COVID-19 pandemic: regular physical activity and respiratory exercises at home as prevention and treatment

The main question in the field of exercise and rehabilitation medicine is whether physical activity and therapeutic exercise are suitable activities for CoVid-19 patients who are recovering at home. There have been few public health guidelines provided about what people can do in relationship with exercise and respiratory care. For this reason, it is necessary that physical therapists give some recommendations concerning safe respiratory and physical exercises that could be executed by people with confirmed, suspected, or probable CoVid-19 who stay at home.Copyright © 2022 University School of Physical Education in WrocAaw. All rights reserved.

Virtual and Hybrid Classes as The Challenge Assumed During The SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic: An Interdisciplinary Qualitative Approach

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic forced educational institutions worldwide to deploy virtual and hybrid classes as a unique option to continue with the teaching-learning process. However, these modalities imply important efforts on the part of teachers, students, and administrative staff to ensure the teaching-learning process quality. Considering the above, this research work carries out a qualitative interdisciplinary analysis using the focus group technique intending to determine the perceptions, challenges, trends, and trade-offs of the virtual and hybrid modalities during and after the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Our analysis involves various disciplines (e.g., pedagogical and andragogical, social-economic, ergonomic, educational technology, and product & service innovation perspectives). As a result, some particular findings of each perspective are shown. The results of this research work can help the body of technical knowledge related to the curricula design at different educational levels to increase the efficiency of hybrid and virtual classes. Finally, this research work has some limitations, therefore the findings presented are suggestive rather than definitive. © 2022 IEEE.

Inter-rater agreement of the modified motor United Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (mUPDRS-III) for tele-health evaluation in Mexican Parkinson's disease (PD) patients during the COVID19 era

Objective: To evaluate the inter-rater reliability of the mUPDRS-III in Mexican PD patients evaluated during the COVID19 pandemic through telemedicine. Background: A modified version of the MDS-UPDRS part III for virtual administration has been previously validated, and has been proposed as a useful alternative to face-to-face follow-up of patients with PD. Limitations of it's use include the lack of evaluation of rigidity and postural impairment and technological barriers such as low-speed connection and poor access to webyielding devices in remote areas (e.g. rural Mexico). Design/Methods: 46 PD patients (mean age 65.34 ± 11.87 years, 58.7% male) were evaluated through web-based consultation (Cisco Webex). A brief follow-up questionnaire of symptoms, medications and current status was performed. Motor evaluation with the mUPDRS-III scale was applied independently by three movement disorders specialists. Agreement and reliability were evaluated using inter-rater correlation coefficient (ICC) and Kendall's concordance coefficient accordingly. Results: Total mUPDRS-III score (ICC 0.96, 95%CI 0.94-0.97;Kendall's W 0.038, p<0.005) and four motor domain sub-scores-Language and Facial Expression (ICC 0.85, 95%CI 0.76-0.91;Kendall's W 0.18, p<0.005), Bradykinesia (ICC 0.93, 95%CI 0.88-0.96;Kendall's W 0.25, p 0.005), Tremor (ICC 0.86, 95%CI 0.78-0.92;Kendall's W 0.233, p<0.005), Gait and Posture (ICC 0.97, 95%CI 0.95-0.98;Kendall's W 0.018, p 0.434)-showed good to excellent agreement but slight to poor concordance. Conclusions: We observed good agreement for motor domain sub-scores, as well as for the total scale score. This might confirm that the mUPDRS-III, albeit its intrinsic limitations, is a reproducible tool for the clinical follow-up of patients when face-to-face visits are not available. Nonetheless, the concordance values were poor which could be attributed to differences in rater perception of individual items due to technological barriers and to the sample's homogeneity. Further analysis and test-retest might be useful to elucidate this phenomenon.

Nutritional status and high adherence to the mediterranean diet in colombian school children and teenagers during the COVID-19 pandemic according to sex

The current COVID-19 pandemic has generated a series of changes in the daily routines of people, including children and teenagers, in an unprecedented way, which constitutes a global challenge in public health. Social isolation has been a prophylactic measure to prevent the spread of the virus, however, it has generated negative impacts on the physical and emotional health of parents, caregivers, children, and teenagers around the world. Our objective was to evaluate the effects of confinement caused by the COVID19 pandemic at the level of nutritional status, dietary and behavioral patterns of elementary school children and teenagers in a small town of Colombia. Anthropometric parameters such as BMI Z score, waist circumference and waist / height ratio were evaluated in 266 school children and teenagers. A questionnaire with sociodemographic, clinical and lifestyle characteristics and the KIDMED were applied to learn about nutritional aspects. A total of 102 students (38.3%) were classified as having altered nutritional status, being 39 (14.7%) classified with overweight, and 36 (13.5%) with obesity. The prevalence of high adherence to the Mediterranean diet was 12%, 95% CI (0.08-0.16). Overweight was more prevalent in women (26/39, 66.7%) (p = 0.0439), and obesity was discreetly more frequent in men (19/36, 52.7%) (p = 0.7193). We observed a worrying nutritional, dietary and behavioral situation in the children and teenagers studied during the confinement associated with the covid 19 pandemic. This unveils the need to establish strategies and / or public policies in our town that help to promote an adequate biopsychosocial development of the pediatric patient and their family group.

Quality of life and education in time of pandemic: A reflection from the human movement sciences

In the educational context, the Universidad Nacional determined procedures to face social confinement by COVID-19. This represented a new lifestyle for the university community and affected their health and quality of life. From the human movement standpoint, the following editorial calls for atention and offers recommendations to build actions in order to counteract the negative effects of the pandemic and take advantage of emerging oportunities. © 2020 Universidad Nacional. All rights reserved.