[Personal contextual factors of the ICF draft from the Working Group "ICF" of Specialty Group II of the Geman Society for Social Medicine and Prevention]. / Personbezogene Faktoren der ICF - Entwurf der AG "ICF" des Fachbereichs II der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Sozialmedizin und Prävention (DGSMP).

Personal contextual factors play an essential part in the ICF model in relation to patient-centred care. It is generally assumed that their classification must refer to the country-specific social and cultural setting and its particular linguistic terms. Therefore personal factors are not classified as yet by the WHO for general use. In Germany in 2006 a group of experts working on the medical advisory board of statutory health insurance published a proposal for a systematic classification of relevant personal factors to describe the background of an individual's life and living. This classification was now further analysed and thoroughly revised by a more comprehensive group of German specialists working in different health care insurances and institutions, authorised by the German Society for Social Medicine and Prevention (DGSMP), supported by German-speaking Swiss ICF specialists. This classification is published as work in progress intending to broaden and prepare the process of discussion for a consensus conference to be held in Germany in 2011.

[Perspectives in rehabilitation. General position paper on future trends and challenges in rehabilitation by the Health Advisory Board of the German Federal Association for Rehabilitation]. / Perspektiven der Rehabilitation. Ein Positionspapier des Arztlichen Sachverständigenrates der Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft f ü r Rehabilitation (BAR) zur Weiterentwicklung der Rehabilitation.

The Health Advisory Board of the German Federal Association for Rehabilitation (BAR) describes future trends and challenges in rehabilitation as deriving from the socio-demographic development in Germany and the structural characteristics of its Social and Health Care Insurance System. The focus is on elder employees to sustain and regenerate their capacity for employment, on people which are no longer employed to activate their autonomy and ability for self-support, and on rehabilitation as a holistic and integrative process extending through the social security and health insurances. There is an urgent need and a real chance to benefit from already existing scientific findings more frequently and to integrate them effectively into adequate further education and training programmes for professionals. Finally the conclusion summarises 8 theses to facilitate rehabilitation as an integral and essential part of the German social security and health sector. This paper was fully accredited by the members of the BAR Managing Board.

[Persons requiring long-term care: Recommendation and utilization of rehabilitative therapies]. / Empfehlung rehabilitativer Massnahmen im Rahmen der Pflegebegutachtung und Umsetzung in der ambulanten Versorgung.

In Germany all members of the statutory health insurance are also compulsory members of the nursing care insurance which financially supports nursing care at home and in nursing homes. Benefits are provided dependent on a standardized medical examination performed at the home of the applicants by trained physicians or nurses of the health insurances' medical service (MDK). The benefits are granted to those persons who are limited in the performance of activities of daily living due to physical, cognitive or mental disorders. In the German Code of Social Law regulating the long-term care system, one important entitlement is "rehabilitation before long-term care". It aims at maintaining life of disabled persons in their familiar surroundings as long as possible. Up to now in the nursing care insurance this aim has been implemented insufficiently. The objective of this study was therefore to investigate the frequency of suggested ambulatory rehabilitation, which is recommended by the MDK at the examinations, and the following prescription of ambulatory rehabilitation, issued by an office-based physician. The database included the medical examinations of the years 2001 to 2002 linked to a random sample of persons insured in a statutory sickness fund in the German federal state of Hesse. Nursing care-related information including recommended rehabilitation therapy was derived from the medical examinations. Insurance data provided information on prescriptions. Data of 7,840 persons could be analyzed. Rehabilitative therapy was recommended in 15% of the nursing care applicants, mostly physiotherapy (ca. 90%). Persons receiving the recommendation were mainly male, they were younger, were more disabled, had less often a diagnosis of the ICD-10 chapter "symptoms and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings" or "mental and behavioral disorders", live less often alone and were more restricted in their motion compared to persons without recommendation for rehabilitative therapy. Only 55.3% of the persons with a recommendation for physiotherapy and only one-third with a recommendation for occupational therapy or logopedics received a prescription for the respective therapy in the following three months after examination. The age younger than 80 years, professional care, no home care, and-as the strongest item-preceding therapy were positively related to receiving a prescription. These findings show that disabled persons have the capability for prevention and rehabilitation, but it is used in only half of them. One possible reason might be the financing of the remedies, which burdens the budget of the health insurance, where instead the nursing care insurance benefits from the possible delay of the utilization of nursing care.

[Digital subtraction angiocardiography: accuracy of measuring left ventricular wall thickness and wall volume during intravenous contrast media injection]. / Digitale Subtraktionsangiokardiographie: Genauigkeit der Messung von linksventrikulären Wanddicken und Wandvolumina bei intravenöser Kontrastmittelinjektion.

A comparison of left ventricular wall thickness and wall volume determined by intravenous digital subtraction angiocardiography and by conventional left ventricular angiocardiography was performed by linear regression analysis: wall thickness: WDDSA = 0.90 X WDLV , Syx = +/- 0.16 cm, r = 0.74; wall volume: WVOLDSA = 0.87 X WVOLLV , Syx = +/- 48 ml, r = 0.85. Compared to the deviation and scatter of corresponding data measured from two consecutive beats in conventional left ventricular angiocardiographies , the error of determination of wall thickness and wall volume, determined by intravenous digital subtraction angiocardiography, is more pronounced. The regression analysis of wall volumes under rest and bicycle exercise evaluated by digital subtraction angiocardiography revealed a similar inaccuracy ( Syx = +/- 46 ml). This is due to faults in recognition of the inner and outer contours of left ventricular wall. Our results show that measurements of left ventricular wall thickness and wall volumes by means of intravenous digital subtraction angiocardiography can only be performed with greater deviations compared to conventional left ventricular angiocardiograms.