Objective To detect changes in finger photoplethysmography after administration of epidural anaesthesia as a surrogate method for evaluating autonomic nervous system activity. Methods We included a total of 46 patients scheduled for elective surgical procedures under lumbar epidural anaesthesia. A Biopac SS4LA pulse plethysmograph transducer was used for photoplethysmography recording, and the device was placed on the first toe of the right leg. The first standard lead of the electrocardiogram was simultaneously measured with the finger photoplethysmography. First measurement was done before the administration of epidural anaesthesia, and second measurement was done 25 minutes post administration of epidural anaesthesia. Results The area under the curve of the finger photoplethysmography statistically significantly increased 25 minutes after administration of epidural anaesthesia compared with the first measurement (p=0.0001). The amplitude of the finger photoplethysmography as well as the pulse transit time also statistically significantly increased after administration of epidural anaesthesia. Conclusion The area under the curve reflects the changes in sympathetic activity after epidural anaesthesia below the block level. It can be used for the detection of the degree of sympathetic block and, respectively, for epidural block success. Future prospects include detection of sympathetic block cessation as an indicator for discharge from the awakening room and beginning of patient verticalisation.

Introduction: Exercise-associated muscle cramp (EAMC) is one of the most common conditions that occur during or immediately after the exercise, with questionable etiology. Aim: Aim of article was to present doubts about the cause of EAMC, whether it is primarily a neurological condition or it is water and salt imbalance. Results: Strongest evidence supports the neuromuscular aetiology with the focus on the muscle fatigue. Muscle overload and fatigue affects the balance between the excitatory drive from muscle spindles and the inhibitory drive from the Golgi tendon organs (GTO). This results in a localized muscle cramp. Since the dehydration and electrolyte depletion are systemic abnormalities, it is not clear how these changes would result in local symptoms such as cramping of the working muscle groups. Conclusion: “Triad” of causes might be behind the etiology of EAMC, although the “altered neuromuscular control” theory with the “dehydration” theory is the most cogent descriptive model that explains the origin of EAMC. Treatment and prevention strategies for EAMC include: electrical cramp induction, kinesio taping and compression garments, massage therapy, electrolyte supplementation and hydration, corrective exercise, stretching, quinine, pickle juice, hyperventilation strategies.

Abstract Poor dietary habits have become one of the most important concerns among public health policy makers in recent years, due to the impact they have on both economic and health systems of a country. The transitional period toward young adulthood, marked with high school graduation and the beginning of college years, has been identified as critical in terms of its influence on young people’s bad eating habits. The aim of this study was to assess whether the results obtained through Food Frequency Questionnaire significantly correlate with standard body parameters. Participants included 210 students from the University of Banja Luka, with the mean age of 21.94 ± 2.73 years. Factorization of Food Frequency Questionnaire Instrument extracted seven factors which were subjected to multiple regression analysis as independent variables, and correlated to dependent variables - anthropological measurements. This study shows that the factors labeled as consumption of bread, consumption of healthy food, and intake of carbohydrates, are significantly related to Body Fat Percentage, whereas factors labeled as intake of food of animal origin, and intake of fruits and vegetables, are statistically significant in terms of their relation to Waist-to-Hip Ratio. Only one factor, labeled as intake of unhealthy food, is significantly related to Body Mass Index; this is to suggest that Body Mass Index has again showed many limitations with regard to its research relevance. This research has also found that students of the University of Banja Luka typically consume white bread, known to have a direct link with overweight and obesity.

Reproducible experiments are a major requirement for transparent, comparable and verifiable results in the field of human-robot interaction (HRI). Furthermore, a version-controlled and well-structured "ready to deploy" system setup of soft- and hard-ware for an HRI experiment opens up a range of innovative possibilities for interdisciplinary efforts as well as simplified participation of collaborators in the research community. However, making experiments reproducible is not a trivial task. It stems from the lack of agreed upon methodologies, tools and the inherent technical complexity. In this work we present our latest efforts in the context of an international and interdisciplinary research project to enable robotics researchers, software engineers, and social scientists to work together to reproduce a behavioral HRI experiment. The successful reproduction demonstrates that our tool chain approach meets the proposed requirements of the reproducibility problem. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time an integrated systemic approach allowed an identical instantiation of a complete HRI experiment at geographically distributed locations.

While researchers expect it will be technologically possible for robots to be widely available in society in the near future, the public shows negative attitudes toward robots that may impede their acceptance. Intergroup contact theory shows that positive contact with an outgroup reduces prejudice and increases positive emotions towards that outgroup. This was applied to an interaction between a participant and a humanoid robot to determine if those who interacted directly with, including touching, the robot would perceive all robots in a more positive manner and be more willing to interact with them. Results indicated that contact with the robot, compared with the Control condition, produced a marginally higher willingness to interact with robots.

Computer vision techniques that can anticipate people»s actions ahead of time could create more responsive and natural human-robot interaction systems. In this paper, we present a new human gesture forecasting framework for human-drone interaction. Our primary motivation is that despite growing interest in early recognition, little work has tried to understand how people experience these early recognition-based systems, and our human-drone forecasting framework will serve as a basis for conducting this human subjects research in future studies. We also introduce a new dataset with 22 videos of two human-drone interaction scenarios, and use it to test our gesture forecasting approach. Finally, we suggest follow-up procedures to investigate people»s experience in interacting with these early recognition-enabled systems.

As healthcare shifts towards a patient centered model, robotic technology can play an important role in monitoring, informing, supporting, and connecting independently living individuals with various physical and mental health conditions. As part of a study evaluating the use of the Socially Assistive Robot (SAR) Paro in the homes of older adults with depression, we performed two focus groups with clinicians to discuss how they might use sensor data collected by domestic SARs in clinical practice. In the first focus group, participants discussed potential uses of currently available SARs and sensors by them and their clients. The second focus group took place after sensor data from sensors onboard the Paro robot had been collected in older adults' homes. Clinicians considered the data and what information might be most useful for supporting clinical care. Data regarding monitoring client health, such as behavioral changes in sleep and daily activity levels, were of particular interest to clinicians. They also suggested using SARs to provide clients with information and interaction could help them develop coping skills and alleviate symptoms.

Introduction: Elderly persons often suffer from depression, without anyone around them noticing. Depression is more common at physically ill elderly person then at their physically healthy contemporary. It is important mental health problem of developed society, because it is still faintly revealed thus insufficiently treated. Objective: To explore the existence of geriatric depression in elderly persons living on their own and those who live in family environment. Materials and methods: The research included 200 elderly respondents, experimental group made of elderly persons (>65 years) living alone. Control group included elderly persons living in a family environment. Universal geriatric questionnaire was made for this research. To assess the presence of depression at respondents we used “The scale of geriatric depression”. Results: The average age (±SD) was 75,4±6,2 years in the experimental group, while in the control group the average age was 74,9±5,6 years. In the experimental group there is significantly larger number of elderly persons that are neglected (p=0,001). Elderly respondents surrounded by loneliness are more depressive than elderly living in the family environment. Statistically geriatric depression is significantly connected with inability for everyday activities, with decreased result of cognitive abilities and indicated result of dementia (P=0.001). Conclusion: Depression is an important mental health problem of the developed society, because it is still faintly discovered and by that insufficiently treated. Organizing approach to different aspects of geriatric health, doctors of the primary protection can improve care of their elderly patients.

One of the most significant health issues is the disorders of mood according to the fact that they have a significant effect on the quality of life of the patients, their families, their working and wider social surroundings. According to the World Health Organization, mood disorders are the fourth cause of morbidity and mortality with a tendency to move to the second place by the 2020. The prediction of higher number of patients diagnosed with depression in the future comes from the facts that the main factor of risk, like stress, is in constant rise. Furthermore, the demographic image (ageing of the population) is changing, associated with the effect of comorbidity of depression, also attributed with increase of the number of genetically predisposed patients with this mood disorder. The aim of this study is to define, describe and question the role of pharmacists in the treatment of patients suffering from depression. Therefore, we measured the impact of pharmaceutical care on significant parameters in treatment of depression due to the selection of appropriate therapy according to the guidelines, adherence of the patient, quality of life, work capability, anxiety, side effects and interactions with other medicines.