A primer on lower extremity outcome measurement instruments.

Tracing the roots of lower extremity outcome scales is an interesting and somewhat bemusing journey. A large number of different grading methods can be found with limited reliability and/or validity testing. The usefulness of these instruments in the assessment of patient outcomes after lower extremity interventions is worrisome. This article focuses on the most commonly used scales and demonstrates an alarming and incestuous pattern of cross-validation with moderate to weak associations between potentially unreliable and crudely validated original instruments.

[The case of dermoid cyst of nose in a little child]. / Przypadek torbieli skórzastej nosa u malego dziecka.

A case is reported of dermoid cysts on the nose connecting with duramater, by a 18 month old child. An attention is called to possible intracranial complications due to the connexion.

Effect of the preceding day's energy intake on the energy costs of rest, arm and leg exercise.

Relatively little is known about the response of the human body to perturbations in the energy intake. In particular, results of the effect of a perturbation of the preceding day's energy intake on the energy expenditure on the following day are conflicting, ranging from no effect at all to an increase in the resting metabolic rate of 12 per cent following an increase in the preceding day's energy intake of 5 MJ. In the present study, the fasting energy expenditure of rest, light arm work and light leg work was determined on days following an intake of 4, 10 and 16 MJ in seven healthy men. In each subject, the difference in energy expenditure between days following intakes on the preceding day of 10-10 (control), 10-4 and 10-16 MJ was calculated for each of the three tasks. The mean percentage differences between the days following an intake of 10-10, 10-4 and 10-16 MJ were (s.d. in parenthesis) 0.0 (4.0), +1.3 (4.0) and +0.6 (3.2) for the resting metabolic rate, -1.7 (4.0), -2.2 (3.2) and -1.7 (3.7) for arm work and +0.3 (2.0), -1.2 (2.9) and -0.3 (3.2) for leg work. When the differences for the three tasks were averaged, the results were -0.5 (1.4), -0.7 (2.4) and -0.5 (1.3) for the three combinations respectively. None of these differences were found to be statistically different from zero. Changes in plasma adrenaline and noradrenaline concentrations were also measured but found not to be related to the changes in energy expenditure or to the energy intakes.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)