Effects of Kinesio tape on individuals with carpal tunnel syndrome: a randomized controlled study.

Objective: Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is a common neuromuscular disorder with an incidence rate of 4.9%. Research on the impact of Kinesio taping (KT) on electroneurography in individuals with CTS is limited, highlighting a significant gap in the literature.

Effects of Thermal Stimulation and Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation on Sensory and Motor Function of Upper Extremity in Acute Stroke Survivors: A Randomized Controlled Pilot Study.

Objective Upper-limb coordination is crucial for daily activities, especially among stroke survivors who may encounter obstacles during upper-limb rehabilitation. This study aimed to investigate the effects of thermal stimulation (TS) and transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) on sensory and motor function during recovery in acute stroke patients. Design This is a parallel study with a randomized controlled design.

A Physiological-Signal-Based Thermal Sensation Model for Indoor Environment Thermal Comfort Evaluation.

Traditional heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) control systems rely mostly on static models, such as Fanger's predicted mean vote (PMV) to predict human thermal comfort in indoor environments. Such models consider environmental parameters, such as room temperature, humidity, etc., and indirect human factors, such as metabolic rate, clothing, etc.

Measuring the Reliability of Postural Sway Measurements for a Static Standing Task: The Effect of Age.

A force plate is used to determine the ability to balance ability. However, only some medical centers or laboratories are equipped with force plates because they are costly so a low-cost force plate is required for home care or health care institutes. Few studies compare the reliability of postural sway measurements in terms of age.

Effect of Music Intervention on Lung Expansion Exercises after Cardiothoracic Surgery.

Background: Music intervention can reduce anxiety. This study analyzed the physiological changes from using music intervention after cardiothoracic surgery. Methods: Subjects were randomly assigned to the music group or the control group.

The Associations between Self-Determined Motivation, Multidimensional Self-Efficacy, and Device-Measured Physical Activity.

Self-determined motivation (SDT) and self-efficacy theory have been widely used for understanding individuals' physical activity motivation and self-efficacy. However, there is a gap of evidence on the relations between SDT and multidimensional self-efficacy with device-measured physical activity in healthy adults. Questionnaires including the behavior regulation in exercise questionnaire version 2 (BREQ-2) and the multidimensional self-efficacy for exercise scale (MSES) were completed by the participants at baseline.

Characterizing the Validity of the Inverted Pendulum Model for Quiet Standing.

By assuming that the human body rotates primarily around the ankle joint in the sagittal plane, the human body has been modelled as a single inverted pendulum (IP) to simulate the human quiet stance. Despite its popularity, the validity of the IP model has been challenged in many studies. Rather than testing the validity of the IP model as a true or false question, this work proposes a feature to quantify the degree of validity of the IP model.

Characteristics of the Electrophysiological Properties of Neuromuscular Motor Units and Its Adaptive Strategy Response in Lower Extremity Muscles for Seniors with Pre-Sarcopenia: A Preliminary Study.

Older adults with sarcopenia, which is an aging-related phenomenon of muscle mass loss, usually suffer from decreases in both strength and functional performance. However, the causality between function loss and physiological changes is unclear. This study aimed to explore the motor unit characteristics of the neurological factors between normal subjects and those with sarcopenia.

The Effect of Walking Backward on a Treadmill on Balance, Speed of Walking and Cardiopulmonary Fitness for Patients with Chronic Stroke: A Pilot Study.

This study determines the effect of walking backward on a treadmill on balance, speed of walking and cardiopulmonary fitness for patients with chronic stroke. Subjects with chronic stroke for more than six months, whose level of Brunnstrom stage is greater than IV and who are able to walk more than eleven meters with or without assistive devices were recruited. After grouping for a single-blind clinical randomized controlled trial, the subjects were divided into two groups: eight in the control group and eight in the experimental group.

Backward Walking Induces Significantly Larger Upper-Mu-Rhythm Suppression Effects Than Forward Walking Does.

Studies have compared the differences and similarities between backward walking and forward walking, and demonstrated the potential of backward walking for gait rehabilitation. However, current evidence supporting the benefits of backward walking over forward walking remains inconclusive. Considering the proven association between gait and the cerebral cortex, we used electroencephalograms (EEG) to differentiate the effects of backward walking and forward walking on cortical activities, by comparing the sensorimotor rhythm (8-12 Hz, also called mu rhythm) of EEG signals.

The Recovery Benefit on Skin Blood Flow Using Vibrating Foam Rollers for Postexercise Muscle Fatigue in Runners.

Purpose: To determine the effect of vibrating rollers on skin blood flow after running for recovery from muscle fatigue.

Method: 23 healthy runners, aged between 20 to 45 years, participated in a crossover trial. Muscle fatigue was induced by running, and recovery using a vibrating roller was determined before and after the intervention.

Will the Foot Strike Pattern Change at Different Running Speeds with or without Wearing Shoes?

Runners strike their feet with three different patterns during running: forefoot, midfoot, and rearfoot. This study aimed to investigate whether runners maintain consistent patterns while running speed and foot condition change. The foot strike patterns of runners when running on a treadmill at paces ranging from slow to fast were recorded from twenty healthy male regular runners, with and without shoes, in random order.

Near-Infrared Spectroscopy for Monitoring Sternocleidomastoid Muscular Oxygenation during Isometric Flexion for Patients with Mild Nonspecific Neck Pain: A Pilot Study.

Since there is merit in noninvasive monitoring of muscular oxidative metabolism for near-infrared spectroscopy in a wide range of clinical scenarios, the present study attempted to evaluate the clinical usability for featuring the modulatory strategies of sternocleidomastoid muscular oxygenation using near-infrared spectroscopy in mild nonspecific neck pain patients. The muscular oxygenation variables of the dominant or affected sternocleidomastoid muscles of interest were extracted at 25% of the maximum voluntary isometric contraction from ten patients (5 males and 5 females, 23.6 ± 4.

Developing a Low-Cost Force Treadmill via Dynamic Modeling.

By incorporating force transducers into treadmills, force platform-instrumented treadmills (commonly called force treadmills) can collect large amounts of gait data and enable the ground reaction force (GRF) to be calculated. However, the high cost of force treadmills has limited their adoption. This paper proposes a low-cost force treadmill system with force sensors installed underneath a standard exercise treadmill.

Characteristics of the Motor Units during Sternocleidomastoid Isometric Flexion among Patients with Mechanical Neck Disorder and Asymptomatic Individuals.

Mechanical neck disorder is a widespread and non-neurological musculoskeletal condition resulting from modern lifestyles. Presently, the fundamental electrophysiological properties of the motor units of the sternocleidomastoid muscles and the characteristics of the short-term synchronization of the motor unit in patients with neck pain are ambiguous. This study therefore aims to clarify the fundamental electrophysiological properties of the motor units of the sternocleidomastoid muscles in patients with mechanical neck disorder and in asymptomatic individuals.

Plantar Pressure Detection with Fiber Bragg Gratings Sensing System.

In this paper, a novel fiber-optic sensing system based on fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) to measure foot plantar pressure is proposed. This study first explores the Pedar-X insole foot pressure types of the adult-size chart and then defines six measurement areas to effectively identify four foot types: neutral foot, cavus foot, supinated foot and flat foot. The plantar pressure signals are detected by only six FBGs, which are embedded in silicone rubber.

Acute Effects of Foam Rolling, Static Stretching, and Dynamic Stretching During Warm-ups on Muscular Flexibility and Strength in Young Adults.

Context: Foam rolling has been proposed to improve muscle function, performance, and joint range of motion (ROM). However, whether a foam rolling protocol can be adopted as a warm-up to improve flexibility and muscle strength is unclear.

Objectives: To examine and compare the acute effects of foam rolling, static stretching, and dynamic stretching used as part of a warm-up on flexibility and muscle strength of knee flexion and extension.

Assessing postural stability via the correlation patterns of vertical ground reaction force components.

Background: Many methods have been proposed to assess the stability of human postural balance by using a force plate. While most of these approaches characterize postural stability by extracting features from the trajectory of the center of pressure (COP), this work develops stability measures derived from components of the ground reaction force (GRF).

Methods: In comparison with previous GRF-based approaches that extract stability features from the GRF resultant force, this study proposes three feature sets derived from the correlation patterns among the vertical GRF (VGRF) components.

The effect of six weeks of sling exercise training on trunk muscular strength and endurance for clients with low back pain.

[Purpose] The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of 6 weeks sling exercise training for clients with low back pain on the levels of pain, disability, muscular strength and endurance. [Subjects and Methods] Twelve chronic LBP subjects participated in this study. Subjects were randomly divided into a control group and a training group.

Adaptive Patterns of Movement during Downward Reach and Pick-up Movements in Knee Osteoarthritis Patients with Mild Low Back Pain.

[Purpose] Patients with severe bilateral knee osteoarthritis (KOA) often suffer from low back pain (LBP). However, few studies have examined the relationship between LBP and KOA in downward reach and pick-up movements. [Subjects] Eight KOA patients with LBP (LBP group), 8 KOA patients without LBP (NLBP group), and 7 healthy participants (Control group), without osteoarthritis or low back pain, were recruited for this study.

Underlying mechanisms of Tai-Chi-Chuan training for improving balance ability in the elders.

Objective: To compare balance ability between elderly individuals who practiced Tai-Chi-Chuan (TCC) for average 9.64 years and elderly individuals who did not practice TCC and its relationship with lower extremity muscle strength and ankle proprioception.

Methods: Twenty-five elderly volunteers were divided into two groups according to their TCC practcing experience.

Comparison of neck movement smoothness between patients with mechanical neck disorder and healthy volunteers using the spectral entropy method.

Purpose: Mechanical neck disorder is one of the most common health issues. No related observations have applied spectral entropy to explore the smoothness of cervical movement. Therefore, the objectives were to ascertain whether the spectral entropy of time-series linear acceleration could extend to estimate the smoothness of cervical movement and compare the characteristics of the smoothness of cervical movement in patients with mechanical neck pain (MND) with healthy volunteers.

Timeframe for return to driving for patients with minimally invasive knee arthroplasty is associated with knee performance on functional tests.

Background: This study hopes to establish the timeframe for a safe return to driving under different speed conditions for patients after minimally invasive total knee arthroplasty and further explores how well various kinds of functional tests on knee performance can predict the patients' braking ability.

Methods: 14 patients with right knee osteoarthritis were included in the present study and instructed to perform three simulated driving tasks at preoperative, 2 weeks postoperative and 4 weeks postoperative.

Results: The results showed that the total braking time at 4 week postoperative has attained the preoperative level at the driving speed 50 and 70 km/hr but not at the driving speed 90 km/hr.

Influence of working memory task and time on postural control of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

[Purpose] To investigate how balance changes develop across time under different conditions (with or without a memory task) for children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). [Subjects and Methods] The participants were 11 children with ADHD and 12 normal children. To determine their static balance ability, a force plate was used to measure the center of the pressure trajectory.

A new concept for quantifying the complicated kinematics of the cervical spine and its application in evaluating the impairment of clients with mechanical neck disorders.

Mechanical neck disorder (MND) is one of the most common health issues and is characterized by restricted cervical mobility. However, traditional kinematic information often focuses on primary movement in the cardinal plane, which seems insufficient to fully determine the kinematics of the cervical spine because of the complexity of the anatomical structures involved. Therefore, the current investigation aimed to modify the concept of the three-dimensional workspace to propose an objective mathematical model to quantify the complicated kinematics of the cervical spine.