Exploring the determinants of private healthcare providers' market power: A performance-based perspective.

This research focuses on market power in the private healthcare sector. This topic has been poorly explored by the extant literature and the reasons mainly rely on the peculiarities of the sector and the specific market. In fact, health providers' market power is influenced by multiple factors and by the fact that prices are often regulated by national or regional public authorities.

Changing therapeutic strategies and persistence to disease-modifying treatments in a population of multiple sclerosis patients from Veneto region, Italy.

Background: The availability of new disease-modifying treatments (DMTs) in the last years has changed the therapeutic strategies used in Multiple Sclerosis (MS). We aimed to describe trend in DMTs utilization and persistence to treatment in a large sample of patients attending 10 MS centres from four provinces of Veneto, Italy.

Methods: Demographic, clinical and DMTs information of patients regularly followed from January 2011 to August 2018 were recorded and analysed.

The effect of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation on motor performance, fatigue and quality of life in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Background: The treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is still disappointing. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) has been suggested to modify the rate of disease progression in ALS.

Objective: In a pilot controlled study, we tested the effect of 5-Hz rTMS on motor performance, fatigue and quality of life (QoL) in ALS.

Abnormal cutaneomotor integration in patients with cerebellar syndromes: a transcranial magnetic stimulation study.

Objective: To examine the sensorimotor interactions in cerebellar patients.

Methods: We investigated the effects of electrical stimulation of the second (D2) and fifth (D5) fingers on the amplitude of motor evoked potentials (MEPs) in response to transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial electrical stimulation (TES) in the relaxed right abductor digiti minimi muscles of 7 patients with cerebellar syndromes and of 14 age-matched controls. The digital stimulation was set at 3 times the sensory threshold and preceded brain stimulation at interstimulus intervals (ISIs) ranging from 10 to 100 ms.

Changes in motor cortex inhibition over time in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Abnormal balance between intracortical inhibitory and excitatory mechanisms has been found to contribute to the genesis of motor cortex hyperexcitability in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), but data are lacking on the role of these abnormalities in the pathophysiology of the disease. We evaluated the resting motor threshold (RMT), the cortical silent period (CSP) to single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), early intracortical inhibition (ICI), early intracortical facilitation (ICF) and late ICI to paired-pulse TMS in 40 patients with ALS. These parameters were correlated with disease duration and clinical features.

Different mechanisms contribute to motor cortex hyperexcitability in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Objectives: Different physiological approaches demonstrated motor system hyperexcitability in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), probably reflecting excitotoxic mechanisms. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) showed that both increased excitability of corticomotoneurons and reduced intracortical inhibition (ICI) contribute to motor cortex hyperexcitability, but the importance of these factors in inducing this cortical dysfunction is unknown. The aim of the study was to establish how different mechanisms interact to promote motor system hyperexcitability in ALS in relation to clinical features.