Publications by authors named "Concetta Ljoka"

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a disabling disease that causes pain and functional limitation. OA symptoms can be treated with intra-articular injections of anti-inflammatory, viscosupplementary, or viscoinductive products. Non-responders to these approaches have limited options, often surgical (e.

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Background: Chronic heart failure (CHF) is a multifaceted syndrome associated with endothelial dysfunction and increased inflammation. Despite the existing controversies regarding the appropriate training modality, it is widely accepted that supervised cardiac rehabilitation (CR) interventions lead to proinflammatory biomarkers reduction and cellular adhesion molecules in patients with CHF.

Aim: The aim of the study was to quantify the effects of 12-week group-based high-intensity aerobic interval training (HIAIT)/modified group-based HIAIT intervention (m-Ullevaal) vs.

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Mesotherapy is a technique that treats locoregional pain with intradermal injection of a drug in the affected area. Its short-term efficacy was observed in patients with low back pain using both normal saline solution, if there were contraindications to drugs' use, or a cocktail of drugs (normal saline solution, lidocaine hydrochloride, and lysine acetylsalicylate), whereas only the latter provided benefit for up to three months after treatment. The aim of this study was to measure the effects of mesotherapy in patients affected by neck pain in spondylarthrosis, a common pathology in rehabilitation, associated with significant disability and increased health expenditure.

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Mesotherapy is an intradermal treatment for patients with local pain. The literature describes the efficacy of mesotherapy in the treatment of musculoskeletal disorders measuring a reduction of analgesic drug intake and of healthcare spending. The aim of this study was to measure the effects of mesotherapy on pain and disability in patients with low back pain due to spondyloarthrosis.

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Mesotherapy, or intradermal therapy, is a therapeutic approach that is gaining popularity, but there is still a significant lack of information on its mechanisms of action or the pharmacokinetics of the therapeutic regimens. This retrospective study on 220 records compared the short-term and long-term effects of mesotherapy using a mixture of drugs versus normal saline solution in the treatment of patients with chronic spinal pain (CSP). At the end of treatment, outcome measures showed a significant improvement (P<0.

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Background: Knee osteoarthritis (OA) conservative treatment aims to delay cartilage degeneration; chondroprotective agents are a valid approach in this sense. A commercially available dietary supplement, CartiJoint Forte, containing glucosamine hydrochloride (GH), chondroitin sulfate (CS) and Bio-Curcumin BCM-95®, was used in this trial.

Aim: The aim of this study was to assess efficacy and safety of CartiJoint Forte combined with physical therapy in treating subjects with knee OA.

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Objectives: Therapeutic effects of physical therapy in neurologic disorders mostly rely on the promotion of use-dependent synaptic plasticity in damaged neuronal circuits. Genetic differences affecting the efficiency of synaptic plasticity mechanisms could explain why some patients do not respond adequately to the treatment. It is known that physical exercise activates the endocannabinoid system and that stimulation of cannabinoid CB1 receptors (CB1Rs) promotes synaptic plasticity in both rodents and humans.

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Exercise therapy (ET) can be beneficial in disabled multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. Intermittent transcranial magnetic theta burst stimulation (iTBS) induces long-term excitability changes of the cerebral cortex and may ameliorate spasticity in MS. We investigated whether the combination of iTBS and a program of ET can improve motor disability in MS patients.

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