Skating on slippery ice

Why Is Ice Slippery?

T freezing of water and melting of ice are among the most dramatic examples of phase transitions in nature. Melting ice accounts for everyday phenomena as diverse as the electrification of thunderclouds, in which the liquid layer on ice chunks facilitates the transfer of mass and charge during collisions between them; frost heave powerful enough to lift boulders from the ground (see PHYSICS TOD...

Skating on thin ice: pragmatic prescribing for medication refractory schizophrenia

BACKGROUND Clozapine is the treatment of choice for medication refractory psychosis, but it does not benefit half of those put on it. There are numerous studies of potential post-clozapine strategies, but little data to guide the order of such treatment in this common clinical challenge. We describe a naturalistic observational study in 153 patients treated by a specialist psychosis service to ...

Ice skating promotes postural control in children.

High fall rates causing injury and enormous financial costs are reported for children. However, only few studies investigated the effects of balance training in children and these studies did not find enhanced balance performance in postural (transfer) tests. Consequently, it was previously speculated that classical balance training might not be stimulating enough for children to adequately per...

Blocking platelets more: are we skating on thin ice?

Peak incidence of distal radius fractures due to ice skating on natural ice in The Netherlands

An increase of distal radius fractures was seen in 2009 when an extended cold spell allowed natural ice skating in Amsterdam. This resulted in overload of our Emergency Departments and operating rooms. This study reports patient and fracture characteristics of these injuries. We also determined potential skating-related risk factors. All patients who sustained a distal radius fracture during na...