Cognitive and neurobehavioral symptoms in patients with non-metastatic prostate cancer treated with androgen deprivation therapy or observation: A mixed methods study.

Background: Few studies have investigated prostate cancer patients' experiences of cognitive functioning or neurobehavioral symptoms (i.e., behavioral changes associated with neurological dysfunction) following androgen deprivation therapy (ADT).

Stroke survivors talk while doing: development of a therapeutic framework for continued rehabilitation of hand function post stroke.

Study Design: Qualitative study to identify themes and explore mechanisms underlying recovery of hand function post stroke for individuals discharged from rehabilitation services.

Purpose Of The Study: Post-stroke hemiparesis frequently results in persistent hand dysfunction; the mechanisms of functional recovery are however poorly understood. We assessed the perspectives of community-dwelling individuals with chronic stroke on their hand function limitations and recovery to explore the feasibility of developing a theoretical framework for understanding the process of continued post-stroke recovery.

Participation as an outcome measure in psychosocial oncology: content of cancer-specific health-related quality of life instruments.

Purpose: To examine to what extent the concept and the domains of participation as defined in the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) are represented in general cancer-specific health-related quality of life (HRQOL) instruments.

Methods: Using the ICF linking rules, two coders independently extracted the meaningful concepts of ten instruments and linked these to ICF codes.

Results: The proportion of concepts that could be linked to ICF codes ranged from 68 to 95%.

The value of traditional reviews in the era of systematic reviewing.

Reviews offer examinations of published material on a topic, and are becoming indispensable in keeping up with an exponentially growing rehabilitation literature. Adherents of the systematic reviews that support evidence-based practice have been quite dismissive of narrative (traditional, qualitative, and nonsystematic) reviews. However, the types of problems that plague the latter may also be found in systematic reviews, which, in addition, have problems of their own.

Assessing fatigue after traumatic brain injury: an evaluation of the HIV-Related Fatigue Scale [corrected].

Objectives: To assess the suitability of the HIV-Related Fatigue Scale (BFS) [corrected] for assessment of posttraumatic brain injury (post-TBI) fatigue.

Design: Analysis of self-report data.

Setting: Community.

Reliability of the Bryce/Ragnarsson spinal cord injury pain taxonomy.

Background/objective: Pain is a common secondary complication of spinal cord injury (SCI). However, the literature offers varying estimates of the numbers of persons with SCI who develop pain. The variability in these numbers is caused in part by differences in the classification of pain; there is currently no commonly accepted classification system for pain affecting persons after SCI.

Quality of life of individuals with spinal cord injury: a review of conceptualization, measurement, and research findings.

Quality of life (QoL) is increasingly becoming a key concept in research and clinical services. However, no agreement exists on what QoL is and how it is to be measured. This paper reviews three different yet linked approaches to QoL conceptualization: QoL as subjective well-being; QoL as achievement; and QoL as utility.

Participation objective, participation subjective: a measure of participation combining outsider and insider perspectives.

Background: Participation now replaces community integration or handicap as concepts reflecting the social and interpersonal aspects of disability. If rehabilitation is to adequately measure participation, new measures of participation are needed. To represent the voice of the consumer, such measures should reflect not just "objective," normative aspects, but also subjective ones, tapping the consumer's view of participation.

Psychometrics and clinimetrics in assessing environments. A comment suggested by Mackenzie et al., 2002.

Psychometrics is the name commonly used for the principles and methods of developing valid and reliable measures of intelligence, attitudes, skills, and other characteristics. One focus of psychometrics is the homogeneity of the items selected to measure the (unidimensional) latent construct of interest. Clinical scientists often use operationalizations of constructs that incorporate multiple dimensions, which may be quantified using only a single indicator.