ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic is currently a challenge worldwide. In Austria, a crisis within the health care system has so far been avoided. The treatment of patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), including SARS-CoV-2 infections, should continue to be based on evidence-based CAP guidelines during the pandemic. However, COVID-19-specific adjustments are useful. The treatment of patients with chronic lung diseases must be adapted during the pandemic, but must still be guaranteed.
ABSTRACT
Background: The main objective of this proposal is to investigate the role of central mechanisms in motor fatigue and to unmask the alterations in the neural connectivity patterns underpinning central fatigue in PwMS. Specifically, we aim to 1) determine the role of central mechanisms in motor fatigue in PwMS, and 2) to determine the neural correlates of central fatigue in PwMS. Methods: Aim 1: Fatigue Assessment: PwMS and healthy controls are currently being recruited to participate in a fatiguing motor task involving a sustained contraction of plantarflexor (PF) muscles for 60 seconds. We are using the interpolated twitch technique to determine voluntary activation (VA) of the PF muscles. The decline in VA during motor task represents the inability of the central nervous system to maximally drive muscles for a sustained period and provides an index of central fatigue. We further relate this objective index of central fatigue to decline in the balance control during standing (pre- and post fatigue test) and the fast six-minute walk test. We hypothesize that 1a: PwMS will exhibit significantly higher central fatigue during the performance of the fatiguing motor task, and 1b: Central fatigue will be related to the decline in balance control during standing and walking performance. Aim 2: Neuroimaging: Resting-state functional MRI (RS-fMRI) is being collected in the participants from Aim 1 to investigate neural mechanisms underlying motor fatigue in PwMS. We hypothesize that 2) The severity of central fatigue in PwMS will be associated with increased functional connectivity among the cortico-striatal structures in the motor circuit of the basal ganglia. Status: We have screened a total of 109 subjects for participation in this study. Of those screened, a total of 43 subjects (20 healthy controls and 23 PwMS) have completed data collection for Aim 1 and Aim 2.
ABSTRACT
The article analyses the declaration the State of Emergency according to the Constitutional Act on the Security of the Czech Republic in the context of the current Covid-19 pandemic. The decision to declare the State of Emergency is characterized as a normative, constitutive act of the government without direct and immediate effect on the legal sphere of persons, which can be classified in the hierarchy of legal norms as law. Thus, the paper rejects the conclusion that such an act could be an administrative act or a non-legal (purely political) act. The article further analyses the possible defects of this act and divides them into three groups depending on their intensity and consequences. The most intense defects should make the act void. Defects that are less intense, but as a result of which the essentials of a democratic state governed by the rule of law are affected, should lead to the reviewability and possible revocability of the act by the Constitutional Court. Finally, defects of the lowest intensity should be covered by the so-called Fehlerkalkül theory, and therefore unreviewable. In conclusion, the article also deals with the control of the declaration of the State of Emergency by the Chamber of Deputies and the judicial review of this act. Regarding control by the Chamber of Deputies, a space is devoted particularly to the issue of the possibility of the State of Emergency “re-declaration” contrary to the will of the Chamber of Deputies. Concerning judicial review, the article excludes review by administrative courts and only allows for limited review by the Constitutional Court. © 2021, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Institute of State and Law. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Patients with asthma should be vaccinated against COVID-19. This includes patients with severe asthma. Treatment with a biological for asthma is no contra-indication for vaccination against COVID-19.