Objective: This study aimed to validate the assessment of anorexia in patients with acute stroke using the Simplified Nutritional Appetite Questionnaire.
Methods: This cross-sectional observational study assessed appetite using the Simplified Nutritional Appetite Questionnaire in patients with acute stroke at discharge from an acute care hospital. Additionally, the relationship between the Simplified Nutritional Appetite Questionnaire and Mini Nutritional Assessment, Mini Nutritional Assessment - Short Form scores, skeletal muscle mass, muscle strength, and activities of daily living measured using the Functional Independence Measures for the motor domain was investigated.
Introduction: Body lateropulsion (BL) is an active lateral tilt of the body during standing or walking that is thought to be affected by a lesion of the vestibulospinal tract (VST) and the subjective visual vertical (SVV) tilt. Interventions for BL have not been established.
Objective: We examined the effects of postural-control training with different sensory reweighting on standing postural control in a patient with BL.
Pain facilitation contributes to chronic pain conditions. Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) is used to alleviate pain. The effects of conventional TENS on chronic pain have been limited, and its effects on pain facilitation are controversial.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPostural imbalance, abnormal axial posture, and axial rigidity are the characteristic features of Parkinson's disease (PD), and they are referred to as axial symptoms. The symptoms are difficult to manage since they are often resistant to both L-DOPA and deep brain stimulation. Hence, other treatments that can improve Parkinsonian axial symptoms without adverse effects are required.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Weight loss after a stroke is associated with poor outcomes. However, the causes of weight loss in the acute phase of a stroke are not fully understood. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between acute weight changes and cachexia criteria in patients with an acute stroke.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Footsteps and walking trajectories during the Timed Up and Go test (TUG), and their relationships with spatiotemporal gait parameters during turning in people with Parkinson's disease (PD) and older people have not been clarified.
Research Question: We investigated the footsteps, walking trajectories, and spatiotemporal parameters during the TUG in PD, healthy older (HO), and healthy young (HY) subjects and the associations between the parameters of footsteps or walking trajectories and the spatiotemporal parameters during turning.
Methods: Twenty-six PD, 20 HO, and 20 HY subjects participated.
The vestibulospinal tract (VST) plays an important role in the control of the ipsilateral antigravity muscles, and the balance of left and right VST excitability is important in human postural control. A method for measuring VST excitability is the application of galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) before tibial nerve stimulation that evokes the soleus H-reflex; the change rate of the H-reflex amplitude is then evaluated. Assessments of VST excitability and the left and right balance could be useful when determining the pathology for interventions in postural control impairments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe human vestibulospinal tract has important roles in postural control, but it has been unknown whether vestibulospinal tract excitability is influenced by the body's postures. We investigated whether postures influence the vestibulospinal tract excitability by a neurophysiological method, i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAn increase of hip abductor muscle strength contributes to the increase in gait speed. It is known that the rate of force development (RFD), an indicator of muscle strength, is increased by the combined use of low-intensity neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) to the glutaeus medius (GM) and low-load resistance training (RT). However, it is unclear whether low-intensity neuromuscular electrical stimulation of the glutaeus medius during walking also increases the rate of force development.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe body's subjective postural vertical (SPV) has been thought to be affected by somatosensory information. How the SPV is perceived based on what types of somatosensory information has not been determined experimentally by manipulating somatosensory conditions. We investigated the effects of disturbing the somatosensory information from a seat pad and/or vestibular sensory information on the SPV in 15 healthy adults.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) is a non-invasive treatment to relieve pain. Contralateral TENS (i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The relationship between peak torque of the knee extensor muscles and gait speed was previously investigated in patients with chronic stroke, but whether the rate of force development (RFD), another indicator of muscle strength, affected gait speed remained unknown.
Objective: To clarify the relationships between the RFD of the knee extensor muscles over multiple time intervals and gait speed in patients with chronic stroke.
Methods: Twenty chronic stroke patients participated in this study.
We present a 47-year-old right-handed woman with a 15-year history of writer's cramp who was provided with six sessions of cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) combined with observation of writing actions performed by a healthy subject and electromyographic (EMG) biofeedback training to decrease EMG activities in her right forehand muscles while writing for 30 min for 4 weeks. She showed improvement in dystonic posture and writing speed after the intervention. The writing movement and writing speed scores on a writer's cramp rating scale decreased, along with writing time.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To compare sensory-level neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) and conventional motor-level NMES in patients after total knee arthroplasty.
Design: Prospective randomized single-blind trial.
Setting: Hospital total arthroplasty center: inpatients.
Objective: Galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) activates the vestibular afferents, and these changes in vestibular input exert a strong influence on the subject's posture or standing balance. In patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), vestibular dysfunction might contribute to postural instability and gait disorders.
Methods: Current intensity was increased to 0.
Galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) stimulates the vestibular system electrically with low-amplitude direct current through surface electrodes applied to the left and right mastoids. The effects of GVS on unilateral spatial neglect (USN) in poststroke patients were recently reported, but the influence of the current intensity and application duration of GVS on USN has not been sufficiently investigated. Here we explored the influence of these stimulus parameters on USN.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study investigated the effects of binaural monopolar galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS), which likely stimulates the bilateral vestibular system, on the anterior bending angle in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) with anterior bending posture in a single-blind, randomized sham-controlled crossover trial. The seven PD patients completed two types of stimulation (binaural monopolar GVS and sham stimulation) applied in a random order 1 week apart. We measured each patient's anterior bending angles while he or she stood with eyes open and eyes closed before/after the stimulations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: A recent study investigated the effects of galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) on pusher behavior (PB) in post-stroke patients. However, there have been no reports about the effects of multisession GVS on PB.
Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the feasibility and effects of multisession GVS combined with physical therapy for PB in stroke patients.
Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) for treatment of postoperative pain and pulmonary functions (vital capacity [VC]; cough peak flow, [CPF]) in patients who underwent abdominal surgery.
Materials And Methods: Forty-eight patients were randomly allocated to receive TENS, placebo TENS, or no TENS (control) 1 hour a day for 3 days postoperatively. A 0-100 visual analog scale was used to assess pain at preintervention, mid-intervention, and postintervention on the third postoperative day.
Background: Mirror therapy (MT) and electromyography-triggered neuromuscular stimulation (ETMS) are both effective treatments for impaired upper limbs following stroke. A combination of these two treatments (ETMS-MT) may result in greater gain than either treatment alone.
Objectives: The feasibility and possible effects of ETMS-MT upon upper extremity function were investigated in stroke patients.
Background: Atherothrombosis due to arteriosclerosis is a risk factor for recurrence of stroke. Although exercise therapy is essential to prevent progression of arteriosclerosis and to improve endothelial function, little is known about the effect of rehabilitation in chronic stroke survivors.
Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of intensive rehabilitation on physical and arterial function among community-dwelling stroke survivors.
Objective: To investigate the feasibility of peripheral sensory nerve stimulation combined with task-oriented training in patients with stroke during inpatient rehabilitation.
Design: A pilot randomized crossover trial.
Setting: Two rehabilitation hospitals.
Physiother Theory Pract
May 2012
Stroke patients are at a higher risk of falling than the community-dwelling elderly, and many falls are due to contact with an obstacle. This study compared the effects of the simultaneous addition of a cognitive task during obstacle crossing between stroke patients and community-dwelling older adults (control subjects). Participants comprised 20 stroke patients who could walk with or without supervision and 20 control subjects matched for age and height with the stroke patients.
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