Safety and efficacy of co-careldopa as an add-on therapy to occupational and physical therapy in patients after stroke (DARS): a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.

Background: Dopamine is a key modulator of striatal function and learning and might improve motor recovery after stroke. Previous small trials of dopamine agonists after stroke provide equivocal evidence of effectiveness on improving motor recovery. We aimed to assess the safety and efficacy of co-careldopa plus routine occupational and physical therapy during early rehabilitation after stroke.

The DARS (Dopamine Augmented Rehabilitation in Stroke) trial: protocol for a randomised controlled trial of Co-careldopa treatment in addition to routine NHS occupational and physical therapy after stroke.

Background: Stroke has a huge impact, leaving more than a third of affected people with lasting disability and rehabilitation remains a cornerstone treatment in the National Health Service (NHS). Recovery of mobility and arm function post-stroke occurs through re-learning to use the affected body parts and/or learning to compensate with the lesser affected side. Promising evidence suggests that the addition of Co-careldopa to physical therapy and occupational therapy may improve the recovery of arm and leg movement and lead to improved function.

Effort test performance in clinical acute brain injury, community brain injury, and epilepsy populations.

Effort tests have become commonplace within medico-legal and forensic contexts and their use is rising within clinical settings. It is recognized that some patients may fail effort tests due to cognitive impairment and not because of poor effort. However, investigation of the base rate of failure among clinical populations other than dementia is limited.

Working with a brain injury: personal experiences of returning to work following a mild or moderate brain injury.

Objective: Most brain injuries occur in people of working age. Individuals with mild or moderate injuries may have unrecognized problems affecting return to work. Previous studies have focused on factors that predict return to work after brain injury.

Associated reactions after stroke: a randomized controlled trial of the effect of botulinum toxin type A.

Objective: To measure the impact of botulinum toxin A on associated reactions in patients following stroke.

Design: Randomized placebo-controlled trial.

Patients: Forty patients with spasticity in their paretic arm (median time since stroke: 2.

Diagnosing late onset rheumatoid arthritis, polymyalgia rheumatica, and temporal arteritis in patients presenting with polymyalgic symptoms. A prospective longterm evaluation.

Objective: . To examine for demographic and clinical differences between late onset rheumatoid arthritis (LORA), polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR), and temporal arteritis (TA) patients presenting with polymyalgic symptoms (PMS) and to identify baseline clinical and laboratory features that would lead to a more accurate final diagnosis.

Methods: Three hundred forty-nine consecutive patients with new onset of symptoms suggestive of LORA, PMR, or TA presenting at or above age 60 years were enrolled in a prospective study.

Measuring movement irregularity in the upper motor neurone syndrome using normalised average rectified jerk.

Movement irregularity is a feature of the upper motor neurone (UMN) syndrome which is difficult to measure. Average rectified jerk (ARJ) has been proposed as a measure of this movement irregularity, but ARJ depends upon the duration of movement. Since movements may be slower in UMN patients, duration dependence compromises ARJ as a measure of irregularity.