Content - Volume 40, Issue 8

The last two years have seen several important changes for Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine (JRM). From 2007 the journal has been published by its owner, the Foundation for Rehabilitation Information, and not by a commercial publisher. This has allowed us greater freedom in making decisions on publication matters and has brought economic benefits. We have therefore been able to keep the increase ...

Professor Hannu Alaranta, of Helsinki, Finland, a member of the Editorial Board and Editorial Committee of the Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine, died on 10 June 2008 after a relatively short period of illness. He was one of the most active and experienced members of the Editorial Board, which he joined in 1999. With his broad scientific and clinical background, he was able to contribute suggesti ...

Objective: The effects of stroke on stroke survivors are profound and cannot adequately be understood from a single approach or point of view. Use of qualitative study, in addition to quantitative research, provides a comprehensive picture of the consequences of stroke grounded in the experience of stroke survivors. The purpose of the present study was to examine the contribution of the published ...

Objective: To describe the recovery of fine hand use and the associations between fine hand use and, respectively, somatosensory functions, grip strength, upper extremity movements and self-care, in the first week and at 3 and 18 months after stroke, and to describe whether these associations change over time. Design: Prospective observational study. Patients: Sixty-six consecutive patients wi ...

Objective: The immobility common to patients after acute stroke has the potential to increase negative mood symptoms. We evaluated the effect of very early mobilization after stroke on levels of depression, anxiety and irritability. Design: AVERT is a randomized controlled trial; patients in the very early mobilization group receive mobilization earlier (within 24 h of stroke) and more fr ...

Objective: To help clinicians and researchers interpret change scores of the simplified Stroke Rehabilitation Assessment of Movement measure, we estimated the minimal detectable change of the 3 subscales (including upper-limb movements, lower-limb movements, and mobility) of the measure. Design and patients: The measure was tested on 102 patients with chronic stroke by a single rater twice, with ...

Objective: IMPACT-S is the screener part of the ICF Measure of Participation and ACTivities questionnaire. IMPACT-S consists of 33 items in 9 scales, reflecting the 9 activity and participation chapters of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). The reliability and validity of IMPACT-S as an independent brief measure of activities and participation was examine ...

Objective: To evaluate the effects of systematic co-operation among municipal employees on the number of sick-leave days per month and the type of benefit granted by the Social Insurance Office. A further aim was to evaluate the economic consequences for society. Design: A 6-year follow-up study with a matched-pairs design. Methods: Days on sick-leave were calculated for each subject one year ...

Objective: To investigate changes in arm hand skilled performance during and after active rehabilitation in (sub)groups of subjects with cervical spinal cord injuries. Design: Longitudinal multi-centre cohort study. Patients: Persons with cervical spinal cord injuries during (n?=?57) and after (n?=?35) rehabilitation. Methods: Patients from 8 Dutch rehabilitation centres received therapy as ...

Objective: To investigate symptoms and functional impairment in women with secondary lymphoedema of the breast following surgical treatment and to assess the therapeutic benefit of treatment with low-intensity and extremely low-frequency electrostatic fields (Deep Oscillation®), supplementing manual lymphatic drainage. Methods: Twenty-one patients were randomized either to the treatment group ( ...

Objective: To estimate the extent to which the impairments associated with lymphoedema (volume increase, local oedema and sensory alteration) are linked to arm dysfunction and sub-optimal health-related quality of life. Patients and methods: A cross-sectional study, embedded within a pilot for an epidemiologic study, was undertaken involving women who had undergone surgery for unilateral stage I ...

Objective: To investigate how persons with late effects of polio perceive their participation and problems with participation in life situations and to determine the association between perceived problems with participation and sex, age, marital status, use of mobility aids and access to instrumental support. Design: Cross-sectional. Subjects: A total of 160 persons with prior polio 6-30 month ...

Objective: To assess the inter-rater and intra-rater reliability and validity of the original and a modified Medical Research Council scale for testing muscle strength in radial palsy. Design: Prospective, randomized validation study Patients: Thirty-one patients with peripheral paresis of radial innervated forearm muscles were included. Methods: Wrist extension, finger extension and grip ...

Objective and study design: A parallel group study to investigate the effectiveness of a smoking cessation programme performed during routine rehabilitation practice for outpatients. Patients and methods: The study participants comprised an intervention group of 102 consecutive smokers who underwent a smoking cessation programme in a rehabilitation centre and a control group of 101 consecutive s ...

Objective: To survey inpatients in a rehabilitation hospital regarding their preference for ward rounds to be conducted at the bedside or in a consulting room. Design: Before-after trial. Patients were seen on ward round at the bedside during one week and then in a consulting room the following week. Patients were asked about their preferred setting and their reasons for their preference. Pati ...

Objective: To explore whether Memory Self-efficacy is related to depression, neuroticism and coping in patients after stroke, as it is in healthy elderly subjects. Design: A cross-sectional design. The relation between Memory Self-efficacy and psychosocial factors was analysed using a Mann-Whitney U test and non-parametric Spearman correlations. Patients: Seventeen male and 6 female patients a ...

Both myasthenia gravis and traumatic spinal cord injury are uncommon disorders and their concurrence is extremely rare. We report here the case of a man with stable myasthenia gravis with spinal cord injury due to a motor vehicle accident. His muscle strength and sensory function in all 4 limbs partially recovered during the initial hospitalization. However, after a later episode of pneumonia and ...