Biomedical subjects

M W Legro

Publications and source records attributed to M W Legro.

21 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

PubMedDate not supplied

Quality-of-life assessment in acute, chronic, and cancer pain: a pharmacist's guide.

OBJECTIVE: To describe instrumentation, or measures, available for use in assessing the impact of pain on the quality of life (QOL) of patients, and methods to evaluate the appropriateness of these QOL measures. DATA SOURCES: MEDLINE, PSYCHLit, and CANCERLit were searched from 1980 through 1997 to identify QOL instruments that included a pain subscale or pain-related items. DATA SYNTHESIS: Given the high prevalence of chronic diseases or conditions that include pain as a primary or secondary symptom, pharmacists should understand how pain affects the QOL of patients. Over the past two decades, emphasis has increased on developing instruments that assess health-related QOL concerns, including pain. Scores of measures--including utility measures--are available to measure general QOL in patients with conditions involving pain. Condition-specific instruments have also been developed to measure the impact of specific conditions, such as arthritis, on QOL. Guidelines are presented for evaluating QOL instrumentation, and existing measures used to evaluate the QOL of patients with acute and chronic pain are described. Pharmacists can use these guidelines to evaluate the usefulness of existing instruments for assessing the QOL of patients with pain. CONCLUSION: Using QOL measures in everyday practice may assist pharmacists in gaining insight into the effects of pain on their patients' QOL. This information may be useful in developing treatment programs that minimize pain and its associated side effects while maximizing patients' well-being.

Acute Disease↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Definition and measurement of fatigue.

Although fatigue is a key component of the chronic fatigue syndrome, its definition and measurement remain relatively undeveloped. Most research on fatigue has been oriented towards work or performance of tasks and has involved laboratory studies of healthy individuals, while the study of fatigue as encountered in clinical settings has received minimal attention from investigators. This paper recommends that the natural history of chronic fatigue in its various clinical presentations be studied and that standardized assessment tools be used in this process. An investigation of the tools available for the assessment of fatigue yielded single-item, unidimensional, and multidimensional instruments. Additionally, the apparent association between affective illness and the chronic fatigue syndrome is addressed, and the fact that this relationship depends on issues of measurement is explored.

Fatigue↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Recreational activities of lower-limb amputees with prostheses.

Ninety-two (92) persons with lower-limb amputations who regularly used prostheses responded to a survey that included questions about preferred recreational activities. This article describes the variety of activities selected by these men and women aged 20 to 87 years. Of the activities that were of high importance, 74% to 88% could be performed. Those activities assigned moderate to low importance were less often reported as able to be performed. The activities that require high energy level were more problematic for performance. The diversity of identified activities (n= 166) underscores the value of learning about amputees' activity preferences when making prosthetic prescription decisions.

Adult↗