Content - Volume 38, Issue 3

Objective: To assess whether mechanical traction, either alone or in combination with other treatments, improves pain, function/disability, patient satisfaction and global perceived effect in adults with mechanical neck disorders.Methods: We conducted a systematic review up to September 2004 of randomized controlled trials and used pre-defined levels of evidence for qualitative analy ...

Carers of stroke patients provide informal care ranging from physical help to psychosocial support. As a result, these carers may experience high levels of burden, associated with characteristics of the patients and of the carers themselves. This burden can result in a deterioration of the carers' health status, social life and well-being. The carers may thus be seen as colleagues of professional ...

Objective: To explore adaptation, by examining the occupational gaps occurring between what individuals want to do and what they actually do in terms of their everyday activities before and after brain injury. In addition, the relationships between occupational gaps and impairment/activity limitations and the time lapse since the brain injury were explored.Design: A cross-sectional s ...

Objective: Analysis of the effects of a comprehensive focal spasticity program in adult patients.Design: Retrospective study of an out-patient cohort.Patients: One hundred patients were enrolled in the study (54 men and 46 women, mean age 41 years (SD 14). Cerebral palsy and stroke were equally common (80% in total). The remaining patients had miscellaneous diagnoses, includin ...

Objective: To assess whether a comprehensive multidisciplinary pain management programme could contribute to improvement regarding sleep quality, mood, life satisfaction, health-related quality of life, sense of coherence and pain for patients with a spinal cord injury and neuropathic pain.Design: A prospective intervention study.Patients: Twenty-seven patients with spinal cor ...

Objective: To evaluate the health-related quality of life in myotonic dystrophy type 1 and its relationships with clinical, genetic, neuropsychological and emotional factors.Design: Case-control study of a continuous series of patients with myotonic dystrophy type 1.Patients and methods: Twenty patients, and 20 age-, sex- and education-matched healthy controls underwent the MO ...

Objective: The aim of this study was to describe general characteristics of patients with stroke who have a tendency to fall and to determine whether certain test instruments can identify fallers.Methods: Patients treated in a stroke unit during a 12-month period were included. At inclusion assessments were made with Berg Balance Scale Berg Balance Scale, Stops Walking When Talking, ...

Objective: To study injury-related and individual factors as predictors of work participation in persons with traumatic and congenital spinal cord injury.Design: Cross-sectional questionnaire study.Subjects: One hundred and eighty-two persons with traumatic spinal cord injury treated in the Spinal Injuries Unit in Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Göteborg, Sweden, and 48 pers ...

Cricopharyngeal myotomy is the most common treatment used to restore normal swallowing in patients with persistent (>6 months) cricopharyngeal muscle dysfunction post-stroke. We describe 2 patients whose dysphagia was due to cricopharyngeal muscle over-activity and who significantly improved after a percutaneous botulinum toxin injection in the cricopharyngeal muscle in combination with a reh ...

Objective: In a study published in 2002, it was observed that a variable composed by the Functional Independence Measure (FIM^TM) and the trunk control test at admission predicted 66.5% of the FIM^TM at discharge in stroke patients. The objective was to confirm the reproducibility of this predictive model.Methods: Retrospective study of 245 hemiparetic stroke inpa ...

This article does not have an abstract.