Perceived benefits and barriers to yoga participation after stroke: A focus group approach.

BACKGROUND: and Purpose: There is increasing evidence to suggest yoga can be beneficial to health and wellbeing after stroke. The purpose of this study was to identify perceived benefits and barriers to yoga participation among adults with chronic stroke. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty-six community dwelling adults (14 female, 12 male) who were at least 6-months post-stroke participated in four focus groups held at local stroke recovery meetings. Data was recorded and transcripts were analysed thematically. RESULTS: Participants identified whole body benefits, the return of connection and feeling health in mind as the primary benefits of yoga. Perceived barriers included physical barriers to participation, cognitive challenges, environmental access, and financial limitations. CONCLUSION: Stroke survivors perceive yoga practice provides benefits in 'connectedness'. Future interventions should recognize the importance of yoga instructor training, focus on the mind-body connection aspects of yoga, and modifying activities to safely accommodate the physical abilities of the participants.

Emotionally arousing pictures increase blood glucose levels and enhance recall.

Arousal enhances memory in human participants and this enhancing effect is likely due to the release of peripheral epinephrine. As epinephrine does not readily enter the brain, one way that peripheral epinephrine may enhance memory is by increasing circulating blood glucose levels. The present study investigated the possibility that emotionally arousing color pictures would improve memory and elevate blood glucose levels in human participants. Blood glucose levels were measured before, 15 min, and 30 min after male university students viewed 60 emotionally arousing or relatively neutral pictures. Participants viewed each picture for 6 s and then had 10 s to rate the arousal (emotional intensity) and valence (pleasantness) of each picture. A free-recall memory test was given 30 min after the last picture was viewed. Although the emotionally arousing and neutral picture sets were given comparable valence ratings, participants who viewed the emotionally arousing pictures rated the pictures as being more arousing, recalled more pictures, and had higher blood glucose levels after viewing the pictures than did participants who viewed the neutral pictures. These findings indicate that emotionally arousing pictures increase blood glucose levels and enhance memory, and that this effect is not due to differences in the degree of pleasantness of the stimuli. These findings support the possibility that increases in circulating blood glucose levels in response to emotional arousal may be part of the biological mechanism that allows emotional arousal to enhance memory.

Hemodynamic, electrocardiographic, and metabolic effects of fructose diphosphate on acute myocardial ischemia.

The hemodynamic, electrocardiographic, and metabolic responses of dogs with acute myocardial ischemia to intravenous administration of fructose-1,6-diphosphate (FDP) were assessed. Analysis of the results (compared to dextrose control) revealed evidence of major improvement of LVEDP and cardiac output, significant decrease of the ST segment, and large increases of ATP and CP in the ischemic district and to a lesser degree in the normally perfused myocardium. These results indicate that FDP intervenes in the Embden-Meyerhof pathway not only as a high energy substrate but also as a metabolic regulator influencing the activity of phosphofructokinase and that of pyruvate kinase. FDP also stimulates glycolysis in dog erythrocytes and increases their ATP and 2-3 DPG content by a factor of 2. The most significant finding in these studies is that this biochemical intervention appears to restore the depressed activity of glycolysis in ischemic myocardium.