Sideways fall-induced impact force and its effect on hip fracture risk: a review.

Osteoporotic hip fracture, mostly induced in falls among the elderly, is a major health burden over the world. The impact force applied to the hip is an important factor in determining the risk of hip fracture. However, biomechanical researches have yielded conflicting conclusions about whether the fall-induced impact force can be accurately predicted by the available models. It also has been debated whether or not the effect of impact force has been considered appropriately in hip fracture risk assessment tools. This study aimed to provide a state-of-the-art review of the available methods for predicting the impact force, investigate their strengths/limitations, and suggest further improvements in modeling of human body falling. METHODS: We divided the effective parameters on impact force to two categories: (1) the parameters that can be determined subject-specifically and (2) the parameters that may significantly vary from fall to fall for an individual and cannot be considered subject-specifically. RESULTS: The parameters in the first category can be investigated in human body fall experiments. Video capture of real-life falls was reported as a valuable method to investigate the parameters in the second category that significantly affect the impact force and cannot be determined in human body fall experiments. CONCLUSIONS: The analysis of the gathered data revealed that there is a need to develop modified biomechanical models for more accurate prediction of the impact force and appropriately adopt them in hip fracture risk assessment tools in order to achieve a better precision in identifying high-risk patients. Graphical abstract Impact force to the hip induced in sideways falls is affected by many parameters and may remarkably vary from subject to subject.

Contamination of organic nutrient sources with potentially toxic elements, antibiotics and pathogen microorganisms in relation to P fertilizer potential and treatment options for the production of sustainable fertilizers: A review.

Organic nutrient sources such as farmyard manure, sewage sludge, their biogas digestates or other animal by-products can be valuable fertilizers delivering organic matter to the soil. Currently, especially phosphorus (P) is in the focus of research since it is an essential plant nutrient with finite resources, estimated to last only for some more decades. Efficient utilization of organic P sources in agriculture will help to preserve P resources and thereby has the potential to close nutrient cycles and prevent unwanted P-losses to the environment, one of the major causes for eutrophication of water bodies. Unfortunately, organic P sources usually contain also various detrimental substances, such as potentially toxic elements or organic contaminants like pharmaceuticals as well as pathogenic microorganisms. Additionally, the utilization of some of these substrates such as sewage sludge or animal by-products is legally limited in agriculture because of the potential risk to contaminate sites with potentially toxic elements and organic contaminants. Thus, to close nutrient cycles it is important to develop solutions for the responsible use of organic nutrient sources. The aim of this review is to give an overview of the contamination of the most important organic nutrient sources with potentially toxic elements, antibiotics (as one important organic contaminant) and pathogenic microorganisms. Changes in manure and sewage sludge management as well as the increasing trend to use such substrates in biogas plants will be discussed with respect to potential risks posed to soils and water bodies. Some examples for abatement options by which contamination can be reduced to produce P fertilizers with high amounts of plant available P forms are presented.