A Review of the Cost Effectiveness of Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) Versus Surgical Aortic Valve Replacement (SAVR).

The cost of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) has been studied in the context of high-risk or specific comorbidity populations; this paper provides a comprehensive overview of broader patient populations' outcomes and costs with TAVR in comparison to surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR). In the past, SAVR had been the more cost-effective option than TAVR, but in recent years, TAVR has been becoming more cost-effective.Though the cost of TAVR can vary due to several factors the major focus of this review will focus on the surgical technique, medicare reimbursements, insertion point, and varying risk populations.

Roles of Lesioned and Nonlesioned Hemispheres in Reaching Performance Poststroke.

Severe poststroke arm impairment is associated with greater activation of the nonlesioned hemisphere during movement of the affected arm. The circumstances under which this activation may be adaptive or maladaptive remain unclear. To identify the functional relevance of key lesioned and nonlesioned hemisphere motor areas to reaching performance in patients with mild versus severe arm impairment.

Role of contralesional hemisphere in paretic arm reaching in patients with severe arm paresis due to stroke: A preliminary report.

Stroke is highly prevalent and a leading cause of serious, long-term disability among American adults. Impaired movement (i.e.

Neural Substrates of Motor Recovery in Severely Impaired Stroke Patients With Hand Paralysis.

In well-recovered stroke patients with preserved hand movement, motor dysfunction relates to interhemispheric and intracortical inhibition in affected hand muscles. In less fully recovered patients unable to move their hand, the neural substrates of recovered arm movements, crucial for performance of daily living tasks, are not well understood. Here, we evaluated interhemispheric and intracortical inhibition in paretic arm muscles of patients with no recovery of hand movement (n = 16, upper extremity Fugl-Meyer Assessment = 27.

Critical periods after stroke study: translating animal stroke recovery experiments into a clinical trial.

Introduction: Seven hundred ninety-five thousand Americans will have a stroke this year, and half will have a chronic hemiparesis. Substantial animal literature suggests that the mammalian brain has much potential to recover from acute injury using mechanisms of neuroplasticity, and that these mechanisms can be accessed using training paradigms and neurotransmitter manipulation. However, most of these findings have not been tested or confirmed in the rehabilitation setting, in large part because of the challenges in translating a conceptually straightforward laboratory experiment into a meaningful and rigorous clinical trial in humans.

Cortical effects of repetitive finger flexion- vs. extension-resisted tracking movements: a TMS study.

While the cortical effects of repetitive motor activity are generally believed to be task specific, the task parameters that modulate these effects are incompletely understood. Since there are differences in the neural control of flexor vs. extensor muscles, the type of muscles involved in the motor task of interest may be one important parameter.