ABSTRACT
Work is a fundamental condition of human life, but it can become dysfunctional because in certain situations it may lead to undesirable and harmful consequences. In this context, recovery from work (recovery) is conceived as a counterpoint to the straining processes to which the employee is exposed in the workplace. Among the different recovery strategies adopted by workers, those carried out outside working hours are especially relevant. Scientific interest in this filed is evidenced by the publication of numerous systematic reviews in recent years. The aim of this study is to shed light and provide evidence on the results of the systematic reviews carried out to date. Thus, it was conducted an umbrella review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses on work recovery outside working hours. To this end, a systematic search of potentially relevant documents was implemented in six databases, both thematic and multidisciplinary. Eight systematic reviews and meta-analyses that met the established inclusion criteria were retrieved. The content analysis of the selected papers enabled us to identify different approaches to the study of external work recovery: (a) time period;(b) work characteristics;(c) recovery experiences;(d) recovery activities;(e) processes that hinder effective recovery;and (f) variables proxy to the recovery process. Likewise, the main considered substantive occupational and psychosocial variables were systematized. It is discussed the scarce attention paid in the reviewed studies to possible cultural differences that could potentially influence the recovery process. Furthermore, no research has made special reference to the COVID-19 pandemic in work recovery, nor to the potential influence of new emerging work realities such as teleworking or co-working.
ABSTRACT
The uncontrolled hyper-inflammation in critically ill patients with COVID-19 might be associated with a dysfunction of the cardiovascular regulatory mechanisms. In order to estimate the involvement of cardiovascular control in limiting the risk of mortality in COVID-19 patients we assessed the degree of asynchrony between heart period (HP) and systolic arterial pressure (SAP) variability at rest in supine condition (REST) and during an orthostatic challenge, namely the modified head-up tilt (MHUT), in 18 COVID-19 patients (age: 62± 10 yrs, 15 men) admitted in intensive care unit (ICU) for pneumonia. The patients were distinguished in two groups, i.e. survivors (SURVs) or non survivors (noSURVs) according to the outcome. Asynchrony between HP and SAP was assessed via a model-free nonlinear marker in the information domain, i.e. cross-sample entropy (CSampEn). Neither demographic indexes nor time domain markers could separate the two groups and this result held regardless of the experimental condition. Conversely, CSampEn could and, more precisely, noSURVs subjects had a significantly larger HP-SAP asynchrony when compared to SURVs in response to MHUT. We conclude that measures of the derangement of the cardiovascular control might be helpful to stratify the risk of mortality in COVID-19 critically ill patients. © 2022 Creative Commons.
ABSTRACT
Some aspects of cardiorespiratory coupling (CRC) require tools capable of accounting for nonlinearities. Joint symbolic analysis (JSA) has been proposed to characterize CRC via the rate of short, jointly coordinated (C), patterns obtained from the heart period (HP) variability and respiration (R) series. C schemes were distinguished according to the dominant time scale governing CRC. We applied JSA to a database of 19 healthy subjects (age: 27-35 yrs, median = 31 yrs;8 males) during spontaneous and paced breathing at varying respiratory rates. The rate of C pattern did not vary with the breathing rate, but the proportions of C pattern families changed with respiratory frequency. We conclude that JSA is a useful tool to investigate the effect of breathing patterns on CRC, with potential applications in patients with respiratory failure such as that developed in COVID-19 syndrome.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly changed the working settings of millions of office employees. Recently, the study of the cardiac autonomic control profile (CACP) has been suggested as an early screening tool in occupational medicine. In this study we describe the CACP in relation to different working conditions. Seventeen healthy office active employees (age: 38 +/- 7 yrs, 9/8 males/females) were studied, by means of electrocardiogram 24-hour Holter monitoring, while alternating working at home (SMART) and in the office (OFFICE), respectively. The beat-to-beat series of the time distance between two consecutive R-wave peaks was extracted during the 24 hours. Parametric power spectral analysis was iterated over the RR series during daytime (DAY) and nighttime (NIGHT). The degree of perceived stress, as measured via the visual analogue scale, was higher in OFFICE. During NIGHT the variance of the RR series was higher in SMART than in OFFICE situation. A similar tendency was observed for the absolute power of RR series in high frequency band. We conclude that the expected circadian rhythm of the vagal control is more evident in the SMART situation than in the OFFICE condition and the perceived stress is lower, with beneficial effects for the cardiovascular system and for the overall status of the entire organism.
ABSTRACT
Respiratory and cardiac activities are known to be linked by several mechanisms, resulting in a variety of patterns of heart rate variability. Cardiorespiratory interactions can be evaluated from spontaneous variability of heart period (HP) and respiration (R) through noncausal and causal approaches. The aim of this study is to describe cardiorespiratory interactions in a population known to feature an exaggerated sympathetic response to orthostatic stressors, such as patients affected by postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS). Twelve female POTS patients (age: 36 +/- 10 yrs) and 14 female healthy controls (age: 37 +/- 8 yrs) underwent electrocardiogram and respiratory movement recordings while supine and during head-up tilt. Cardiorespiratory interactions were assessed via a model-based noncausal approach, squared coherence (K-2), and a model- based causal method, transfer entropy (TE). TE was found to be significantly decreased in POTS patients compared to healthy controls during head-up tilt, while K-2 was similar. We conclude that causal approaches are better suited than noncausal methods to evaluate modifications in the magnitude of HPR variability interactions in POTS patients during orthostatic challenge, with possible future applications in post-acute COVID-19 patients exhibiting symptoms of dysautonomia.