Gait adaptability training improves obstacle avoidance and dynamic stability in patients with cerebellar degeneration.

Balance and gait problems in patients with cerebellar degeneration lead to reduced mobility, loss of independence, and frequent falls. It is currently unclear, however, whether balance and gait capacities can be improved by training in this group of patients. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the effects of gait adaptability training on obstacle avoidance and dynamic stability during adaptive gait.

Health-related quality of life and its relation to disease severity in boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy: satisfied boys, worrying parents--a case-control study.

The progression of Duchenne muscular dystrophy is expected to negatively influence the patients' health-related quality of life, but knowledge of the relationship with disease severity is limited. We investigated the relationship between health-related quality of life (KIDSCREEN-52 questionnaire) and disease severity (clinical assessments of body functions and activities) in 40 boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (19 ambulant, 21 wheelchair dependent) who were in different phases of the disease and underwent life-limiting events such as the loss of the ability to ambulate and the ability to lift the arms. In addition, we compared boys' health-related quality of life perceptions with that of their parents.

Potential risk factors for developing heterotopic ossification in patients with severe traumatic brain injury.

Background: Heterotopic ossification (HO) is a frequent complication after traumatic brain injury (TBI). The current preliminary study is intended to provide additional data on the potential roles that brain injury severity, concomitant orthopaedic trauma, and specific intensive care complicating events may play in the prediction of HO in patients who have sustained severe TBI.

Methods: A prospective cohort study in patients with severe TBI.

Comprehensive rehabilitation programmes in the chronic phase after severe brain injury: a systematic review.

Objective: The aim of this study was to perform a systematic review of the effectiveness of comprehensive rehabilitation programmes for adults in the chronic phase after severe acquired brain injury.

Methods: PubMed, PsychINFO and PsychLit were searched for articles published between 1990 and 2008 and a quality assessment was performed. The comprehensive programmes were subdivided into neurobehavioral interventions, residential community reintegration and day-treatment programmes.

A prospective study to evaluate a new residential community reintegration programme for severe chronic brain injury: the Brain Integration Programme.

Purpose: To assess the effectiveness of a residential community reintegration programme for participants with chronic sequelae of severe acquired brain injury that hamper community functioning.

Design: Prospective cohort study.

Subjects: Twenty-four participants with acquired brain injury (traumatic n = 18; stroke n = 3, tumour n = 2, encephalitis n = 1).

Development of the Stroke-unit Discharge Guideline: choice of assessment instruments for prediction in the subacute phase post-stroke.

The purpose of this paper is to present the design of an evidence-based dataset of assessment instruments for the prognostic factors of the Stroke-unit Discharge Guideline (SDG), a consensus based guideline for the decision of the discharge destination from the hospital stroke unit. In our systematic literature reviews and in known standard works we have looked for assessment instruments which are being used most frequently in stroke care, and subsequently we have searched for information regarding their validity and reliability. For 17 out of the 26 prognostic factors we found known applicable assessment instruments.

The Stroke Unit Discharge Guideline, a prognostic framework for the discharge outcome from the hospital stroke unit. A prospective cohort study.

Objective: To investigate which factors during the subacute phase post stroke have predictive value for the discharge outcome from the hospital stroke unit.

Methods: In a prospective cohort of 338 patients admitted to a hospital stroke unit 26 potentially prognostic factors, arranged in clinical and social subdomains, were scored and analysed by binary logistic regression analysis. The outcome of the research consisted of the various discharge destinations.