Objectives: Rehabilitation plays a vital role in the mitigation and improvement of functional limitations associated with aging and chronic conditions. Moderating factors such as sex, age, the medical diagnosis, and rehabilitation timing for admission status, as well as the expected change related to inpatient rehabilitation, are examined to provide a valid basis for the routine assessment of the quality of medical outcomes. Design: An observational study was carried out, placing a focus on general and disease-specific health measurements, to assess representative results of multidisciplinary inpatient rehabilitation. Aspects that were possibly confounding and introduced bias were controlled based on data from a quasiexperimental (waiting) control group. Measures: Existing data or general health indicators were extracted from medical records. The indicators included blood pressure, resting heart rate, self-assessed health, and pain, as well as more diseasespecific indicators of physical function and performance (eg, activities of daily living, walking tests, blood lipids). These are used to identify moderating factors related to health outcomes. Setting and Participants: A standardized collection of routine data from 16,966 patients [61.5 AE 12.5 years; 7871 (46%) women, 9095 (54%) men] with different medical diagnoses before and after rehabilitation were summarized using a descriptive evaluation in terms of a content and factor analysis. Results: Without rehabilitation, general health indicators did not improve independently and remained stable at best [odds ratio (OR) ¼ 0.74], whereas disease-specific indicators improved noticeably after surgery (OR ¼ 3.20). Inpatient rehabilitation was shown to reduce the risk factors associated with certain lifestyles, optimize organ function, and improve well-being in most patients (>70%; cutoff: z-difference >0.20), with a standardized mean difference (SMD) seen in overall medical quality outcome of À0.48 AE 0.37 [pre-vs postrehabilitation: h p 2 ¼ 0.622; d Cohen ¼ À1.22; 95% confidence interval (95% CI) À1.24 to À1.19]. The baseline medical values obtained at the beginning of rehabilitation were influenced by indication, age, and sex (all P < .001); however, these factors have less significant effects on improvements in general health indicators (h p 2 < 0.01). According to the disease-specific results, the greatest improvements were found in older patients (SMD for patients >60 vs 60 years: 95% CI 0.08e0.11) and during the early rehabilitation stage (h p 2 ¼ 0.063).

Abstract:Wood is generally associated with being practical, aesthetic and economy-friendly. Using wood in interior settings also can be based on psychological expectations and assumptions, as wood is attributed as warmer, more homely, more relaxing and more inviting. However, when investigating psychological differences, wood is usually compared to carpets, glass, leather, stone, or plastic but is not compared to a visually similar material such as laminate. The aim of this study is to analyze and compare the various psychological characteristics related to wooden and laminate materials in interior settings. The experimental design was a 2 × 2 design (material, sequence) with repeated measures for material. Forty participants were asked to evaluate a framed piece of wood floor and a framed piece of laminate floor regarding technical, practical, and psychological aspects. Further, three questions about one's purchase decision were asked. The results show that the wooden floor was evaluated significantly better than the laminate floor regarding "materials and processing", "atmosphere", and "values and symbolic functions". For the criterion "health", a tendency in favor of wood could be found. In addition, the participants would more likely recommend and purchase wooden products and also accept more deficiencies in wooden products.

BackgroundVagal activity is critical for maintaining key body functions, including the stability of inflammatory control. Its weakening, such as in the aftermatch of a surgery, leaves the body vulnerable to diverse inflammatory conditions, including sepsis.MethodsVagal activity can be measured by the cardiorespiratory interaction known as respiratory sinus arrhythmia or high-frequency heart-rate variability (HRV). We examined the vagal dynamics before, during and after an orthopedic surgery. 39 patients had their HRV measured around the period of operation and during subsequent rehabilitation. Measurements were done during 24 h circadian cycles on ten specific days. For each patient, the circadian vagal activity was calculated from HRV data.ResultsOur results confirm the deteriorating effect of surgery on vagal activity. Patients with stronger pre-operative vagal activity suffer greater vagal withdrawal during the peri-operative phase, but benefit from stronger improvements during post-operative period, especially during the night. Rehabilitation seems not only to efficiently restore the vagal activity to pre-operative level, but in some cases to actually improve it.DiscussionOur findings indicate that orthopedic rehabilitation has the potential to strengthen the vagal activity and hence boost inflammatory control. We conclude that providing a patient with a vagal reinforcement procedure prior to the surgery (“pre-habilitation”) might be a beneficial strategy against post-operative complications. The study also shows the clinical usefulness of quantifying the cardiorespiratory interactions.