Gastrocnemius operating length with ankle foot orthoses in cerebral palsy.

Background: Many individuals with cerebral palsy wear ankle foot orthoses during daily life. Orthoses influence joint motion, but how they impact muscle remains unclear. In particular, the gastrocnemius is commonly stiff in cerebral palsy.

Effectiveness of diffusion tensor imaging in assessing disease severity in Duchenne muscular dystrophy: preliminary study.

Background: There is currently a lack of suitable objective endpoints to measure disease progression in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). Emerging research suggests that diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) has potential as an outcome measure for the evaluation of skeletal muscle injury.

Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the potential of DTI as quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) markers of disease severity in DMD.