Published in Movement Disorders, 02/26/2013 Dr. Walker compares the incidence and outcomes of Parkinson’s disease (PD) who suffer hip fracture compared to non PD patients in North East England. The team from the Department of Medicine, North Tyneside General Hospital, United Kingdom saw that PD patients had poorer mobility before hip fracture, had less mobility post surgery and took longer to be discharged into community physical rehabilitation. The team concludes that occupational and physiotherapists managing people with PD who sustain a hip fracture should be aware of potential complications of the condition to improve physical rehabilitation outcomes.
Posts Tagged ‘physical rehabilitation’
10 Jan
Neurological outcome and spinal cord injury
Spinal cord injury rehabilitation
Kalsi–Ryan S et al in the January edition of World Neurosurgery discuss how the use of functional tests such as the Spinal Cord Independence Measure, Functional Independence Measure together with neurological impairment measures e.g the International Standards for Neurological Classification and electrophysiological measures will provide more insight to the post physical rehabilitation outcome than either of the predictors taken alone.
25 Dec
Four Ways to Treat Apraxia
24 Dec
The Connection Between MS and Vitamin D
23 Dec
Brain Stimulation Helps Parkinson’s Patients
20 Dec
Five Ways to Relieve Arthritis Pain
19 Dec
Chocolate Eater Makes Medical History
A 52 year old woman, named Jan Scheuermann, ate chocolate after a brain operation. So what? One might ask. However this simple act made history because Jan is paralyzed from the neck down
Originally diagnosed with a degenerative brain disorder 13 years prior doctors implanted tiny electrodes in her brain which allowed her to operate a robotic arm.
Jan’s ultimate wish was to feed herself chocolate once the electrodes had been in place.
Doctors, led by Professor Andrew Schwartz of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, applauded her feat.
The arm is a prosthetic controlled directly by the brain and this achievement marked a major step for people who are unable to move their own arms.
“Our study has shown us that it is technically feasible to restore ability and gives patients hope for the future”, said Dr. Schwartz.
The two microelectrodes were implanted into Jan’s left motor cortex. This is the part of the brain that initiates movement.
A scanning technique called ”functional magnetic resonance imaging” (fMRI) located the part of the brain that lights up when the patient is asked to think about moving her paralyzed arms.
The electrodes were connected to the robotic hand through a computer which ran an algorithm to translate the signals that imitates the way an unimpaired brain is able to control healthy limbs.
Decoding human motion has no limit now. It is quite complex when one works on parts like the hand for example, but once the desired motion is tapped how that motion will be effected has a wide range of possibilities according to the medical researchers.
For those brain injured patients that still have arm mobility the ARMTUTOR and HANDTUTOR offer an effective physical therapy solution.
The ARMTUTOR™ and HANDTUTOR systems have been developed to allow for functional rehabilitation of the upper extremity including the shoulder, elbow and wrist. The system consists of an ergonomic wearable glove and arm brace together with dedicated rehabilitation software. The ARMTUTOR™ and HANDTUTOR systems allow the physical and occupational therapist to report on and evaluate the patient’s functional rehabilitation progress. This allows the PT and OT to prescribe the correct customized and motivating intensive exercise practice to the manual rehabilitation therapy. Intensive repetition of movement is achieved through challenging games set to the patient’s ability. The system provides detailed exercise performance instructions and precise feedback on the patient’s efforts. Controlled exercise of multijoints within the normal movement pattern prevents the development of undesired and compensatory joint movement and ensures better performance of functional tasks. Telerehabilitation allows the recovering patient to continue his physical therapy at home. The system is used by many leading rehabilitation centers worldwide and has full FDA and CE certification.
See WWW.MEDITOUCH.CO.IL for more information.