Content - Volume 42, Issue 2

Objective: The aim of this study was to perform a systematic review of the effectiveness of comprehensive rehabilitation programmes for adults in the chronic phase after severe acquired brain injury. Methods: PubMed, PsychINFO and PsychLit were searched for articles published between 1990 and 2008 and a quality assessment was performed. The comprehensive programmes were subdivided into neurobeha ...

Background: Evidence-based treatment is not effective for all patients. Research must therefore be carried out to help clinicians to decide for whom and under what circumstances certain treatment is effective. Treatment theory can assist in designing research that will provide results on which clinical decision-making can be based. Objective: To illustrate how treatment theory can be helpful in ...

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate whether community-dwelling chronic stroke patients wearing an ankle­-foot orthosis would benefit from changing to functional electrical stimulation of the peroneal nerve. Methods: In 26 community-dwelling chronic (> 6 months post-onset) patients after stroke, their ankle-foot orthosis was replaced by a surface-based functional electrical stimul ...

Objective: To compare the effects of group-based and individual-based motor skill training on motor performance in children with developmental coordination disorder. Design: Randomized controlled pilot intervention study. Subjects/patients: Twenty-three children (4 girls) with develop­­­mental coordination disorder (mean age (standard deviation (SD)) 8 years (1 year and 2 months)). Method ...

Objective: To explore the feasibility and effects of rehabilitation using manual mobilization of the thoracic spine in elderly female patients with osteoporosis. Methods: Forty-eight postmenopausal patients with osteoporosis (age 76 ± 7 years) were randomly assigned to 3 months rehabilitation (18 sessions including manual mobilization, taping and exercises, n = 29) or control (wait-list ...

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of ultrasonographic guided botulinum toxin type A injections into the plantar fascia to reduce pain and improve gait in patients with unilateral plantar fasciitis. Design: A randomized double-blind control study. Subjects: Fifty patients with chronic unilateral plantar fasciitis were recruited, and divided into experimental and control groups. Methods ...

Objective: To examine wheelchair athletes’ perceptions of wheelchair configuration in relation to aspects of mobility performance. Methods: Nine elite wheelchair athletes from wheelchair basketball, wheelchair rugby and wheelchair tennis were interviewed using a semi-structured format. Interview transcripts were analysed using an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, whereby emergent theme ...

Objective: To determine whether bone mineral density loss after spinal cord injury can be attenuated by an early intervention with functional electrical stimulation cycling exercises (FESCE) and to ascertain whether the effect persists after FESCE is discontinued. Design: A prospective study. Subjects: Twenty-four individuals with spinal cord injury, 26–52 days after spinal cord injury, were ...

Object: To describe self-reported life satisfaction of younger persons after stroke and to investigate differences between men and women and factors associated with life satisfaction. Design: A cross-sectional study. Methods: Subjects were all persons after stroke, aged 18–55 years, registered in the Swedish National Quality Register for Stroke Care. A questionnaire was completed by 1068 ind ...

Objective: To determine factors associated with return to work following acute non-life-threatening orthopaedic trauma. Design: Prospective cohort study. Participants: One hundred and sixty-eight participants were recruited and followed for 6 months. The study achieved 89% participant follow-up. Methods: Baseline data were obtained by survey and medical record review. Participants were furth ...

Objective: To create and illustrate the development of a method to parsimoniously and hierarchically assess upper extremity function in persons after stroke. Design: Data were analyzed using Rasch analysis. Setting: Re-analysis of data from 8 studies involving persons after stroke. Subjects: Over 4000 patients with stroke who participated in various studies in Montreal and elsewhere in Canad ...

Background: The objective of this study was to test the predictive validity of a new scale, the Revised Version of the Ability for Basic Movement Scale (ABMS II). Methods: A total of 71 patients after stroke participated in this prospective study. In addition to the ABMS II score, age, limb paresis as measured by the Brunnström stage, and functional ability as measured by the Barthel Index were ...

Sir, In a series of papers on rehabilitation medicine and the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) published in the Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine, readers were invited to comment on this issue (1). Because many recent studies discuss the development of models of disability and relate this to different assumptions about earlier models of disability (2, 3), ...

Sir, Given there is no formal system to report adverse reactions to non-pharmacological interventions such as graded exercise therapy (GET) for chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME), other sources of data need to be considered when evaluating safety. As noted by Clark & White, a large survey conducted in 2001 by the charity Action for ME found that 50% of patients who rece ...

Sir, We would like to comment on the paper by Haig et al. (1) on behalf of the Community Based Rehabilitation Africa Network (CAN). We are the Executive Committee of that organization and are from 7 different sub-Saharan African countries. We currently represent 281 community-based rehabilitation (CBR) programmes from 27 countries in Africa. We agree wholeheartedly that services and support for ...