BACKGROUND

Walking is widely recognized for its benefits in pain management, disability reduction, and psychological well-being, primarily due to its cost-effectiveness and accessibility. However, comprehensive qualitative insights into the full extent of its benefits remain insufficient. Chronic low back pain (CLBP) significantly impairs daily activities, requiring a multifaceted intervention approach, as advocated by the Biopsychosocial (BPS) model and the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) framework.

This systematic review aims to evaluate the perceptions and experiences related to walking among adults suffering from CLBP, understand the barriers and facilitators influencing walking behaviors, analyze behavioral patterns, and examine internal motivators for walking.

This systematic review will include both published and unpublished qualitative studies with participants aged >18 with CLBP persisting > 3 months, where walking is utilized as the primary or secondary intervention. Databases, including PubMed, EBSCO Host, Science Direct, ProQuest, MEDLINE, Epistemonikos, Cochrane Database, and Web of Science, will be searched without language or year restrictions. The screening will involve an independent dual review of the title/abstract and full texts, followed by a critical appraisal. Data extraction and synthesis will employ a meta-aggregation approach, with findings assessed via the ConQual approach.

Synthesized findings will guide evidence-based practice. Recommendations will provide actionable insights to address gaps in qualitative research on walking, promoting a holistic, patient-centered approach to treatment.

CRD42024509069.

BACKGROUND

Combat sports are intense and physically demanding, and healthy weight control practices are necessary to ensure a safe and fair competition for all athletes involved.

The study will determine the dietary and non-dietary weight control practices of Philippine National Wushu Sanda athletes. It will also aim to explore the perceived effects of these practices on performance and well-being.

A qualitative study using semi-structured interviews will be used to gain insights into the athletes' experiences, habits, and practices regarding their weight control practices. The semi-structured questionnaire will focus on daily food intake, weight control practices, and their effects on performance and well-being. Thematic data analysis will be used to analyze the data.

Weight control practices of Wushu Sanda Athletes vary depending on the training phase. Both dietary practices, such as water intake, skipping meals, and food choices, and non-dietary practices, such as intense training and sweat suits, are expected to be observed to achieve their desired weight. These practices are anticipated to have been influenced by their coaches and senior athletes, having both positive and negative effects on the athlete’s physical, mental, and psychological well-being.

Background: Hamstring strain injury remains persistently high in sports, highlighting the need for additional investigation of its predisposing variables. Despite hamstring injury being well investigated, there’s a lack of studies on changes in echo intensity and shear wave elastography of hamstrings among athletes with a history of injury, which could be considered modifiable risk variables. Objectives: To examine echo intensity and shear wave elastography characteristics of previously injured hamstrings among athletes, assessing the differences between the injured leg and controls. Methods: This systematic review will focus on studies reporting echo intensity and shear wave elastography characteristics of athletes with a history of hamstring strain injury compared to a control group. The search strategy will locate studies written in English from 1990 to 2023 using four electronic databases: PubMed, EBSCO (CINAHL and Medline), Science Direct, and Web of Science. Studies reporting measures using imaging other than ultrasound and where no diagnosis of hamstring strain has been made will be excluded. Two independent reviewers will screen and critically appraise the studies using the McMasters Critical Review Form. Two reviewers will independently extract relevant data and present a descriptive synthesis. A meta-analysis will be conducted when two or more studies provide data for the same outcome measure. Expected Results This review can better understand hamstring maladaptation to injury. Utilizing echo-intensity and shear wave elastography as objective outcome measures can inform clinical practice toward developing an effective rehabilitation program for injury prevention.
Wounds and Injuries ; Sports ; Rehabilitation

Humans ; Emotions ; Running

The present study aims to establish comprehensive evaluation models of physical fitness of the elderly based on machine learning, and provide an important basis to monitor the elderly's physique. Through stratified sampling, the elderly aged 60 years and above were selected from 10 communities in Nanchang City. The physical fitness of the elderly was measured by the comprehensive physical assessment scale based on our previous study. Fuzzy neural network (FNN), support vector machine (SVM) and random forest (RF) models for comprehensive physical evaluation of the elderly people in communities were constructed respectively. The accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of the comprehensive physical fitness evaluation models constructed by FNN, SVM and RF were above 0.85, 0.75 and 0.89, respectively, with the FNN model possessing the best prediction performance. FNN, RF and SVM models are valuable in the comprehensive evaluation and prediction of physical fitness, which can be used as tools to carry out physical evaluation of the elderly.
Aged ; Humans ; Physical Fitness ; Neural Networks, Computer ; Exercise ; Machine Learning

An in-depth understanding of the mechanism of lower extremity muscle coordination during walking is the key to improving the efficacy of gait rehabilitation in patients with neuromuscular dysfunction. This paper investigates the effect of changes in walking speed on lower extremity muscle synergy patterns and muscle functional networks. Eight healthy subjects were recruited to perform walking tasks on a treadmill at three different speeds, and the surface electromyographic signals (sEMG) of eight muscles of the right lower limb were collected synchronously. The non-negative matrix factorization (NNMF) method was used to extract muscle synergy patterns, the mutual information (MI) method was used to construct the alpha frequency band (8-13 Hz), beta frequency band (14-30 Hz) and gamma frequency band (31-60 Hz) muscle functional network, and complex network analysis methods were introduced to quantify the differences between different networks. Muscle synergy analysis extracted 5 muscle synergy patterns, and changes in walking speed did not change the number of muscle synergy, but resulted in changes in muscle weights. Muscle network analysis found that at the same speed, high-frequency bands have lower global efficiency and clustering coefficients. As walking speed increased, the strength of connections between local muscles also increased. The results show that there are different muscle synergy patterns and muscle function networks in different walking speeds. This study provides a new perspective for exploring the mechanism of muscle coordination at different walking speeds, and is expected to provide theoretical support for the evaluation of gait function in patients with neuromuscular dysfunction.
Humans ; Walking Speed ; Muscle, Skeletal/physiology* ; Electromyography ; Gait/physiology* ; Walking/physiology*

In response to the problem that the traditional lower limb rehabilitation scale assessment method is time-consuming and difficult to use in exoskeleton rehabilitation training, this paper proposes a quantitative assessment method for lower limb walking ability based on lower limb exoskeleton robot training with multimodal synergistic information fusion. The method significantly improves the efficiency and reliability of the rehabilitation assessment process by introducing quantitative synergistic indicators fusing electrophysiological and kinematic level information. First, electromyographic and kinematic data of the lower extremity were collected from subjects trained to walk wearing an exoskeleton. Then, based on muscle synergy theory, a synergistic quantification algorithm was used to construct synergistic index features of electromyography and kinematics. Finally, the electrophysiological and kinematic level information was fused to build a modal feature fusion model and output the lower limb motor function score. The experimental results showed that the correlation coefficients of the constructed synergistic features of electromyography and kinematics with the clinical scale were 0.799 and 0.825, respectively. The results of the fused synergistic features in the K-nearest neighbor (KNN) model yielded higher correlation coefficients ( r = 0.921, P < 0.01). This method can modify the rehabilitation training mode of the exoskeleton robot according to the assessment results, which provides a basis for the synchronized assessment-training mode of "human in the loop" and provides a potential method for remote rehabilitation training and assessment of the lower extremity.
Humans ; Exoskeleton Device ; Reproducibility of Results ; Walking/physiology* ; Lower Extremity ; Algorithms ; Stroke Rehabilitation/methods*

In recent years, wearable devices have seen a booming development, and the integration of wearable devices with clinical settings is an important direction in the development of wearable devices. The purpose of this study is to establish a prediction model for postoperative pulmonary complications (PPCs) by continuously monitoring respiratory physiological parameters of cardiac valve surgery patients during the preoperative 6-Minute Walk Test (6MWT) with a wearable device. By enrolling 53 patients with cardiac valve diseases in the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, the grouping was based on the presence or absence of PPCs in the postoperative period. The 6MWT continuous respiratory physiological parameters collected by the SensEcho wearable device were analyzed, and the group differences in respiratory parameters and oxygen saturation parameters were calculated, and a prediction model was constructed. The results showed that continuous monitoring of respiratory physiological parameters in 6MWT using a wearable device had a better predictive trend for PPCs in cardiac valve surgery patients, providing a novel reference model for integrating wearable devices with the clinic.
Humans ; Lung ; Walking/physiology* ; Walk Test ; Heart Valves/surgery* ; Postoperative Period ; Postoperative Complications/etiology*

For the transportation process of rescuing wounded personnel on naval vessels, a new type of shoulder type exoskeleton stretcher for individual soldier was designed in this paper. The three-dimensional model of the shoulder type exoskeleton stretcher for individual soldier was constructed using three dimensional modeling software. Finite element analysis technique was employed to conduct statics simulation, modal analysis, and transient dynamics analysis on the designed exoskeleton stretcher. The results show that the maximum stress of the exoskeleton stretcher for walking on flat ground is 265.55 MPa, which is lower than the allowable strength of the fabrication material. Furthermore, the overall deformation of the structure is small. Modal analysis reveals that the natural frequency range of the exoskeleton stretcher under different gait conditions is 1.96 Hz to 28.70 Hz, which differs significantly from the swing frequency of 1 Hz during walking. This indicates that the designed structure can effectively avoid resonance. The transient dynamics analysis results show that the maximum deformation and stress of exoskeleton stretcher remain within the safety range, which meets the expected performance requirements. In summary, the shoulder type exoskeleton stretcher for individual soldier designed in this study can solve the problem of requiring more than 2 people to carry for the existing stretcher, especially suitable for narrow spaces of naval vessels. The research results of this paper can provide a new solution for the rescue of wounded personnel on naval vessels.
Humans ; Stretchers ; Military Personnel ; Shoulder ; Exoskeleton Device ; Walking ; Gait ; Biomechanical Phenomena

OBJECTIVE: To clarify the intervention guidance of return to sports WeChat applet and evaluate the rehabilitation effectiveness after anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction. METHODS: Between September 2020 and September 2022, 80 patients who met the selection criteria and underwent ACL anatomical single bundle reconstruction were selected as the research objects. According to the double-blind random method, they were divided into the applet group and the regular group, with 40 cases in each group. Patients in the applet group were rehabilitated under the guidance of the return to sports WeChat applet, and the patients were asked to perform the test once a month after operation, including patients' subjective scores [Tegner score, knee injury and osteoarthritis outcome score (KOOS), International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) score, American Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) score], psychological assessment [ACL recovery sports injury scale (ACL-RSI) score], jumping test, balance test, bending angle test. Patients in the regular group were followed up by doctors and nurses regularly by telephone every month. All the patients were reexamined at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months after operation, and the range of motion of the knee joint with 6 degrees of freedom (flexion and extension angle, varus and valgus angle, internal and external rotation angle, anteroposterior displacement, superior and inferior displacement, and internal and external displacement) recorded by Opti_Knee three-dimensional knee joint motion measurement gait analysis system was observed. The anterior tibial translation difference (ATTD) was measured by Ligs knee measuring instrument when a forward thrust of 120 N was applied to the posterior part of the proximal tibia. Tegner score, IKDC score, KOOS score (including KOOS-Pain score, KOOS-Symptoms score, KOOS-Activities of daily living score, KOOS-Sport score, and KOOS-Quality of life score), HSS score, ACL-RSI score, jumping ability, balance ability, patients' satisfaction with the rehabilitation process, and ACL healing grading according to ACL continuity and signal intensity shown by MRI. RESULTS: There were significant differences in various indicators between different time points after operation in the two groups ( P<0.05). At 3 months after operation, except that the ACL-RSI score of the applet group was significantly higher than that of the regular group ( P<0.05), there was no significant difference in the other indicators between the two groups ( P>0.05). At 6 months after operation, the ACL-RSI score, IKDC score, Tegner score, KOOS scores of different items, HSS score, balance and jumping ability of the applet group were significantly higher than those of the regular group ( P<0.05), and there was no significant difference in the other indicators between the two groups ( P>0.05). At 9 months after operation, there was no significant difference in all indicators between the two groups ( P>0.05). At 12 months after operation, 27 cases (67.5%) in the applet group and 21 cases (52.5%) in the regular group returned to sport, with a significant difference of the return to sports incidence between the two groups [ RR(95% CI)=1.50 (1.00, 2.25), P=0.049]. In the applet group, 27 cases were very satisfied with the rehabilitation process, 10 cases were satisfied, 2 cases were basically satisfied, and 1 case was not satisfied, while 19, 13, 5, and 3 cases in the regular group, respectively. The satisfaction degree of the applet group was significantly better than that of the regular group ( P=0.049). MRI examination of the two groups showed that the ACL was continuous without secondary rupture or necrosis. The ACL healing grade of the applet group was 31 cases of grade 1 and 9 cases of grade 2, and that of the regular group was 28 cases of grade 1 and 12 cases of grade 2, there was no significant difference in ACL healing grade between the two groups ( P=0.449). CONCLUSION The application of return to sports WeChat applet in the rehabilitation of patients after ACL reconstruction can significantly reduce the fear of return to sports and improve the rate of return to sports. The return to sports WeChat applet is convenient to operate, with high utilization rate and high patient compliance, which significantly improves the satisfaction.
Humans ; Activities of Daily Living ; Quality of Life ; Return to Sport ; Knee Joint/surgery* ; Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injuries/surgery* ; Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction