A reliability study of a novel visual ischemic palpation scale in an experimental setting.

Background: Manual palpation is an important part of the clinical examination and generally it has low reliability. The aim of this study was to assess the reliability of a novel method for discriminating 3 different levels of palpation force.

Methods: This reliability study included 96 healthy physiotherapists and physiotherapy students, who have been taught a new palpation graduated procedure called Visual Ischemic Palpatory Scale (VIPS), aimed to classify the applied pressure based on the finger's ischemia.

Pharmacokinetics of glucosamine in the dog and in man.

The pharmacokinetics, organ distribution, metabolism and excretion of glucosamine were studied in the dog giving uniformly labelled [14C]-glucosamine (sulfate), i.v. or orally, in single doses.