Models, Statistical

Poor health-related quality-of-life (HRQOL) is a significant public health issue while the use of meditative movement therapies has been increasing. The purpose of this investigation was to carry out a systematic review of previous meta-analyses that examined the effects of meditative movement therapies (yoga, tai chi and qigong) on HRQOL in adults. Previous meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials published up through February, 2014 were included by searching nine electronic databases and cross-referencing. Dual-selection and data abstraction occurred.

Poor health-related quality-of-life (HRQOL) is a significant public health issue while the use of meditative movement therapies has been increasing. The purpose of this investigation was to carry out a systematic review of previous meta-analyses that examined the effects of meditative movement therapies (yoga, tai chi and qigong) on HRQOL in adults. Previous meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials published up through February, 2014 were included by searching nine electronic databases and cross-referencing. Dual-selection and data abstraction occurred.

Poor health-related quality-of-life (HRQOL) is a significant public health issue while the use of meditative movement therapies has been increasing. The purpose of this investigation was to carry out a systematic review of previous meta-analyses that examined the effects of meditative movement therapies (yoga, tai chi and qigong) on HRQOL in adults. Previous meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials published up through February, 2014 were included by searching nine electronic databases and cross-referencing. Dual-selection and data abstraction occurred.

Results of 14 randomized controlled trials of acupuncture for chronic pain were pooled in a meta-analysis and analysed in three subgroups according to site of pain; and in two subgroups each according to type to trial, type of treatment, type of control, 'blindness' of participating agents, trial size, and type of journal in which results were published. While few individual trials had statistically significant results, pooled results of many subgroups attained statistical significance in favour of acupuncture.

The current rapid pace of social and technological change requires health policy makers to be up to date in their knowledge of health policy research. The "information explosion" has created a need for techniques that synthesize and summarize available information. This paper reviews the use of Meta-Analysis as a data pooling technique in a non-technical manner. Treatment of chronic pain by acupuncture, provided as an example, illustrates the type of information that can be obtained from a Meta-Analysis, that is not conventionally available from individual trials.

We assessed the efficacy of nonpharmacologic techniques to prevent postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) by systematic review. These studies included acupuncture, electroacupuncture, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, acupoint stimulation, and acupressure. Of the 24 randomized trials retrieved by a search of articles indexed on the MEDLINE and EMBASE databases (1980-1997), 19 were eligible for meta-analysis. The primary outcomes were the incidence of nausea, vomiting, or both 0-6 h (early efficacy) or 0-48 h (late efficacy) after surgery.

Accessible and readily utilized software, tables and approximation formulae have been developed to estimate power and sample size for studies of time to event (survival times) when the survival times are assumed to be exponential. These methods can markedly misestimate power when the distribution is Weibull and not exponential. The Weibull distribution with increasing hazard is common in aging research, especially when the whole life span of the subjects is of interest.

Little effort has been directed toward studying the relationship between morbidity and mortality at exceptional ages, perhaps for no better reason than it has been difficult to do given available data resources. Two study innovations/adjustments are required to adequately represent count data with reports of health from aged sample persons. These design features are oversampling of the exceptional group and linkage to detailed administrative reports. The National Long-Term Care Survey (NLTCS) has made it possible to study health and functioning in the context of exceptional longevity.

In the Georgia Centenarian Study (Poon et al., Exceptional Longevity, 2006), centenarian cases and young controls are classified according to three categories (age, ethnic origin, and single nucleotide polymorphisms [SNPs] of candidate longevity genes), where each factor has two possible levels. Here we provide methodologies to determine the minimum sample size needed to detect dependence in 2 x 2 x 2 tables based on Fisher's exact test evaluated exactly or by Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC), assuming only the case total L and the control total N are known.

BACKGROUND: Most survival studies of the elderly population have set their baselines for first examinations between 60 and 80 years. The rapidly increasing numbers of exceptionally old persons call for knowledge about determinants of exceptional survival. METHODS: The Swedish Centenarian Study followed 100 centenarians from the age of 100 to death of the entire cohort, by age 111 years. A biomedical, psychological, and social multivariate survival analysis was performed based on factors identified as important in earlier studies of older adults.