No abstract

Long-term and repeated assumption of the upright stance accelerates disc degeneration in rats.

Background. Osteoporosis is a major health problem for the elderly population. Chinese herb may be beneficial to osteoporosis due to its capability. Objectives. This study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of Chinese medicine treatment on the patients with osteoporosis. Search Methods. Randomized controlled trials were retrieved from different 9 databases. Results. This meta analysis included 12 RCTs involving 1816 patients to compare Chinese herbs with placebo or standard anti-osteoporotic therapy in the treatment of bone loss. The pooled data showed that the percent change of increased BMD in the spine is higher with Chinese herb compared to placebo (lumber spine: WMD = 0.07, 95% CI: 0.01–0.04). In the femoral, Chinese herb showed significantly higher increments of BMD compared to placebo (femoral neck: WMD = 0.06, 95% CI: −0.02–0.13). Compared to the other standard anti-osteoporotic drugs, Chinese herbs also show advantage in BMD change (lumber spine: WMD = 0.03, 95% CI: −0.01–0.08; femoral: WMD = 0.01, 95% CI: −0.01–0.02). Conclusions. Our results demonstrated that Chinese herb significantly increased lumbar spine BMD as compared to the placebo or other standard anti-osteoporotic drugs.

The aim of this study is to translate and cross-culturally adapt the Shoulder Pain and Disability Index (SPADI) for the Chinese language, and to evaluate its psychometric properties. The SPADI was translated and cross-culturally adapted for the Chinese language according to established guidelines. Participants completed the SPADI questionnaire, a visual analogue scale (VAS), and the 36-item short form health survey (SF-36), and were assessed using the Constant-Murley shoulder outcome score. Exploratory factor analysis was used to examine the latent dimensions, and Cronbach's α to measure internal consistency. The construct validity was tested by Pearson correlations with the Constant-Murley score, VAS, and SF-36, while intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was calculated to assess the test-retest reliability of the Chinese SPADI. The floor and ceiling effects were calculated by the proportion of participants who obtained the highest (100) and lowest (0) possible score on the baseline questionnaires. We tested its psychometric properties with 120 participants (55 men and 65 women, age: 55.64 ± 9.49 years, duration: 62.75 ± 15.96 weeks) with shoulder pain. And 58 participants completed the SPADI again within 7 days of the first completion to test the test-retest reliability. The Chinese version of the SPADI displayed high internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.91). Test-retest reliability was high with an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.87. A very good correlation was observed between the SPADI and the Constant-Murley score (r = 0.69), a good correlation between the SPADI and the VAS (r = 0.40), and a fair correlation between the SPADI and the SF-36 (r = 0.36). There were no significant floor and ceiling effects in the total Chinese SPADI. The Chinese version of the SPADI is a valid and reliable tool that could be used to measure the degree of pain and disability in Chinese-speaking patients with shoulder pain.

To help doctors and patients evaluate lumbar intervertebral disc degeneration (IVDD) accurately and efficiently, we propose a segmentation network and a quantitation method for IVDD from T2MRI. A semantic segmentation network (BianqueNet) composed of three innovative modules achieves high-precision segmentation of IVDD-related regions. A quantitative method is used to calculate the signal intensity and geometric features of IVDD. Manual measurements have excellent agreement with automatic calculations, but the latter have better repeatability and efficiency. We investigate the relationship between IVDD parameters and demographic information (age, gender, position and IVDD grade) in a large population. Considering these parameters present strong correlation with IVDD grade, we establish a quantitative criterion for IVDD. This fully automated quantitation system for IVDD may provide more precise information for clinical practice, clinical trials, and mechanism investigation. It also would increase the number of patients that can be monitored.