European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society
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Structural discontinuity in the spinal cord after injury results in a disruption in the impulse conduction resulting in loss of various bodily functions depending upon the level of injury. This article presents a summary of the scientific research employing electrical stimulation as a means for anatomical or functional recovery for patients suffering from spinal cord injury. ⋯ The second part of the article summarises the experimental work done in the past 2 decades to study the effects of weakly applied direct current fields in promoting regeneration of neurites towards the cathode and the new emerging technique of oscillating field stimulation which has shown to promote bidirectional regeneration in the injured nerve fibres. The present article is not intended to be an exhaustive review but rather a summary aiming to highlight these two applications of electrical stimulation and the degree of anatomical/functional recovery associated with these in the field of spinal cord injury research.
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Review Case Reports
Chronic recurrent multifocal osteomyelitis presenting as acute scoliosis: a case report and review of literature.
Chronic relapsing multifocal osteomyelitis (CRMO) is a rare condition. It commonly affects the clavicle and pelvis. Rarely it can affect the spine. ⋯ Prognosis is generally good although the disease can relapse and remit over many years. At 9 months follow up, the lesions were resolving and the deformity had resolved. CRMO presenting as acute scoliosis is rare and to our knowledge this is the second recognised case in the reported world literature.
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With an official life time of over 5 years, Spine Tango can meanwhile be considered the first international spine registry. In this paper we present an overview of frequency statistics of Spine Tango for demonstrating the genesis of questionnaire development and the constantly increasing activity in the registry. Results from two exemplar studies serve for showing concepts of data analysis applied to a spine registry. ⋯ Current limitations of Spine Tango include the low number and short duration of follow-ups and the lack of sufficiently detailed patient data on subgroup levels. Although the number of participants is steadily growing, no country is yet represented with a sufficient number of hospitals. Nevertheless, the benefits of the project for the whole spine community become increasingly visible.
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Walking is impaired in Pregnancy-related Pelvic girdle Pain (PPP). Walking velocity is reduced, and in postpartum PPP relative phase between horizontal pelvis and thorax rotations was found to be lower at higher velocities, and rotational amplitudes tended to be larger. While attempting to confirm these findings for PPP during pregnancy, we wanted to identify underlying mechanisms. ⋯ The earlier results on postpartum PPP were confirmed for PPP during pregnancy. Spinal rotations remained unaffected, while at higher velocities the peak of thorax rotations occurred earlier in the stride cycle. The latter change may serve to avoid excessive spine rotations caused by the larger segmental rotations.
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Symptomatic spinal epidural lipomatosis (SEL) is very rare and frequently associated to chronic exogenous steroid use, obesity and Cushing syndrome. The idiopathic cases where no identifiable association with SEL are found constitute only 17% of all cases. The usual clinical manifestations of this entity consist of dorsal or lumbar pain with paresthesias and weakness in lower limbs, but acute symptoms of myelopathy are exceptional. ⋯ Urgent surgical decompression was performed in order to relieve the symptoms. Slow but progressive improvement was assessed after surgery. We consider this case to be exceptional due to the needing to perform an urgent decompressive laminectomy to treat a rapidly progressive myelopathy caused by idiopathic SEL.