Journal of Research in Rehabilitation Sciences
Year:2014 | Volume:10 | Issue:2|Papers Count:13

Introduction: Headache is one of the most complaints of people around the world and 47% of headaches are tension type. This type of headache is associated with muscle contraction. Tightness of muscles in head and neck regions can lead to tension type headache.The purpose of this study was to compare the cervical active range of motion and muscular endurance in flexion and extension directions, in patients suffer from tension type headache with healthy subjects.Materials and methods: A hundred and four young girls were equally assigned into two healthy and involved groups. The average mean age of all participants was between 20 to 25 years old. The active flexion and extension range of motion and the endurance of flexor and extensor muscles were measured.Results: There were no significant differences between patients and healthy subjects in active range of motion or neck muscles endurance (P>0.05).Conclusion: Patients between 20-25 years old with tension type headache and match healthy ones are similar in cervical active range of motion and muscle endurance. Likely, changes in muscles and vertebral column in these patients may occur gradually over the time.

Introduction: There are various types of cleft in the primary and secondary palate with various degrees of severity. Despite the relatively long history of palatal surgery, little consensus has been reached regarding the best surgical techniques, and even less regarding optimal timing of the surgery. No standard protocol is still available to address such issues as the ideal timing for cleft palate repair to attain optimal speech. This study was conducted to examine the frequency of preschoolers with cleft palate who demonstrate hypernasality. The relationship between the primary palatal surgery timing and the cleft type with the severity of the hypernasality was also examined.Materials and methods: Hypernasality of a group of 46 preschoolers, aged 3-6 years with repaired cleft palate, was assessed using the Universal Parameters for Reporting Speech Outcomes in Individuals with Cleft Palate- Farsi Edition. Participants had different cleft types including bilateral cleft lip and palate (BCLP; n=5, 10.9%), unilateral cleft lip and palate (UCLP; n=20, 43.6%), complete cleft palate (CP; n=10, 21.7%), cleft of the soft palate only (SPO; n=6, 13%) and submucous cleft palate (SubMC; n=5, 10.9%). Judgments of hypernasality were made by a certified speech and language pathologist and were made using a 4-point rating scale. 32children had a primary palatal surgery prior to 12 months of age, 8 had surgery at 12-18 months of age, and 6 had surgery after 18 months.Results: 78.3%t of the children demonstrated moderate to severe hypernasality. There were no significant differences between 5 groups of cleft palates in terms of their hypernasality. The analysis, also, revealed no significant relationship between the age of primary palatal surgery and the severity of hypernasality.Conclusion: Due to the existence of severe hypernasality in all of the participants, more studies are needed to assess the effectiveness of different surgeries on speech of children with cleft palate. Because of the wide range of age in the participants of this study, there was the small number of children in each cleft palate group. Additional research is needed to determine if there are variables that might have masked the influence of timing of primary surgery and cleft type on hypernasality severity.

Introduction: Working memory is one of the most fundamental cognitive processes underlying thinking and learning. Auditory and visual working memories have similar and different infrastructures that evolve in different ages. The aim of the present study was to investigate the evolution of auditory and visual working memory in primary school-aged children.Materials and methods: This comparative, cross-sectional study was conducted on 180 students from six grades of primary school selected by available sampling method. Auditory and visual working memory performances were assessed by N-back test. Two way ANOVAs was used for data analysis.Results: There was a significant relationship between auditory and visual working memories and aging (p<0.001). The performance speed increased with age in auditory task (p<0.001), while there was no significant difference in visual performance speed in different age groups. No meaningful relationship was found between gender and memory scores.Conclusion: The auditory and visual working memory performances improve with age in primary school children, suggesting functional maturation of underlying cognitive processes and brain areas, but gender does not affect the memory performance.

Introduction: One of the main properties of vibration systems is natural frequency, which has a major influence on transmitted vibration. When an excited vehicle frequency was placed in the range of natural frequency of operator's body parts, the acceleration value on operator's body parts will be increased and led to damage the body parts. Meanwhile the use of vibration in optimum domain and frequency is caused to increase muscle's dynamic power, reduce pain and chronic backache, and improve bone density and flexibility of muscles. This paper was aimed to calculate the natural frequency of human body parts specifically in tractor driver.Materials and methods: This research was carried out to calculate the natural frequency of tractor operator's body parts in vertical, lateral and longitudinal directions. Three operators with the weight of 55, 70 and 85 kg were participated. Tests were done at four excited vibration of 0.5, 1, 1.5 and 2 ms-2 in different frequencies and transmitted vibration to operator's body parts were measured. Natural frequency of different body parts in vertical, lateral and longitudinal directions were calculated. Also this natural frequency was estimated by multi degree regression method with operator's mass and excited frequency factors in each direction.Results: Results showed that the vibration value in longitudinal direction was increased about 3-4 Hz. In vertical direction two modes were appeared. First mode occurred in 13-17 Hz and second one in 9-11 Hz. Also in lateral direction, two modes in 14-17 Hz and 2.5-4.5 Hz were observed.Conclusion: Due to finding of this research, using the vibration in order to increase muscle's functional parameters of different body parts should be done more than 20 Hz to avoid the damage to body parts. Also estimated of natural frequency of different parts by driver mass and excited frequency factors has the best match to results of stationary experiments.

Introduction: Balance is one of the most important contexts in ageing. Improving balance in middle age can prevent falling down in elderly which impose the financial and mental costs to society. Imbalance between dominant and non-dominant leg can lead to some problems. That’s way; studying effects of similar exercise on dominant and non-dominant legs of body can prevent problems caused by imbalance between two limbs. Materials and methods: Twenty-two middle age women, (mean age 54.50±4.48), with no history of illness participated in this study. In the first session dynamic balance was measured by Star Excursion Balance Test and static balance was measured by Stork stand test in either dominant or non-dominant leg. Participants did practice 24 sessions of yoga classes. In the last session static and dynamic balance test were repeated.Results: The results of T test showed that static and dynamic balance in dominant and non-dominant legs improved significantly after 8 weeks yoga exercise (P=0.05). Also the significant difference was observed in dynamic balance in dominant and non-dominant legs (p<0.05). But, the improvement of both legs in static balance was the same. Conclusion: It can be concluded that yoga Exercise increase static and dynamic balance in both legs. The balance of non -dominant legs improved more than dominant legs. But, the improvement of both legs in static balance was the same. So, it appears that differences in dominant and non-dominant leg in effects of clinical therapy and exercise training should be considered.

Introduction: Standardized tests in speech therapy mostly focus on language structure rather than the use of language in social context. So, there is a clear need for instruments that assess pragmatic aspects of language. Children are Communication Checklist (CCC) and its revised version, CCC-2, were developed to address this need, however, its psychometric features are unknown in Iran. The current study aimed to adapt the CCC-2 for 7-9 year old Persian speaking children by testing its content validity and two types of reliability, internal consistency and test-retest.Materials and methods: This study is a non-experimental validation study. In the process of determining content validity, back translation was performed by three experts in fields of linguistic and speech, language therapy (SLT). Also, 28 parents of seven to nine years old children with normal language development involved to judge about the simplicity and comprehensibility of the items. The translated form, then, was sent to 10 linguists and SLTs to judge about its content and finally content validity index (CVI) were computed for each item. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability were determined by asking the parents of 100 children between seven and nine years old to complete the form.Results: All items but four were found with a CVI higher than .85. After revision, the CVI scores of the remaining four items were improved. Content validity index was found higher than .75. Internal consistency for each of the items were found between .66 and .74. Test-retest reliability was established higher than .90within two weeks interval.Conclusion: Results suggested that the Persian adaptation of CCC-2 possesses an acceptable content validity and reliability for 7 to 9 year-olds. Its psychometric values, however, need to be improved by conducting further studies on larger sample sizes and across other ranges of age.

Introduction: In Some individuals because of the poor functioning leg muscles, plantar arch drooping suffered and it seems that ground reaction force individuals with flat foot than to those with normal foot, due to reduced recruitment is altered by the arc. The aim of the present study the effect of corrective exercise program on the ground reaction force of student with flat food during gait cycle Materials and methods: In this study, thirty subjects diagnosed with flat foot deformity were randomly and equally divided into two groups of intervention and control. All participants agreed to sign the consent form. Flat feet were measured by navicular drop test. The intervention group was participated in corrective exercises program for twenty-four sessions during two months. Force plate was used to measure the ground reaction force before and after corrective exercises. Parametric independent t-test and paired sample t-test were used to analyze the data (P≤0.05).Results: The vertical component of ground reaction force was significantly reduced at time of shifting weight onto heel (P=0.01) and toe (P=0.03) during stance phase after 8-week of corrective exercises in the intervention group. Although there was no prominent difference in mid-stance phase between two groups (P>0.05).Conclusion: It can be concluded that the corrective exercise could give hand to plantar arch to absorb ground force well. It may reduce the ground reaction force during two sub-phases of gait cycle in subject with flat foot while shifting weight onto heel and toe.

Introduction: Background and Purpose: Children with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) have deficits or limitations in motor function. Identification and assessment of motor problems in preschool age children with IDD is essential to make us capable of providing appropriate intervention. The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a correlation between the Bruininks Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency (BOTMP) and the Peabody Developmental Motor Scale- second edition (PDMS2) on children with IDD.Materials and methods: 60 children with IDD, aged 54 to83 months, were assessed for their motor skills (gross, fine) with both BOTMP and PDMS2 tests.Results: Moderate to high correlation was found between the two motor tests composite scores (r=0.65-0.91), gross motor scores (0.58-0.88) and fine motor scores (0.60-0.88).Conclusion: Considering the moderate to high correlation between BOTMP and PDMS2, therapists might use these two tests alternatively to assess motor skills in children with IDD. Considering the number of items in these two tests and the time it would take to perform them, the BOTMP seems to be more appropriate than the PDMS2 for this group of children.

Introduction: Interferential current is one of the most popular kinds of electrical stimulation that are used in electrotherapy. Despite its clinical popularity, there have been limited studies to investigate how this stimulation protocol affects the nerve fibers. This study was aimed to develop a realistic model for the stimulation of nerve fibers by interferential currents and using that to assess the spatial and temporal activation patterns of fibers in response. The effect of the modulation frequency on the resultant neural activity was also evaluated.Materials and methods: A model of the target tissue, including the skin, fat and muscle layers was implemented in COMSOL software to obtain the potential distribution induced by the current inside the tissue. Then the MRG model of the myelinated nerve fibers in NEURON environment was used to simulate the response of fibers at different positions in the tissue. A 4 KHz carrier frequency with the modulation of 1 to 250 Hz and stimulus strength of 1 to 99 mA was used in this study.Results: The sensory fibers that are passing right beneath the electrodes are blocked in response to the applied high frequency currents and cannot conduct the action potentials. The sensory and motor fibers in other positions of the tissue can be activated based on the stimulus amplitude and the modulation frequency. The temporal activation pattern is at frequencies equal or twice of the modulation frequency. The excitation thresholds for fibers in a specific depth of the tissue are different based on their position relative to the electrodes, and even fibers that are outside the borders of the four electrodes can be activated.Conclusion: The results demonstrate how the block of sensory fibers may decrease the patient discomfort, and suggests that non-target fibers outside the region of electrode placement may also affected by the stimulation. Moreover, the results confirm the traditional claims about role of the modulation frequency in the firing frequency of nerve fibers.

Introduction: upper extremity functional problems are among the most common disorders caused by cerebral palsy children with upper extremity functional problems have less opportunity to receive information from the environment and to understand the impact of their function on surrounding environment which limits their experience of activities. Due to the existence of hand function disabilities and its importance in children with cerebral palsy, the reliability of Jebsen-Taylor Hand Function test for children with cerebral palsy was assessed in the present study.Materials and methods: In this non-experimental descriptive study, 33 children with diplegia cerebral palsy, aged 8 to 12 years old from both sexes, were selected from different special schools of Tehran via a non-probability sampling method. Hand function was assessed using the jebsen-taylor test by two experts (inter-rater reliability). A week after the initial assessment, one of the experts re-assessed the participants (intra-rater reliability). Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) was used to assess the reliability Results: High inter-rater reliability (P=0.001, ICC=0.998) and intra-rater reliability (P=0.001, ICC=0.95) was found for the jebsen-taylor test.Conclusion: Both the inter-rater and intra-rater reliability were found high for children with diplegia cerebral palsy. So this test is recommended as a reliable clinical tool to assess the hand function of these children.

Introduction: Subjective Scales are the tools that study a disorder from the perspective view of a person who has that condition. Subjective stuttering scale (SSS) covers three important aspects of the disorder including its severity, avoidance behaviors and locus of control and provides aus with some information about the need for further detailed assessment of different aspects of stuttering. The present study aimed to investigate the reliability and validity of the Farsi version of Subjective Stuttering Scale Questionnaire.Materials and methods: The validity and internal consistency of the scale (Subjective stuttering scale: SSS) was investigated in a pilot study and by applying a semi-structured interviews with17 adult who stuttered. Then 20 adults who stuttered completed the modified questionnaire of SSS accompany with the PSI (perception of stuttering inventory), and the LCB (locus of control behavior scale). The percentage of stuttered speech was also calculated for the speech samples of all of these participants in order to assess the concurrent validity of the SSS. The findings were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Cronbach's alpha and the Pearson correlation.Results: the results based on the Cronbach's alpha (a=0.92) showed that the Farsi version of SSS is reliable. A significant correlation was found between SS% and the first question of SSS (a=0.01, r=0.67) and also between avoidance sub-test of the SSS and avoidance subtest of the PSI (a=0.05, r=0.75), however not such a significant correlation appeared between the locus of control sub-test of SSS and LBC scale (a=0.15). We might consider these results as some evidence for the validity and reliability of the Farsi version for the SSS. Conclusion: The present research showed that the Farsi version of the SSS is a reliable and valid tool for assessment of stuttering in severity, avoidance and locus of control from the perspective of a person who stutter.

Introduction Spatial hearing is a part of central auditory system abilities that allows a listener to localize and understand the speech in noise. Spatial hearing makes the listener capable to pay selective attention to sounds arriving from one direction and meanwhile suppressing sounds arriving from other directions. The purpose of this study is to review the articles about basics, models and functions of spatial hearing.Materials and methods: For this study such databases as Pub med, Scopus, Proquest, and Google scholar were searched using key words like spatial hearing, spatial advantage and other words which were related to spatial processing.Results: Spatial hearing is proposed as a new processing phenomenon which has several functions. A huge body of information has appeared about it in the literature during the recent years. Spatial hearing is based on binaural hearing and its application in different fields like “cocktail party effect”, central auditory processing, lateralization and distance perception has been under focus recently. Conclusion: Given the importance and functions of spatial hearing in auditory processing, especially in complex environments, assessment, treatment and rehabilitation of spatial processing disorders can solve a considerable part of central auditory processing disorder complaints.