Archives of physical medicine and rehabilitation
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Arch Phys Med Rehabil · May 2004
Comparative StudySitting and standing tolerance in patients with chronic back pain: comparison between physician prediction and covert observation.
To measure covertly observed continuous sitting and standing tolerance in patients with chronic back pain and to compare observations to physician predictions. ⋯ The majority of this sample demonstrated the ability to sit continuously 60 minutes or more and to stand continuously 30 minutes or more while being covertly observed. Expert physician prediction showed poor correlation to covertly observed sitting and standing tolerances, raising doubt about the validity of using physician evaluation to establish work restrictions in patients with chronic back pain. These findings are preliminary, follow only a brief period of covert observation, and indicate the need for further research in this area.
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Arch Phys Med Rehabil · May 2004
Use and satisfaction with prosthetic limb devices and related services.
To examine the use and satisfaction with prosthetic limb devices and satisfaction with prosthetist services in a large and diverse sample of persons with limb loss. ⋯ Efforts should be directed at minimizing the interval from surgery to first prosthesis fitting and at improving communication between patients and prosthetists, to improve the quality of care provided to the growing numbers of persons with limb loss.
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Arch Phys Med Rehabil · May 2004
Reliability, validity, and responsiveness of the locomotor capabilities index in adults with lower-limb amputation undergoing prosthetic training.
To assess the reliability, validity, and responsiveness of both the standard and revised Locomotor Capabilities Index (LCI) in people with lower-limb amputation who undergo prosthetic training. ⋯ Both the LCI and LCI-5 captured the global locomotor ability of people with lower-limb amputation during prosthetic training. The new LCI-5 presents similar and sometimes better psychometric properties than the standard LCI.
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Arch Phys Med Rehabil · May 2004
Activation of lumbar paraspinal and abdominal muscles during therapeutic exercises in chronic low back pain patients.
To assess the activities of paraspinal and abdominal muscles during therapeutic exercises for the treatment of patients with nonspecific chronic low back pain (CLBP), and to study the effects of active physical rehabilitation on these activities. ⋯ The CLBP patients performed therapeutic exercises with similar abdominal and back extensor muscle activities in the same way as the healthy subjects in our earlier studies. In this study, active physical rehabilitation had no effect on the abdominal and back muscle activities or on pain and functional disability indices.
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Arch Phys Med Rehabil · May 2004
Transcranial magnetic stimulation for diagnosis of residual limb neuromas.
To analyze the mechanism and examine the potential diagnostic contribution of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in diagnosing painful, clonic, and/or autonomic manifestations in amputees' residual limbs. ⋯ TMS can provoke symptoms in patients who experience spontaneous or evoked symptoms related to a neuroma. Induced symptoms are proportional to spontaneous symptoms. Removing the neuroma can stop stump symptoms and reverse the TMS effect. The response to TMS was negative in the control subjects with clinically silent neuromas; conservative treatment was successful in these cases. TMS-induced abnormal manifestations underlying mechanisms are discussed (ephaptic transmission in neuromas).