those with variability of less than 2 h (OR 2.153, P = 0.013). Stroke survivors who engage in long-term regular mild exercise (more than 5 sessions per week and lasting on average 40 min per session) have a lower recurrence rate. Irregular exercise increases the risk of stroke recurrence.
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