Sensing form - finger gaiting as key to tactile object exploration - a data glove analysis of a prototypical daily task.

Background: Motor hand skill and associated dexterity is important for meeting the challenges of daily activity and an important resource post-stroke. In this context, the present study investigated the finger movements of right-handed subjects during tactile manipulation of a cuboid, a prototypical task underlying tactile exploration. During one motor act, the thumb and fingers of one hand surround the cuboid in a continuous and regular manner.

Early prediction of long-term tactile object recognition performance after sensorimotor stroke.

Until now tactile agnosia has been reported only in small, but detailed cross-sectional case studies. Here we show that multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA) of early diffusion-weighted lesion maps can be used to accurately predict long-term recovery of tactile object recognition (TOR) in 35 subjects with varying hand skill impairment and associated specific daily activity limitation after cortical sensori-motor stroke. Multiple regression analysis revealed the essentially dysfunctional subprocesses for object recognition in the specifically impaired subjects, i.

Development and Validation of a Prognostic Model of Swallowing Recovery and Enteral Tube Feeding After Ischemic Stroke.

Importance: Predicting the duration of poststroke dysphagia is important to guide therapeutic decisions. Guidelines recommend nasogastric tube (NGT) feeding if swallowing impairment persists for 7 days or longer and percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) placement if dysphagia does not recover within 30 days, but, to our knowledge, a systematic prediction method does not exist.

Objective: To develop and validate a prognostic model predicting swallowing recovery and the need for enteral tube feeding.

The effect of a single dose of escitalopram on sensorimotor networks.

Introduction: Serving as a pilot study of poststroke pharmacotherapy, the present investigation was intended to establish the effect of a single dose of escitalopram on motor task performance in normal volunteers.

Methods: Ten healthy volunteers of median age 63 years including four females performed a well-studied tactile manipulation task in two fMRI sessions using a double-blind cross-over design. The sessions began approximately three hours after ingestion of 20 mg escitalopram or placebo presented in pseudorandom order.

Prolonged impairment of deglutition in supratentorial ischaemic stroke: the predictive value of Parramatta Hospitals' Assessment of Dysphagia.

Background: Up to 50% of ischaemic stroke patients show initial dysphagia, which may persist for months. Guidelines recommend switching nasogastric (NG) to percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) tube feeding at the second week after the stroke if impaired deglutition is expected for another 4 weeks. Precise prognostic criteria are lacking.

Diagnostic accuracy of soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (suPAR) for prediction of bacteremia in patients with systemic inflammatory response syndrome.

Objectives: Soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (suPAR) serum concentrations have recently been described to reflect the severity status of systemic inflammation. In this study, the diagnostic accuracy of suPAR, C-reactive protein (CRP), procalcitonin (PCT), and interleukin-6 (IL-6) to predict bacteremia in patients with systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) was compared.

Methods: A total of 132 patients with SIRS were included.