English Version

A group of sci­en­tists from the uni­ver­si­ties of Hal­le-Wit­ten­berg, Munich and Witten/Herdecke as well as the Rosen­heim Uni­ver­si­ty of App­lied Sci­en­ces worked on several rese­arch pro­jects aimed to impro­ve the qua­li­ty of life and social par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on of peop­le with joint contractures.

Move­ment limi­ta­ti­ons due to decre­a­sed joint mobi­li­ty (joint con­trac­tures) are a com­mon pro­blem of the elder­ly. Such joint con­trac­tures ari­se, for examp­le, due to inac­ti­vi­ty, inju­ries, rheu­ma­tism or pain-com­pen­sa­ting pos­tu­re. Irre­spec­ti­ve of the cau­ses, joint con­trac­tures have a nega­ti­ve effect on the qua­li­ty of life, body func­tions and the inde­pen­dence of the affec­ted persons.

In the past few years, the phe­no­me­non of “joint con­trac­tu­re” has gai­ned incre­a­sed atten­ti­on; for examp­le, the medi­cal ser­vice of health insuran­ce (MDK) has defi­ned a risk assess­ment tool for con­trac­tures as well as inter­ven­ti­ons to pre­vent con­trac­tures as qua­li­ty indi­ca­tors in long-term care, alt­hough at this time the­re was no ade­qua­te evi­dence for inter­ven­ti­ons to pre­vent con­trac­tures nor was the­re a pati­ent-cen­te­red assess­ment tool. This led to an incre­a­se in the assess­ment and docu­men­ta­ti­on effort as well as to an incre­a­sed use of inter­ven­ti­ons to pre­vent con­trac­tures, the effec­ti­ve­ness of which is not evidence-based.

Due to this back­ground more atten­ti­on should be paid to the situa­ti­on of elder­ly peop­le with joint con­trac­tures as well as to the asso­cia­ted restric­tions on acti­vi­ties and participation.

In our first pro­ject on the “Impact of joint con­trac­tures on func­tio­n­ing and social par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on in older indi­vi­du­als – deve­lo­p­ment of a stan­dard set” (Joint­Con­Func­tion­S­et) the PaAr­ti­cu­lar Sca­le was deve­lo­ped in a mul­ti-step, inter­na­tio­nal­ly reco­gni­zed pro­ce­du­re. The PaAr­ti­cu­lar Sca­le ser­ves to quan­ti­fy restric­tions in acti­vi­ties and par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on due to joint contractures.

Our second pro­ject was dedi­ca­ted to “Deve­lo­ping a com­plex inter­ven­ti­on to impro­ve par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on and qua­li­ty of life in nur­sing home resi­dents with joint con­trac­tures” (Joint­Con­Im­pro­ve). On the basis of the fin­dings of the first pro­ject an inter­ven­ti­on was deve­lo­ped: the con­cept of con­trac­tu­re-sen­si­ti­ve care. This mul­ti-com­po­nent packa­ge aims to impro­ve the func­tio­n­ing, social par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on and qua­li­ty of life of nur­sing home resi­dents with joint contractures.

See detail­ed infor­ma­ti­ons: Joint­Con­Func­tion­S­et.
See detail­ed infor­ma­ti­ons: Joint­Con­Im­pro­ve.

If you are inte­res­ted in fur­ther infor­ma­ti­on on our rese­arch pro­jects such as back­ground, methods or results, we recom­mend you our publi­ca­ti­ons or their sum­ma­ries in English.

For per­so­nal inqui­ries plea­se con­ta­ct Katrin.Beutner@medizin.uni-halle.de.

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