Mapping a curriculum database to the USMLE Step 1 content outline.

Assessing the completeness of topic coverage in medical curricula is difficult to establish as no universal standard for completeness has been agreed upon. However, the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step 1 Exam Content Outline may provide a beginning framework. This project developed a computer-based tool that matched ArizonaMed curriculum content (Tucson track) against a modified USMLE content outline.

Training BIG to move faster: the application of the speed-amplitude relation as a rehabilitation strategy for people with Parkinson's disease.

We have used the phenomenon that speed increases with movement amplitude as a rehabilitation strategy. We tested the hypothesis that the generalized training of amplitude in the limb motor system may reduce bradykinesia and hypokinesia in the upper and lower limbs in subjects with Parkinson's disease (PD) across disease severity (Stage I, n=6; Stage II, n=7; Stage III, n=5). While studies have separately examined the relationship of amplitude to speed in reaching and gait, the same study has not reported the relationship for both limb systems.

Novel muscle patterns for reaching after cervical spinal cord injury: a case for motor redundancy.

A fundamental issue in the neuromotor control of arm movements is whether the nervous system can use distinctly different muscle activity patterns to obtain similar kinematic outcomes. Although computer simulations have demonstrated several possible mechanical and torque solutions, there is little empirical evidence that the nervous system actually employs fundamentally different muscle patterns for the same movement, such as activating a muscle one time and not the next, or switching from a flexor to an extensor. Under typical conditions, subjects choose the same muscles for any given movement, which suggests that in order to see the capacity of the nervous system to make a different choice of muscles, the nervous system must be pushed beyond the normal circumstances.

Shoulder muscle activity in Parkinson's disease during multijoint arm movements across a range of speeds.

Bradykinesia is one of the primary symptoms of Parkinson disease and leads to significant functional limitations for patients. Single joint movement studies, that have investigated the mechanism of bradykinesia, suggest that several features of muscle activity are disrupted, including modulation of burst amplitude and duration, and the number of bursts. It has been proposed that it is the blending of these different burst deficits that collectively defines bradykinesia.

General coordination of shoulder, elbow and wrist dynamics during multijoint arm movements.

Studies of multijoint arm movements have demonstrated that the nervous system anticipates and plans for the mechanical effects that arise from motion of the linked limb segments. The general rules by which the nervous system selects appropriate muscle activities and torques to best deal with these intersegmental effects are largely unknown. In order to reveal possible rules, this study examined the relationship of muscle and interaction torques to joint acceleration at the shoulder, elbow and wrist during point-to-point arm movements to a range of targets in the horizontal plane.