The new hospital discharge form for inpatient rehabilitation in Italy: a step forward to promote the role of rehabilitation in the healthcare system.

Background: In Italy, longstanding limitations in the existing reporting system of the inpatient rehabilitation activities have been reported. The Hospital Discharge form (HDF) primarily uses ICD codes that inadequately capture the functional status and rehabilitation needs of patients, impacting equity of care and service evaluation. Therefore, the Italian Ministry of Health (IMH) launched an initiative aimed at developing a new reporting system to be specifically adopted in the inpatient rehabilitation setting.

Non-Surgical Treatment of Knee Osteoarthritis: Multidisciplinary Italian Consensus on Best Practice.

The aim of this document is to provide a set of indications on the national best practice management of knee osteoarthritis based on an analysis of the existing literature and the contribution of experts in the field. During the first phase of the project, in agreement with the multidisciplinary panel of experts, the main guidelines on the topic were selected. Each guideline was assessed through the AGREEII system to identify their strong/weak points and a summary of the recommendations contained in the various documents was drawn up.

Dynamic Stability and Trunk Control Improvements Following Robotic Balance and Core Stability Training in Chronic Stroke Survivors: A Pilot Study.

Stroke survivors show greater postural oscillations and altered muscular activation compared to healthy controls. This results in difficulties in walking and standing, and in an increased risk of falls. A proper control of the trunk is related to a stable walk and to a lower falling risk; to this extent, rehabilitative protocols are currently working on core stability.

Guidelines for the management of osteoporosis and fragility fractures.

The purpose of this document, a result of the harmonisation and revision of Guidelines published separately by the SIMFER, SIOMMMS/SIR, and SIOT associations, is to provide practical indications based on specific levels of evidence and various grades of recommendations, drawn from available literature, for the management of osteoporosis and for the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of fragility fractures. These indications were discussed and formally approved by the delegates of the Italian Scientific Associations involved in the project (SIE, SIGG, SIMFER, SIMG, SIMI, SIOMMMS, SIR, and SIOT).

Training the Unimpaired Arm Improves the Motion of the Impaired Arm and the Sitting Balance in Chronic Stroke Survivors.

Robot-assisted rehabilitation of stroke survivors mainly focuses on the impaired side of the body while the role of the unimpaired side in the recovery after stroke is still controversial. The goal of this study is to investigate the influence on sitting balance and paretic arm functions of a training protocol based on movements of the unimpaired arm. Sixteen chronic stroke survivors underwent nineteen training sessions, in which they performed active movements with the unimpaired arm supported by a passive exoskeleton.

Early and long term outcome in older dysvascular amputees.

In this short report are analyzed, as reported in the scientific literature, the major complications and prognostic factors of clinical andfunctional outcomes in subjects lower limb amputees, mainly from vascular causes, referring to the bio-psycho-social model.

Cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the Neck Bournemouth Questionnaire in the Italian population.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to cross-culturally adapt the Neck Bournemouth Questionnaire in Italian (NBQ-I) and validate its psychometric properties in a sample of subjects with chronic neck pain.

Methods: The NBQ-I was developed according to international standards. The psychometric testing included the content validity, assessed by considering the relevance and comprehensiveness of the items, the structural validity by factor analysis, the construct validity and the responsiveness by mean of hypotheses testing process comparing, respectively, the test scores and the changes scores of the NBQ-I with those of the Neck Pain and Disability Scale, the Numerical Rating Scale for Pain, the EuroQoL 5 Dimension Index and its numerical rating scale.

Reliability, validity and responsiveness of the cross-culturally adapted Italian version of the core outcome measures index (COMI) for the neck.

Purpose: Evaluation of the psychometric properties of a cross-culturally adapted questionnaire, the Core Outcome Measurement Index for neck pain (COMI-neck).

Methods: The COMI-neck was cross-culturally adapted for the Italian language using established procedures. The following psychometric properties of the instrument were then assessed in patients with chronic neck pain undergoing rehabilitation: test-retest reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient, ICC); construct validity by comparing COMI-neck with the Neck Pain and Disability Scale, a numerical pain rating scale, and the EuroQol-Five Dimension (Pearson's correlations); and responsiveness by means of Standardized Response Mean (SRM), unpaired t tests, and Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) curves.

Prevention of venous thromboembolism in immobilized neurological patients: Guidelines of the Italian Society for Haemostasis and Thrombosis (SISET).

Neurological disorders are often associated with immobilization, thus placing patients at increased risk for venous thromboembolism (VTE). This risk is very high in patients with acute ischemic stroke and spinal cord injuries, and it remains poorly defined in patients with peripheral nervous disorders or degenerative disorders of the central nervous system. The benefit of prophylactic strategies remains often unclear.