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For people who spend the majority of their days sitting in standard wheelchairs or lying in beds, pressure sores are a very probable reality. Yet they don't have to be, thanks to assistive technology like tilt or recline wheelchairs that help distribute pressure to other parts of the body. While pressure relief is the main objective to using either a tilt wheelchair or a recline wheelchair, each has its unique qualities that help with posture. (Even though some chairs come with both tilt and recline options, for clarity purposes, they will be addressed as two separate seating systems.) "Obviously, a tilt wheelchair does a better job of providing postural stability by not changing any of the angles of the knee and hip, while recliners allow the pelvis and hips to move through approximately 90 degrees of motion. Both seating systems have their own specific functions," noted David Kreutz, PT, seating specialist at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta. Reclining wheelchairs move the body from a flexed position to an extended position, making the chairs more likely to elicit a spastic response in the user. Because tilt and recline chairs use gravity to their advantage and come with head rests, patients who have poor head, neck and trunk control may benefit from the stability and balance they provide. When in tilt or recline, gravity helps the patient improve balance and head control. Once a tilt chair is prescribed for a patient, it is important to teach the caregivers how to use the tilt function and position the patient correctly. If a patient is cognitively intact, it is also important to teach that individual how he or she should be positioned in the chair, to be able to instruct caregivers. Candidates who would be suited for a recliner chair are those who cannot achieve a 90-degree hip-to-back angle when sitting. For example, patients who have hip precautions following total hip replacement surgery, patients who have had cardiac surgery and might develop

Health leaders have said that delivering faster and more productive patient care would be difficult unless NHS capital budgets are nearly doubled to at least £14.1 billion from the current spending of £7.7 billion. The NHS Confederation has highlighted the impact that low levels of capital investment have had over the last decade in its report published today (29 November). The report, 'Investing to save: The capital requirement for a more sustainable NHS in England', revealed that the UK has lagged behind other comparable countries in terms of health capital investment for more than five decades, resulting in less productivity. It revealed that the NHS now has the sixth lowest number of CT and MRI scanners per million people of the OECD countries.

Esperion Therapeutics' non-statin therapy "bempedoic acid" has shown modest results in reducing the risk of major cardiovascular events in statin-intolerant patients in the cholesterol lowering via bempedoic acid, an ACL-inhibiting regimen (CLEAR Outcomes) trial, revealed GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company. As a result, there is substantial room for improvement in this space as a potential approval is expected in Australia in near-term based on these results, said GlobalData. According to GlobalData's Pharmaceutical Intelligence Center, the total number of diagnosed prevalent cases of dyslipidemia in Australia is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate of approximately 1.2% from 5.2 million in 2022 to 5.4 million in 2025. Neha Myneni, Pharma Analyst at GlobalData, comments: "Bempedoic acid joins several statin alternatives that have shown the potential to reduce cardiac illnesses. However, with not much significant improvement in the outcomes, there exists a clear room for improvement for non-statin therapies in this space." Bempedoic acid is the sixth class of cholesterol-lowering drugs (other than cholesteryl-ester transfer protein isoform (CETPi) inhibitors), that has demonstrated the potential to reduce heart attacks and strokes. Other class of therapies with similar potential currently marketed in Australia include statins, bile acid resins, niacin, ezetimibe, and proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) inhibitors (alirocumab, evolocumab, and inclisiran).