The Current State of Remote Physiotherapy in Finland : Cross-sectional Web-Based Questionnaire Study

Background The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has required social, health, and rehabilitation organizations to implement remote physiotherapy (RP) as a part of physiotherapists’ daily practice. RP may improve access to physiotherapy as it delivers physiotherapy services to rehabilitees through information and communications technology. Even if RP has already been introduced in this century, physiotherapists’ opinion, amount of use, and form in daily practice have not been studied extensively. Objective This study aims to investigate physiotherapists’ opinions of the current state of RP in Finland. Methods A quantitative, cross-sectional, web-based questionnaire was sent to working-aged members …

Sport injuries as the main cause of sport career termination among Finnish top-level athletes

Abstract Injuries are common among athletes, and are sometimes so severe that they affect an athlete's career in sport. As studies on sport career termination are few, we conducted a study to investigate the role of injuries as a reason for ending a sport career. The study group consisted of 574 male and female top-level cross-country skiers, swimmers, long-distance runners and soccer players who responded to a retrospective postal questionnaire in 2006. Twenty-seven athletes (4.9%, 27/548) reported ending their sport career because of injury. A follow-up interview was conducted by telephone in 2007 (n=20 volunteered to be interviewed) to confirm sport career termination and the reasons for…

Power of lower extremities and age were the main determinants on the agility test for adults in a cohort of men aged 66–91 years

Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Objective: To evaluate the relationship between agility and personal factors, muscle strength and power, mobility, self-reported balance and physical activity among older men. Methods: Agility was measured by using the Agility Test for Adults (ATA). We studied 100 Finnish male former elite athletes (endurance n = 50; power n = 50) and 50 matched controls aged 66 to 91 years (mean age 75.5 years). The associations between agility and other variables were similar between three groups; thus, multiple linear regression analyses were done by using the pooled data of the participants. Results: On the basis of multiple linear regression analyses, combination of…

Longitudinal associations of high‐volume and vigorous‐intensity exercise with hip fracture risk in men

Maintenance of vigorous exercise habits from young to old age is considered protective against hip fractures, but data on fracture risk in lifelong vigorous exercisers are lacking. This longitudinal cohort study examined the hazard of hip fractures in 1844 male former athletes and 1216 population controls and in relation to exercise volume and intensity in later years. Incident hip fractures after age 50 years were identified from hospital discharge register from 1972 to 2015. Exercise and covariate information was obtained from questionnaires administered in 1985, 1995, 2001, and 2008. Analyses were conducted using extended proportional hazards regression model for time-dependent exposures…

Physical loading and later lower-limb function and findings : a study among male former elite athletes

Type of sport is related to injury profile: A study on cross country skiers, swimmers, long-distance runners and soccer players. A retrospective 12-month study

This 12-month retrospective questionnaire compared the occurrence of sports injuries in 149 cross country skiers, 154 swimmers, 143 long-distance runners and 128 soccer players aged 15-35 years. Soccer had significantly more injuries (5.1 injuries/1000 exposure hour) than other sports (2.1-2.8, P<0.001). More runners than soccer players reported overuse injuries (59% vs 42%, P=0.005), locating typically in the foot in runners, soccer players and skiers. Swimmers reported overuse injuries in the shoulder more commonly than skiers (40% vs 1%, P<0.001), who also intensively load shoulders. Acute injuries in skiers (80%) and in swimmers (58%), and overuse injuries in skiers (61%), occurred duri…

Reproducibility of regional DEXA examinations of abdominal fat and lean tissue.

Objective: The aim of this study was to develop and test the validity of a new repeatable method to delimit abdominal areas for follow-up of fat mass (FM) and lean tissue mass (LM) in DEXA examinations . Methods: 37 male volunteers underwent two DEXA examinations. Total body FM and LM measurements and corresponding abdominal measurements in a carefully defined region were calculated from the first scan. After repositioning of the subjects and a second scan, the delimited region was copied and the abdominal tissues re-calculated. Results: The mean LM of the abdominal area was 2.804 kg (SD 0.556), and the mean FM was 1.026 kg (SD 0.537). The intra-class correlation coefficient for the repeate…

All-cause and disease-specific mortality among male, former elite athletes: an average 50-year follow-up.

Aim To investigate life expectancy and mortality among former elite athletes and controls. Methods HR analysis of cause-specific deaths sourced from the national death registry for former Finnish male endurance, team and power sports athletes (N=2363) and controls (N=1657). The median follow-up time was 50 years. Results Median life expectancy was higher in the endurance (79.1 years, 95% CI 76.6 to 80.6) and team (78.8, 78.1 to 79.8) sports athletes than in controls (72.9, 71.8 to 74.3). Compared to controls, risk for total mortality adjusted for socioeconomic status and birth cohort was lower in the endurance ((HR 0.70, 95% CI 0.61 to 0.79)) and team (0.80, 0.72 to 0.89) sports athletes, a…

Progression of untreated mild thoracic Scheuermann's kyphosis – Radiographic and functional assessment after mean follow-up of 46 years

There is no data available on the radiographic development of the Scheuermann's deformity. Our purpose was to investigate radiographic deformity progression and the relation between kyphosis progression and clinical outcome in patients with untreated Scheuermann's kyphosis.Thoracic kyphosis (Th4-Th12) was measured from standing lateral radiographs in 19 patients at baseline and after mean 46-year follow-up. Mean age at baseline was 19.2 and at follow-up 64.7 years. At follow-up, height, weight, hand grip strength, and hamstring tightness were measured, and sit-to-stand and walking tests were performed. Additionally general health and quality of life questionnaires were administered.The mean…