Introduktion: Höftfrakturer drabbar många äldre och väntas öka i framtiden. En höftfraktur kan leda till en stor förändring på lång och kort sikt och är en av de största anledningarna till att äldre personer får svårt att utföra dagliga aktiviteter eller behöver flytta in på ett särskilt boende.  Syfte: Att utforska äldre personers upplevelse av att drabbas av en höftfraktur och hur livet påverkats under det efterföljande året.  Metod: Studien är gjord med kvalitativ design. Tio personer (nio kvinnor och en man) i åldern 75–91 år deltog i semi-strukturerade intervjuer i sina hem ett år efter höftfrakturen. Intervjuerna har analyserats genom kvalitativ innehållsanalys enligt Graneheim och Lundman.  Resultat: Ett tema växte fram, Att fortsätta kämpa när livet krackelerar – med självständighet som drivkraft att återfå ett gott liv.Temat belyser deltagarna som med begränsade resurser kämpat för att försöka återfå sina förmågor. Tre kategorier formulerades utifrån nio subkategorier. Kategorierna är: Höftfrakturen medför ett liv med begränsningar, Att få stöd stärker den egna kämpaglöden och Hantera och acceptera en ny tillvaro. Slutsats: Studiens resultat stärker tidigare forskning om att en höftfraktur medför långvariga konsekvenser. Utöver den fysiska skadan påverkas även det psykiska måendet. Stöd från omgivningen är av stor betydelse i efterförloppet och för att stärka motivationen att rehabiliteras.Fortsatt arbete med förebyggande åtgärder och utveckling av vården efter en höftfraktur för de sköra äldre är angeläget, inte minst ur perspektivet jämlik hälsa. / Introduction: Hip fractures affect many older people and are expected to increase in the future. A hip fracture can lead to substantial changes in the long and short term and is an important reason for dependence in daily activities or need to move into a special accommodation. Aim: To explore older peoples experience of suffering from a hip fracture and how life has been affected in subsequent year.   Method: A qualitative design was used. Ten persons (nine women and one man) aged 75-91 years participated in semi-structured interviews one year after the fracture. The interviews were analyzed using qualitative content analysis inspired by Graneheim and Lundman.  Result: One theme emerged, Continuing to fight when life cracks – with independence as a driving force to regain a good life.The theme highlights that the participants, despite limited resources, struggled to regain their abilities. Three categories were formulated from nine subcategories. The categories are: The hip fracture leads to a life of limitations, Getting support strengthens one's own fighting spirit andManage and accept a new existence.  Conclusion: The results further strengthens previous research concluding that hip fractures has long lasting consequences. Apart from the physical aspect, the injury also has an impact on mental health. Social support is of great importance as it increased the participants´ motivation towards rehabilitation. To achieve equal healthcare, the care after a hip fracture needs to be further developed and preventive measures seems urgent for the frail older population.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease and the major cause of dementia, affecting more than 50 million people worldwide. Chronic pain is long-lasting, persistent pain that affects more than 1.5 billion of the world population. Overlapping and heterogenous symptoms of AD and chronic pain conditions complicate their diagnosis, emphasizing the need for more specific biomarkers to improve the diagnosis and understand the disease mechanisms. To characterize disease pathology of AD, we measured the protein changes in the temporal neocortex region of the brain of AD subjects using mass spectrometry (MS). We found proteins involved in exo-endocytic and extracellular vesicle functions displaying altered levels in the AD brain, potentially resulting in neuronal dysfunction and cell death in AD. To detect novel biomarkers for AD, we used MS to analyze cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of AD patients and found decreased levels of eight proteins compared to controls, potentially indicating abnormal activity of complement system in AD. By integrating new proteomics markers with absolute levels of Aβ42, total tau (t-tau) and p-tau in CSF, we improved the prediction accuracy from 83% to 92% of early diagnosis of AD. We found increased levels of chitinase-3-like protein 1 (CH3L1) and decreased levels of neurosecretory protein VGF (VGF) in AD compared to controls. By exploring the CSF proteome of neuropathic pain patients before and after successful spinal cord stimulation (SCS) treatment, we found altered levels of twelve proteins, involved in neuroprotection, synaptic plasticity, nociceptive signaling and immune regulation. To detect biomarkers for diagnosing a chronic pain state known as fibromyalgia (FM), we analyzed the CSF of FM patients using MS. We found altered levels of four proteins, representing novel biomarkers for diagnosing FM. These proteins are involved in inflammatory mechanisms, energy metabolism and neuropeptide signaling. Finally, to facilitate fast and robust large-scale omics data handling, we developed an e-infrastructure. We demonstrated that the e-infrastructure provides high scalability, flexibility and it can be applied in virtually any fields including proteomics. This thesis demonstrates that proteomics is a promising approach for gaining deeper insight into mechanisms of nervous system disorders and find biomarkers for diagnosis of such diseases.