Rehabilitation medicine in palliative care of chronic neurological conditions.

Background: People living with long-term neurological conditions (LTNC) often require palliative care. Rehabilitation medicine specialists often coordinate the long-term care of these patients.

Objective: The aim of the present review was to undertake systematic literature searches to identify the evidence on palliative care for people with LTNC to guide rehabilitation medicine specialists caring for these patients in the UK.

Clinicians' perspectives on decision making in lower limb amputee rehabilitation.

Objective: Decision making within amputee rehabilitation includes the assessment of whether a patient is suitable for a prosthesis and if so, what components to provide. This study seeks to increase understanding about clinicians' perspectives on what factors influence these decisions.

Method: One-to-one semi-structured interviews were completed with 23 experienced clinicians at their place of work at 4 UK amputee rehabilitation centres.

Can simple clinical tests predict walking ability after prosthetic rehabilitation?

Objective: To investigate whether simple clinical measures can predict walking ability after lower limb prosthetic rehabilitation.

Design: Prospective observational study.

Subjects: Ninety five adults who were assessed as suitable for lower limb prosthetic rehabilitation by the multidisciplinary team.

Predicting walking ability following lower limb amputation: a systematic review of the literature.

Objective: To investigate factors that predict walking with a prosthesis after lower limb amputation.

Design: Systematic literature review.

Methods: A computer-aided literature search of MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL and the Cochrane Library was performed to identify studies published up to August 2007 that investigated factors that predicted walking ability after lower limb amputation.