Multi-center, single-blind randomized controlled trial comparing functional electrical stimulation therapy to conventional therapy in incomplete tetraplegia.

Background: Loss of upper extremity function after tetraplegia results in significant disability. Emerging evidence from pilot studies suggests that functional electrical stimulation (FES) therapy may enhance recovery of upper extremity function after tetraplegia. The aim of this trial was to determine the effectiveness of FES therapy delivered by the Myndmove stimulator in people with tetraplegia.

"Venice marathon": participation of female Master Athletes shows a constant increase from 2003 to 2019.

The marathon is the most classic Olympic running event. In several cities worldwide it has become very popular with participation increasing during the last 20 years, particularly by Master Athletes. There are evidences that long-distance running could provide considerable health benefits for older runners, specifically risk reduction of cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, depression, and falls.

Paolo Gava, a professional engineer, who has become a Master athlete, an amateur scientist and a lifelong friend.

Paolo Gava, (Conegliano, Treviso, September 1, 1946 - Stra, Venezia, Italy, July 19, 2021) was a sustainable resources engineer, who worked in Italy, France and England, leading research programs well before the current international interest in countering global warming. Passionate about Tango, Paolo kept himself in shape for many decades by running or pedaling or roller-skating, after years of training as a semi-professional athlete, competing and winning Italian and European short distance races in the Master classes. Then, Paolo applied his engineering skills to optimize comparisons between the results of the different Classes of Master Athletes, questioning the rules used by Italian and World Master Sports Associations.

Return-to-driving following acquired brain injury: A neuropsychological perspective.

Background: Return to driving after an acquired brain injury (ABI) has been positively associated with return to employment, maintenance of social relationships, and engagement in recreational and other community activities. Safe driving involves multiple cognitive abilities in a dynamic environment, and cognitive dysfunction resulting from ABI can negatively impact driving performance.

Objective: This manuscript examines the post-injury return-to-driving process, including performances on the in-office and on-road assessments, and the role of a rehabilitation neuropsychologist in helping patients resume driving.

Skeletal muscle weakness in older adults home-restricted due to COVID-19 pandemic: a role for full-body in-bed gym and functional electrical stimulation.

Persons suffering with systemic neuromuscular disorders or chronic organ failures, spend less time for daily physical activity, aggravating their mobility impairments. From 2020, patients at risk are also older adults, who, though negative for the SARS-Cov-2 infection, suffer with a fatigue syndrome due to home restriction/quarantine. Besides eventual psycological managements, it could be useful to offer to these patients a rehabilitation workouts easy to learn and to independently repeat at home (Full-Body In-Bed Gym).

Limbic encephalitis and Post-Acute neuropsychology rehabilitation: A review and case examples.

Rehabilitation research on limbic encephalitis (LE), a rare disorder characterized by inflammation of the brain caused by autoimmunity or infection, has focused on acute rather than post-acute management of symptoms. The frequency of clinical relapse in encephalitis ranges from 12% to 35%. Commonly, individuals diagnosed with LE experience relapses or breakthrough seizures during their post-acute treatment.

COVID-19: Screening and triage challenges in people with disability due to Spinal Cord Injury.

An outbreak of a novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) that emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan has rapidly become a global public health pandemic. As of March 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has described priority levels for testing patients with suspected COVID-19 and information on when to seek medical attention. However, there is a paucity of further guidance for people with spinal cord injury (SCI) who may not present with typical symptoms of COVID-19 due to altered physiology.

Mild TBI in interdisciplinary neurorehabilitation: Treatment challenges and insights.

Backround: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) has an estimated prevalence rate of 1.7 million occurrences a year in the United States with over 75% of traumatic brain injuries classified as 'mild.' The majority of individuals with mild traumatic brain injuries resume their daily functioning fairly quickly, and many fully within the first year.

Blood contamination, a problem or a lucky chance to analyze non-invasively Myokines in mouth fluids?

Use of saliva in clinical studies are increasing to identify methods less invasive than blood sampling in search for systemic changes of biomarkers related to physical activity, aging, late aging and rehabilitation. The consensus is that the diagnostic value of whole saliva is compromised by the presence of blood, but we are looking at the contamination as a major opportunity for non-invasive analyses of serological biomarkers. The aim of this preliminary study was to evaluate the presence of serum in mouth fluids of healthy seniors and the eventual changes after a modest trauma, i.

Sex-Based Differences in Perceived Pragmatic Communication Ability of Adults With Traumatic Brain Injury.

Objective: To identify sex-based differences in self-reported and close other-reported perceptions of communication behaviors in adults with traumatic brain injury (TBI).

Design: Between-groups comparison of questionnaire data from men and women with TBI and their close others.

Setting: University academic department.

Treatment of chronic low back pain with tropisetron.

Background: Various pathophysiological processes can lead to chronic back pain, which necessitates a differentiated therapeutic approach. In addition, psychic and psychosocial processes may influence the clinical picture.

Method: Twenty-five patients with chronic back pain were enrolled in the study.

Treatment of systemic sclerosis with the 5-HT3 receptor antagonist tropisetron.

Background: There is no known disease-modifying therapy for progressive systemic sclerosis.

Objectives: It was shown that a patient with secondary fibromyalgia syndrome for whom the development of systemic sclerosis was suspected because of a Raynaud's phenomenon and the presence of SCL-70 antibodies in the serum had experienced a clear pain reduction under treatment with tropisteron, which is the reason why this drug was also used with established systemic sclerosis.

Method: Two patients with progressive systemic sclerosis and positive SCL-70 antibodies were treated for 6 weeks with 5 mg tropisetron daily.

Local treatment of tendinopathies and myofascial pain syndromes with the 5-HT3 receptor antagonist tropisetron.

Unlabelled: The use of local tropisetron injections improved the treatment of tendinopathies considerably, with the effect being comparable to the topical application of local anaesthetics combined with depot corticosteroids. On the other hand, local injection of prilocaine alone exerted a shorter and weaker effect on the condition.

Objectives: After it had been proven that systemic application of the 5-HT3 receptor antagonist tropisetron exerts an analgesic effect on musculoskeletal pain in fibromyalgia, we investigated the efficacy of the substance in tendinopathies and myofascial pain syndromes.

Influence of tropisetron on the serum substance P levels in fibromyalgia patients.

Background: Substance P is found at an elevated level in the cerebrospinal fluid of fibromyalgia (FM) patients. Treatment with tropisetron leads in a subgroup of FM patients to pain reduction. The question arises of whether the substance P level in the serum can be changed by tropisetron treatment.

Arousals and aircraft noise - environmental disorders of sleep and health in terms of sleep medicine.

World wide rules for sleep staging originate to 1967. Since then many investigations aimed to give numbers for the degree of sleep disturbances due to air traffic noise. But the variables used, such as the amount of relative sleep stages, total sleep time, or sleep efficiency, could not explain impairment in health and performance sufficiently.

Reforms of health care system in Romania.

Aim: To describe health care reforms and analyze the transition of the health care system in Romania in the 1989-2001 period.

Method: We analyzed policy documents, political intentions and objectives of health care reform, described new legislation, and presented changes in financial resources of the health care system.

Results: The reforms of the health care system in Romania have been realized in a rather difficult context of scarcity of financial and human resources.

Peripheral neuropathies of childhood.

This article has provided a brief overview of the most common inherited and acquired peripheral nerve diseases encountered in childhood. The diagnostic approach of peripheral neuropathies in children often relies on some combination of careful history taking, physical examination findings, a careful determination of family history, electrodiagnostic studies, molecular genetic studies, sural nerve biopsy, and occasionally metabolic laboratory studies. Although pediatric mononeuropathies may have different causes than those observed in adults, the clinical presentations, diagnostic evaluation, and management of mononeuropathies are frequently similar in adults and children.

Synovial adhesions are more important than pannus proliferation in the pathogenesis of knee joint contracture after immobilization: an experimental investigation in the rat.

Objective: To measure intraarticular pannus proliferation after early and prolonged joint immobility using an animal model.

Methods: Forty rats underwent unilateral immobilization of a knee joint with an internal fixator for periods of 2, 4, 8, 16, and 32 weeks. Twenty rats received sham surgery.

Cerebellar ataxia: abnormal control of interaction torques across multiple joints.

1. We studied seven subjects with cerebellar lesions and seven control subjects as they made reaching movements in the sagittal plane to a target directly in front of them. Reaches were made under three different conditions: 1) "slow-accurate," 2) "fast-accurate," and 3) "fast as possible.