Journal of Modern Rehabilitation
Year:2014 | Volume:8 | Issue:2|Papers Count:10

Background and Aim: Since many of people in their functional activities mostly place their knee joint in flexed position, the hamstring muscles tend to be shortened. On the other hand, shortness of these muscles affect the knee joint directly and the ankle and hip joints indirectly. It predisposes the individual to musculo-skeletal injuries. Thus, by early diagnosing and treatment of it, the tension may be decreased, the relaxation increased and the development of injuries can be prevented. In order to achieve this goal, various stretching techniques are used. The purpose of this study is to compare the effects of static and PNF stretching on shortness of hamstring muscles in 18-30 years young women.Materials and Methods: Thirty 18-30 years old nonathletic women without any history of pathology in hip, knee or back were selected. They were divided into three groups with 10 women in each group (static stretch, PNF stretch and control). The two stretch groups were received stretching program five days every week for three weeks, while the control group was not.Results: The range of knee extension of both groups of static and PNF stretching increased (p<0.05).However there was no significant difference between these two groups (p>0.05).Conclusion: Employing of both methods (static and PNF stretching) increase the hamstring muscles flexibility. However there was no significant difference between two groups in increasing rang of knee extension.

Background and Aim: Total Hip Replacement (THR) is done comprehensively all over the world.Despite the effects of braces on control of THR complications, few studies have been performed on this subject. The purpose of this study was to evaluate immediate effect of hip abduction brace on mobility and functional balance of patients with THR.Materials and Methods: Eight men and nine women with THR participated in this study. Mobility and functional balance were assessed and compared with and without brace conditions by means of TUG, FR and Berg tests.Results: A significantly higher TUG, FR and Berg scores were seen in brace condition compared to without brace situation (P<0.05).Conclusion: Hip abduction brace can increase mobility and functional balance in patients with THR.

Background and Aim: Speech in noise test (SINT) surveys the ability of person in extracting speech from ambient noise. Temporal resolution (TR) is ability of person to understand changes of stimulus over time that has important role in speech perception. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of age and sex on SINT and TR in individuals with normal hearing.Materials and Methods: SINT was done in the most comfortable level in 3 SNRs 0, -10 and -20 dB and Gap detection test (GDT) in 4 intensity levels in two age groups 25-40 yrs old (included 14 persons) and 41 -55 yrs old (included 15 persons).Results: There was a significant difference between word recognition scores (WRSs) in quiet and in the presence of noise in each age group (P<0.0001). Significant difference was shown between two age groups in WRSs in two SINs of -10 and -20 dB (P≤0.02). WRS difference between silence and 3 SINs in two sexes was significant (P≤0.04). Significant difference was the revealed between GDT thresholds in 4 intensity levels (P<0.0001). Sex and age had no effects on GDT thresholds.Conclusions: According to our results, despite of normal hearing thresholds with increasing age WRS and GDT are reduced. It seems that, WRS and speech perception in female are better than male.

Background and Aim: Cerebral palsy is an umbrella term used to describe disorders of motor function, emerge on early years of life, resulting from a brain injury or malfunction. These disorders may be accompanied by speech, auditory and visual disorders, seizure, learning disabilities, mental retardation and so on. Due to all these disorders, it seems that people with cerebral palsy have some special needs that understanding them are essential. As a result, it was done a study to understand the rehabilitation needs of people with cerebral palsy. One part of these requirements was social needs which are presented in this article separately because of its importance.Materials and Methods: This research was done as a qualitative type and with phenomenology method and sampling was purposeful. Participants were 17 cerebral palsy people (6 female and 11 male, with aged 15 to 43 years old). Data were collected by observation and deep interview with open-end questions and analyzed by Collaizi method.Results: Social needs domain of participants was appeared in 12 sub-themes and 7 themes. Themes were consisted of: to help and companionship with others, social acceptance, marriage, work, access to urban facilities, education and supportive organization.Conclusion: Social needs are an important and great part of cerebral palsy people's needs. So, it is necessary that organizations, institutes, families and all community members related to cerebral palsy people, consider this group's needs, especially their social needs and try to provide them.

Background and Aim: Sacroiliac joint (SIJ) is one of the most important elements in normal musculoskeletal function during gait cycle and serve as a shock absorber during heel strike and load transfer from lower limbs to trunk. Its stabilizing is the product of osseous, ligamentus and muscular elements which muscle activity of these muscles (Gluteus Maximus, Biceps Femoris, Multifidus, Erector Spinea, and Latissimus Dorsi) is important in load transfer through SIJ. It seems that the function of the given muscles in sacroiliac joint pain subjects is interrupted. So, the aim of the present study is to compare muscle activity during different events of stance phase of gait cycle during preferred and slow speed between sacroiliac joint pain and healthy subjects.Methods and Materials: Thirteen SIJ pain subjects (12 females, 1 male) and thirteen healthy subjects (11 females, 2 male) participated in this study. Muscle activity based on RMS from selected muscles was recorded during different events of stance phase of gait either preferred or slow speed by EMG Data-link Biometrics and normalized according to muscle activity during a 500 ms period in rest position before starting walking called Baseline Correction.Results: Significant statistical differences were found between two groups in muscle activity based RMS during different events of stance (p=0.006), but there was no significant difference in effect of speed on RMS between two groups (p=0.37). Significant Statistical differences were also seen between selected muscles in each group separately during slow speed of walking (p=0.003) but no significant statistical difference during preferred speed in SIJ pain group (p=0.14).Conclusion: SIJ subjects have showed increased levels of muscle activity during different events of stance phase of gait with preferred and slow speeds. These increased levels can be interpreted as a mechanism to control trunk movements effectively, provide sufficient support and transfer load to lumbar area efficiently.

Background and Aim: Some of the patients with chronic low back pain commonly do not experience full recovery with the conventional physical therapy. It is revealed that may be there are some items in subjects with low back, which are not studied well till now. Since there are some evidences about breathing pattern disorder in low back pain patients, the purpose of this study was to compare between some important breathing pattern index in non-specific chronic low back pain and healthy subjects.Materials and Methods: In this descriptive analysis study, there were 16 patients with chronic nonspecific low back pain and 16 healthy subjects. Both groups were matched and selected by some of the demographic characteristics. Respiratory data including respiratory rate, volumetric, time depended and chemical index were calculated by K4b2 instrument.Results: They have significant differences in some of the respiratory parameters including respiratory rate, inspiration and expiration times and total time of respiration between two groups, whereas inspiration total time ratio, volumetric and chemical index do not have significant differences.Conclusion: Existence of disorders in some parameters of respiratory patterns in patients with low back pain are revealed that survey of respiratory system in patients with chronic non-specific low back pain can be effective in diagnosis and treatment process in physiotherapy centers.

Back ground and Aim: Some left brain- damaged stroke patients display both oral and verbal apraxia, while others may appear to have one or none of them. So the present study was focused on investigating the severity and relationship of oral and verbal apraxia in these patients.Materials and Methods: In this cross sectional descriptive-analytic study, 20 left hemisphere damaged patients due to a single ischemic CVA (8 women, 12 men) with an average age of 60.68 years (range, 35-73) were recruited using convenience sampling. An oral apraxia task was applied to examine imitation of oral motor gestures, and the verbal apraxia was tested by a speech production task. Data were analyzed by U Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis and Pearson correlation.Results: Analysis of data revealed that 4 patients showed prominent oral apraxia, 12 patients suffered from prominent verbal apraxia and 4 had a combination of both types with relative equal severities. No significant correlation between oral apraxia and verbal apraxia was observed (p=0.899).Conclusion: According to the findings, the co-occurrence pattern of oral and verbal apraxia seems not to be a predictable one. Despite of the fact that ischemic lesions lead to damage of neighboring neural substrates, half of the patients revealed dissociation of oral and verbal apraxia. This dissociation may be interpreted as an evidence of a modular task-specific neuromotor control system, which considers non-speech oral movement control independent of speech motor control.

Background and Aim: Many studies investigated the effect of ankle-foot orthosis on reducing the incidence of sprain. In this study the influence of elastic and semirigid stirrup type orthosis on the onset latency of peroneus longus muscle activity as the most important support of ankle- foot region in response to sudden perturbation was assessed in healthy group and athletes with functional ankle instability.Materials and Methods: Thirteen healthy female athletes and 10 female athletes with functional ankle instability (17 to 27 years old) were perturbed unexpectedly by a custom made ankle perturbation system in frontal plane under three conditions of without orthotics, using elastic orthosis, and using semirigid stirrup-type orthosis. Simultaneous recording of electrical activity of peronus longus muscle was performed with surface electromyography.Results: The results showed the significant differences between muscular latency of injured and control groups without orthosis (P=0.018). The onset latency reduced using each type of the orthoses in injured group but it was not significant (P>0.05).Conclusion: Although the latency time of peroneus longus muscle response delay didn’t show significant reduction using orthoses in injured group, it seems that using orthoses leads to proprioception improvement and sensiomotor control increasement by stimulation of cutaneous mechanoreceptors.

Background and Aim: Presently, lecturing is widely used as a teaching method at all Universities particularly, if the aim is to convey the materials to a large class of students. However, nowadays recording the voice of the lecturer has become a common practice and has introduced as a new learning technique. There are studies in which researchers acknowledged this method and have mentioned many advantages for it. On the other hand, many others have declared that this method which might be used for students with certain disabilities may cause distraction and reduces the learning that can occur. The purpose of this study was to compare the method of recorded lectures with note-making in class on undergraduate physiotherapy students’ learning.Materials and Methods: In a descriptive - cross sectional study 29 undergraduate physiotherapy students classified in two groups according to studying methods; one group used the method of note-making in class and the other one utilized the method of the voice recording. Four dependent variables including; written exam grades, teacher’s evaluation scores, course satisfaction scores, and students’ grades on difficult questions were measured.Results: There were no significant differences between two groups in written exam grades (P=0.92), teacher’s evaluation scores (P=0.55), course satisfaction scores (P=0.57), and on difficult questions grades (P=0.53).Conclusion: Using voice recorders had no significant effect on students’ learning. The results are related to one specific course and can not be extended to other courses.

Background and Aim: The normal response of H-reflex depression (HD) was reduced in chronic spinal cord injury (SCI) patients. The reduction of this normal response can lead to increase the muscle tone and spasticity. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of tripolar cathodal stimulation on HD in SCI patients.Materials and Methods: This study was conducted in 10 volunteered SCI patients and 13 healthy male and female aged 28.91±5.78 years. H-reflexes were elicited at 0.2, 5 and 0.2 Hz and intensity of 65-70 percent of the maximum H-reflex amplitude, before and after tripolar cathodal electrical stimulation of the spinal cord at T11 level.Results: Before trioplar stimulation, H-reflex amplitude decreased with increasing stimulation frequency only in healthy group. H-reflex amplitude decreased from 2.60±1.48 to1.34±1.30 by 5Hz frequency (P=0.000). After trioplar stimulation in SCI patients group, HD increased with increasing stimulation frequency and H-reflex amplitude decreased significantly from 2.21±1.98 by 0.2 Hz frequency to 1.29±1.50 by 5Hz frequency (P=0.014).Conclusion: Application of one session of cathodal trioplar stimulation can result the returning of normal HD in SCI patients. Cathodal trioplar stimulation is a non-invasive, without side effects, and an inexpensive method that may be a valuable tool to return the normal inhibition and modulating behavior of the spinal cord circuits.