ABSTRACT
The outbreak of COVID-19 disease caused not only unprecedented concerns about public health but also critic stress-related disorders, especially in the younger population. Several studies have found a close connection between psychological stress and exercise dependence, resulting from coping strategies such as excessive perfectionism in controlling external factors, performance, controlling food intake, weight, and body image. Moderate amounts of exercise have been demonstrated to reduce psychological distress. Thus, the aim of the present study has been to analyse the relationship between psychological stress and exercise dependence symptoms in adolescent, concerning the COVID-19 period. Participants were 50 adolescents (aged 15-17) who trained twice a week for 90 minutes per session. They were randomly assigned to participate in either a highly controlled and supervised recreational physical activity program associated with theoretical lessons that were intended to provide information regarding nutritional education (EG;n = 25) or a waitlist control group (CG;n = 25). The physical activity program involved: joint mobility exercises, low-to-moderate intensity aerobic exercise, team-building activities, exercise stations, cardio workout. At baseline and after intervention programs we administered the Exercise Dependence Scale-21, a 21-items scale designed to assess exercise dependence symptoms, and the Perceived Stress Scale that measures the level at which situations in life are perceived as stressful (p < .01). The findings have suggested that after a 12-week recreational physical activity and food re-education, adolescents felt a greater sensation of psycho-physical well-being and that this phenomenon was closely linked to an improvement of the symptoms of exercise dependence.
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this work is to describe the organization and the experience gained by the COVID Special Unit of Potenza (Basilicata Region, Italy) in the months of activity in the Covid-19 emergency. It also describes how the use of IT tools has considerably simplified the territorial management of suspected and confirmed Covid19 cases. “Home hospitalization” has become the new model of assistance for the Potenza Unit, with a significant and modern use of telemedicine, self-monitoring and home medical-nursing assistance. Creating new perspectives within a reform of the National Health System for the future territorial management of non-critical Covid-9 patients is, therefore, the key message of our work.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Severe acute respiratory syndrome caused by novel coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in Wuhan (China) in December 2019. Here we evaluated a panel of biomarkers to phenotype patients and to define the role of immuno-inflammatory mediators as biomarkers of severity. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Serum samples were obtained from 24 COVID-19 patients on admission to hospital, before any treatment or infusion of intravenous steroids or invasive ventilation. KL-6 IL-6 and C-peptide were measured by chemiluminescent enzyme immunoassay. IL-6 assay was validated for accuracy and precision. The validity of variables used to distinguish severe from mild-to-moderate patients was assessed by areas under curves (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) and logistic regression was performed to combine parameters of the two groups. RESULTS: In the severe group, IL-6, CRP and KL-6 concentrations were significantly higher than in mild-to-moderate patients. KL-6, IL-6 and CRP concentrations were directly correlated with each other. ROC curve analysis of the logistic regression model including IL-6, KL-6 and CRP showed the best performance with an AUC of 0.95. CONCLUSIONS: Besides corroborating previous reports of over-expression of IL-6 in severe COVID-19 patients requiring mechanical ventilation, analytical determination of other mediators showed that IL-6 concentrations were correlated with those of KL-6 and CRP. The combination of these three prognostic bioindicators made it possible to distinguish severe COVID-19 patients with poor prognosis from mild-to-moderate patients.