Content - Volume 42, Issue 9

Objective: This educational paper aims to describe, in adult patients, the different aspects of muscle overactivity after a central nervous system lesion, including spasticity, spastic dystonia and spastic co-contraction, the assessment of their symptoms and consequences, and therapeutic options. Discussion and Conclusion: Clinical evaluation involves the assessment of passive range of motion, a ...

Background: Discussion surrounds the publication The White Book on Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine in Europe as to whether the medical specialty termed “physical and rehabilitation medicine” is in fact a reality. Objective: To disclose previously undiscussed issues related to The White Book on Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine in Europe by juxtaposing its content with a body of wor ...

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Objective: The aim of this study was to analyse the burden on caregivers of chronic neurological patients taking part in community neurorehabilitation programmes, and to describe caregivers’ socio-demographic features and needs. Subjects: A total of 118 pairs of chronic neurological patients and their caregivers. Methods: Caregivers completed the Caregiver Burden Inventory, the Beck Depressi ...

Objective: Dystrophia myotonica is characterized by progressive muscular weakness, myotonia, mental slowness and lack of initiative, which causes problems in daily life both for patients and for their spouses. Some couples seem to deal with these problems satisfactorily, while for others they are quite burdensome. The aim of this study was to describe the relationship of severity of dystrophia myo ...

Objective: To investigate the meaning of acting with others, in different places over the course of 1 year post-stroke. Methods: Qualitative interviews with 9 persons, age range 42–61 years (7 persons with cerebrovascular accident and 2 with subarachnoidal haemorrhage) over the course of a year (i. e. 3, 6, 9 and 12 months) were analysed using a grounded theory approach. Results: Four catego ...

Objective: To determine the effects of lumbar extension exercise on strength, disability index, and pain scores in patients after lumbar discectomy surgery. Design: Prospective comparative study. Subjects: Forty patients experiencing a herniated disc at lumbar levels were divided into 4 subgroups for different training frequencies: twice/week (group 1), once/week (group 2), once/2 weeks (group ...

Objective: To assess the cost-utility of an exercise programme vs usual care after functional multidisciplinary rehabilitation in patients with chronic low back pain. Design: Cost-utility analysis alongside a randomized controlled trial. Subjects/patients: A total of 105 patients with chronic low back pain. Methods: Chronic low back pain patients completing a 3-week functional multidisciplin ...

Objective: To evaluate the prevalence and sonographic characteristics of thickened finger extensor tendons in affected hands of patients with stroke. Design: Observational survey. Subjects: Thirty-six patients (12 women, 24 men) admitted for rehabilitation because of stroke. Control group: 30 right-handed healthy volunteers. Methods: We used an 8–16 or a 6–12 MHz sonographic transducer t ...

Objective: Curved walking requires complex adaptations, including shift of body weight to counteract the ensuing centrifugal force, and the production of strides of different length between legs. We hypothesized that gait capacities would be more stressed in hemiparetic patients than in healthy subjects when walking along curved, compared with straight, trajectories. Methods: Twenty chronic, sta ...

Objective: To investigate the acute effects of long-term whole-body vibration on leg muscle performance and functional capacity in persons with multiple sclerosis. Design: A randomized controlled trial. Subjects: Twenty-five patients with multiple sclerosis (mean age 47. 9 ± 1. 9 years; Expanded Disability Status Scale 4. 3 ± 0. 2) were assigned randomly to whole-body vibration train ...

Objective: To determine the functional electrical stimulated (FES) cycling volume necessary to reach the recommended weekly exercise caloric expenditure of 1000–2200 kcal in FES-trained subjects with paraplegia. Subjects: Eight (7 males, 1 female) FES-trained subjects with traumatic motor and sensory complete paraplegia (AIS A, lesion level between Th3 and Th9) of at least 3 years duration wer ...

Objective: We aimed to investigate whether position sense acuity of the upper extremity and tracking performance, pen pressure and muscle activity in a tracking task are affected in subjects with neck and upper extremity pain. Methods: Twenty-three subjects with neck and upper extremity pain and 26 healthy controls participated in the study. Position sense acuity of the upper extremity was measu ...

Objective: The aims of this study were to examine: (i) baseline pressure pain thresholds in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome and those with chronic low back pain compared with healthy subjects; (ii) the change in mean pain threshold in response to exercise; and (iii) associations with exercise-induced increase in nitric oxide. Participants: Twenty-six patients with chronic fatigue syndrome ...

Objective: A few studies have reported the use of botulinum toxin injections after spinal cord injury, as this is the gold standard to treat focal spasticity. We report such a case here. Case report: A 38-year-old woman who had become paraplegic and care-dependent secondary to cervico-thoracic intramedullary ependymoma, presented 8 months later with painful lower limb spasticity, which was being ...