BACKGROUND: Due to the rapidly increasing number of older people worldwide, the prevalence of frailty among older adults is expected to escalate in coming decades. It is crucial to recognize early onset symptoms to initiate specific preventive care. Therefore, early detection of frailty with appropriate …

Purpose To investigate the course of quality of life (QoL) among prostate cancer patients treated with external beam radiotherapy and to compare the results with QoL of a normal age-matched reference population. Conclusion Prostate cancer patients experience a small worsening of QoL as compared with …

The availability of real-life data sets is of crucial importance for algorithm and application development, as these often require insight into the specific properties of the data. Often, however, such data are not released because of their proprietary and confidential nature. We propose to solve this …

The Dutch version of the Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire is an appropriate instrument for measuring patients' perceptions in acute low back pain patients, showing acceptable internal consistency and reliability. Concurrent validity is adequate, however, the instrument may be unsuitable for detecting …

The following dissertation examines the most common natural disasters in Europe and their Early Warning Systems as a countermeasure. The paper will attempt to answer to what extent these Early Warning Systems play a role in the reduction of deaths and damages caused by natural disasters in Europe. Considering …

Background: Functional Capacity (FC) is a multidimensional construct within the activity domain of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health framework (ICF). Functional capacity evaluations (FCEs) are assessments of work-related FC. The extent to which these work-related …

Quality of life (QoL) of cancer patients after treatment may not only be affected by the treatment itself, but also by non-treatment related factors such as co-morbidity. As co-morbidity among prostate cancer patients is prevalent it is relevant to understand its impact on QoL. In this reagard, a comparison …

Assessment and monitoring of fat-free mass (FFM) is of clinical importance, because FFM is reflective of body cell mass, the total mass of protein-rich, metabolically active cells which is affected during malnutrition and therefore related to clinical outcome. Bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) is …

KEY MESSAGE: •  Statistical significance testing alone is not the most adequate manner to evaluate if there is indeed a clinically relevant effect •  Effect sizes should be added to significance testing •  Effect sizes facilitate the decision whether a clinically relevant effect is found, helps determining …

tIn this study we aimed to identify genes that are responsive to pertussis toxin (PTx) and might eventu-ally be used as biological markers in a testing strategy to detect residual PTx in vaccines. By microarrayanalysis we screened six human cell types (bronchial epithelial cell line BEAS-2B, fetal lung …