Search Results (8)

Caffeine supplementation has become increasingly popular among athletes. The benefits of caffeine include delaying the negative effects of fatigue, maintaining a high level of physical and mental performance, and improving certain abilities necessary for sport success. Given the complex nature of basketball, caffeine could be a legal, ergogenic stimulant substance, which will positively affect overall basketball performance. The purpose of this systematic review was to summarize evidence for the effect of acute caffeine ingestion on variables related to the basketball performance. Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus and ProQuest, MEDLINE, and ERIC databases were searched up to February 2021. Studies that measured the acute effect of caffeine on basketball performance were included and analyzed. Eight studies published between 2000 and 2021 were included in the analysis. Pre-exercise caffeine intake increased vertical jump height, running time at 10 and 20 m without the ball, overall basketball performance (number of body impacts, number of free throws, rebounds, and assists) during simulated games, and reduced the time required to perform a basketball-specific agility test. Equivocal results between caffeine and placebo groups were found for aerobic capacity, free throw and three-point accuracy, and dribbling speed. Pre-exercise caffeine ingestion did not affect RPE, but insomnia and urinary excretion were increased. The pre-exercise ingestion of 3 and 6 mg/kg caffeine was found to be effective in increasing several physical performance variables in basketball players during sport-specific testing and simulated matches. However, considering the intermittent nature and complexity of basketball, and individual differences between players, future studies are needed. Full article

Migrant and refugee women face specific health risks and challenges during the perinatal period, presenting with complex physical, psychological, and mental health issues. Compassionate antenatal and postnatal care is urgently required across Europe given how outcomes during this period determine the health wellbeing throughout a person’s life. The current study aimed to describe the perinatal health care provided to refugee and migrant women in Greece, as well as to identify the barriers to delivering quality health care to these population groups. Data were gathered via qualitative research, and via document analysis, including grey literature research. Two focus groups were convened; one with five midwives in Athens (representing NGOs in refugee camps and public maternity hospitals) and another in Crete with twenty-six representatives of key stakeholder groups involved in the perinatal care of refugees and migrant women. Desk research was conducted with in a stepwise manner comprising two steps: (a) a mapping exercise to identify organizations/institutes of relevance across Greece, i.e., entities involved in perinatal healthcare provision for refugees and migrants; (b) an electronic search across institutional websites and the World Wide Web, for key documents on the perinatal care of refugee and migrant women that were published during the 10-year period prior to the research being conducted and referring to Greece. Analysis of the desk research followed the principles of content analysis, and the analysis of the focus group data followed the principles of an inductive thematic analysis utilizing the actual data to drive the structure analysis. Key findings of the current study indicate that the socioeconomic status, living and working conditions, the legal status in the host country, as well as providers’ cultural competence, attitudes and beliefs and communication challenges, all currently represent major barriers to the efficient and culturally appropriate provision of perinatal care. The low capacity of the healthcare system to meet the needs of women in these population groups in the context of maternal care in a country that has suffered years of austerity has been amply recorded and adds further contextual constraints. Policy reform is urgently required to achieve cultural competence, to improve transcultural care provision across maternity care settings, and to ensure improved maternal and children’s outcomes. Full article

Although land forms the basis for marginal livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa, the asset is more strategic for women as they usually hold derived and dependent rights to land in customary tenure areas. Initiatives to secure women’s land tenure in customary areas are undermined by the social embeddedness of the rights, patriarchy, lack of awareness by the communities, legal pluralism, and challenges of recording the rights. As pressure on customary land tenure increases due to foreign and local land-based investment interests, land titling initiatives, tourism, and mineral resources exploration, communities and women within them are at real risk of losing their land, the basis of their livelihoods. Women stand to lose more as they hold tenuous land rights in customary land tenure areas. Accordingly, this study analyzes case studies of selected mapping initiatives in Sub-Saharan Africa to interrogate the extent to which mapping both as a cadastral exercise and emerging practice in the initiation of participatory land governance initiatives, catalyze the transmission of customary land rights in ways that have a positive impact on women’s access to land in customary land tenure areas. The results indicate that mapping initiatives generate opportunities, innovations, and novel spaces for securing women’s access to land in customary tenure areas which include catalyzing legislative changes and facilitating technology transfer, increasing awareness of women’s interests, providing opportunities for women to participate in decision-making forums, providing a basis for securing statutory recognition for their land rights, and improving natural resource stewardship. The potential challenges include the community’s capacity to sustain the initiatives, the expense of the technology and software, widespread illiteracy of women, power asymmetries and bias of the mapping experts, increased vulnerability of mapped land to exploitation, the legal status of the maps in the host community and /or country, compatibility with existing land recording systems, statutory bias in recording land rights and the potential of mapping initiatives to unearth existing land boundary conflicts. These challenges can be mediated by sensitive planning and management to ensure real and sustainable land tenure security for women. The paper contributes to debates around customary land tenure dynamics, specifically the issues pertaining to registration of primary and derived customary rights to land. These includes policy debates and choices to be made about how best to secure tenuous customary land rights of women and other vulnerable people. The paper also contributes to our understanding of what instruments in land registration toolkits might strengthen women’s land rights and the conditions under which this could be done. Full article

Surge capacity is the ability to manage the increased influx of critically ill or injured patients during a sudden onset crisis. During such an event, all ordinary resources are activated and used in a systematic, structured, and planned way to cope with the situation. There are, however, occasions where conventional healthcare means are insufficient, and additional resources must be summoned. In such an event, the activation of existing capabilities within community resources can increase regional surge capacity in a flexible manner. These additional resources together represent the concept of Flexible Surge Capacity. This study aims to investigate the possibility of establishing a Flexible Surge Capacity response system to emergencies by examining the main components of surge capacity (Staff, Stuff, Structure, System) within facilities of interest present in the Western Region of Sweden. Through a mixed-method and use of (A) questionnaires and (B) semi-structured key-informant interviews, data was collected from potential alternative care facilities to determine capacities and capabilities and barriers and limitations as well as interest to be included in a flexible surge capacity response system. Both interest and ability were found in the investigated primary healthcare centers, veterinary and dental clinics, schools, and sports and hotel facilities to participate in such a system, either by receiving resources and/or drills and exercises. Barriers limiting the potential participation in this response system consisted of a varying lack of space, beds, healthcare materials, and competencies along with a need for clear organizational structure and medical responsibility. These results indicate that the concept of flexible surge capacity is a feasible approach to emergency management. Educational initiatives, drills and exercises, layperson empowerment, organizational and legal changes and sufficient funding are needed to realize the concept. Full article

Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities calls for a thorough review of State laws to recognise the right of persons with disabilities to enjoy legal capacity on an equal basis with others, thereby abolishing substitute decision-making regimes, and to receive the support they need for its exercise. With the aim of providing useful guidelines for legislative changes yet to be made, the present study examines and assesses, in the light of the Convention, some of the most recent and innovative legislative reforms in the area of legal capacity. The analysis shows that, although they appropriately reflect a change of perspective, shifting from the paradigm of the “best interests” of the person to the respect of their will and preferences, some of these reforms are not fully satisfactory, particularly because they still allow partial or total deprivation of legal capacity for persons with disabilities, and maintain institutions which perpetuate substitute decision-making. However, the recent modification of the Peruvian Civil Code and Civil Procedure Code deserves a highly positive evaluation as the first regulation of legal capacity and supported decision-making substantially compliant with the Convention. Full article

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) highlights the need to actively remove obstacles to, and promote, the full and equal enjoyment of human rights by persons with disabilities. This is challenging us to revisit existing conceptions about what is genuine equal and non-discriminatory enjoyment of human rights by persons with cognitive, intellectual and psychosocial disabilities and to accept that a real and fundamental culture change is required in order to achieve this. Whilst many states are seeking to address CRPD requirements in law and policy, including those identified in its Article 12, it is arguable that these do not go far enough in order to secure this culture change. This article considers three issues that need to be resolved as part of the process of achieving this paradigm shift, namely capacity assessments as thresholds for involuntary interventions, authorising involuntary interventions and support for the exercise of legal capacity, both generally and in the particular context of Scotland’s mental health and capacity laws. In doing so, it argues that it is debatable whether the CRPD paradigm shift can be realistically achieved by simply adapted or supplementing current legal and policy models. Full article

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) was the first legally binding instrument explicitly focused on how human rights apply to people with disability. Amongst their obligations, consistent with the social model of disability, the Convention requires signatory nations to recognise that “…persons with disabilities enjoy legal capacity on an equal basis with others in all aspects of life” and mandates signatory nations to develop “…appropriate measures to provide access by persons with disability to the support they may require in exercising their legal capacity”. The Convention promotes supported decision-making as one such measure. Although Australia ratified the UNCRPD in 2008, it retains an interpretative declaration in relation to Article 12 (2, 3, 4), allowing for the use of substituted decision-making in situations where a person is assessed as having no or limited decision-making capacity. Such an outcome is common for people with severe or profound intellectual disability because the assessments they are subjected to are focused on their cognition and generally fail to take into account the interdependent nature of human decision-making. This paper argues that Australia’s interpretative declaration is not in the spirit of the Convention nor the social model of disability on which it is based. It starts from the premise that the intention of Article 12 is to be inclusive of all signatory nations’ citizens, including those with severe or profound cognitive disability. From this premise, arises a practical need to understand how supported decision-making can be used with this group. Drawing from evidence from an empirical study with five people with severe or profound intellectual disability, this paper provides a rare glimpse on what supported decision-making can look like for people with severe or profound intellectual disability. Additionally, it describes the importance of supporters having positive assumptions of decision-making capacity as a factor affecting supported decision-making. This commentary aims to give a focus for practice and policy efforts for ensuring people with severe or profound cognitive disability receive appropriate support in decision-making, a clear obligation of signatory nations of the UNCRPD. A focus on changing supporter attitudes rather than placing the onus of change on people with disability is consistent with the social model of disability, a key driver of the UNCRPD. Full article

Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, particularly as interpreted in the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities General Comment No. 1, presents a significant challenge to all jurisdictions that equate interventions permitted under their mental health and incapacity laws with mental capacity. This is most notable in terms of the General Comment’s requirement that substitute decision-making regimes must be abolished. Notwithstanding this, it also offers the opportunity to revisit conceptions about the exercise of legal capacity and how this might be better supported and extended through supported decision-making. This article will offer some preliminary observations on this using Scottish mental health and incapacity legislation as an illustration although this may also have relevance to other jurisdictions. Full article