Biomedical subjects

P J Corcoran

Publications and source records attributed to P J Corcoran.

17 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1991

Use it or lose it--the hazards of bed rest and inactivity.

Professional experience and lay wisdom teach us the benefits of exercise and the hazards of idleness. Yet the myth persists that "bed rest is good for you" when ill or convalescing. Abundant scientific evidence in the past 50 years has demonstrated the specific damage done to each of the body's organ systems by inactivity. Both aging and inactivity lead to strikingly similar kinds of deterioration. I summarize the data from military and veterans' hospitals, rehabilitation experience, aerospace research, and gerontology and review the physiologic and metabolic changes of aging and inactivity, along with strategies to help prevent the iatrogenic complications of bed rest.

Aged↗

PubMed1985

Cardiac disability. The impact of coronary heart disease on patients' daily activities.

We studied 100 men with clinically stable coronary heart disease. Their capacity for exertion as defined by treadmill test was compared with the physical and social avocational activities they carried out in their daily routine, as reported by them. Exercise capacity (treadmill time) was strongly correlated with a physician's independent assessment of symptomatic status (anginal history). Although participation in some relatively strenuous elective activities was related slightly to exercise capacity, participation in many household duties and social undertakings bore no relationship to exercise capacity or to other measures of the severity of the underlying heart disease. The patients' own perceptions of their cardiac limitation varied for different activities and for some activities it was determined as much by their own concern and outside advice as by cardiac symptoms. Decreased capacity for exertion seems to exert surprisingly little influence on a cardiac patient's daily routine and interventions aimed at altering one of these measures of performance will not necessarily affect the other.

Activities of Daily Living↗

PubMed1984

Independent living outcomes in spinal cord injury: multivariate analyses.

This paper presents results of a study designed to isolate those medical, personal, and environmental factors that best predict a spinal cord injured (SCI) person's ability to live independently following discharge from medical rehabilitation. A formal research model is used to identify the most promising dependent and independent variables. The principal data source is an extensive data file of 111 persons with SCI who were discharged from 10 medical rehabilitation centers across the nation. The two main independent living (IL) outcome variables are (1) a person's ability to live in a less restrictive environment, and (2) a person's ability to live productively--not only in terms of gainful employment but also in terms of other contributions to community and family life. Using multiple regression analysis, the paper reports that approximately 63% of the variance in IL outcome can be explained. The most important predictors of IL outcome are marital status, education, transportation barriers, economic disincentives, and the severity of a person's disability as measured by the Barthel index. All predictors are statistically significant. The paper concludes with implications for medical rehabilitation practice and disability policy.

Activities of Daily Living↗

PubMed1982

Comparison of bile acid synthesis determined by isotope dilution versus fecal acidic sterol output in human subjects.

Fecal acidic sterol output has been found to be much lower than bile acid synthesis determined by isotope dilution (J. Lipid Res. 17: 17, 1976). Because of this confusing discrepancy, we compared these 2 measurements done simultaneously on 13 occasions in 5 normal volunteers. In contrast to previous findings, bile acid synthesis by the Lindstedt isotope dilution method averaged 16.3% lower than synthesis simultaneously determined by fecal acidic sterol output (95% confidence limit for the difference - 22.2 to -10.4%). When one-sample determinations of bile acid pools were substituted for Lindstedt pools, bile acid synthesis by isotope dilution averaged 5.6% higher than synthesis by fecal acidic sterol output (95% confidence limits -4.9 to 16.1%). These data indicate that the 2 methods yield values in reasonably close agreement with one another. If anything, fecal acidic sterol outputs are slightly higher than synthesis by isotope dilution.

Bile Acids and Salts↗

PubMed1980

Sports medicine and the physiology of wheelchair marathon racing.

In the past three decades, wheelchair sports have become an international reality. Disabled athletes are exercising their right to accept the challenges and risks taken by able-bodied athletes. Marathon racing over a 26-mile, 385-yard course is the latest and most strenuous of the wheelchair athletic events. The small amount of available research data on wheelchair sports has been summarized, as well as some relevant data from exercise physiology studies on able-bodied subjects. Physicians and other health professionals who work with disabled people should be knowledgeable about the risks and benefits of wheelchair sports. Much more basic research is needed to improve the safety, training techniques, and performance of wheelchair athletes.

Athletic Injuries↗

PubMed1975

Energy expenditure of ambulation in patients with above-knee amputations.

Oxygen consumption during ambulation was measured in nine middle-aged or elderly subjects having above-knee amputations, in an effort to determine the mode of ambulation and prosthetic prescription requiring the least energy expenditure. Studies revealed that crutch walking and prosthetic ambulation require the same energy expenditure; that there is no significant difference between the energy requirements of ambulating with knee locked or unlocked; and that 65 percent more energy is required at approximately one-half the normal speed of ambulation for above-knee amputees as compared to normal persons.

Adult↗

PubMed1974