Evidence-based rating of upper-extremity motor function tests used for people following a stroke.
Measurements used to evaluate outcome and performance during and following rehabilitation should have acceptable reliability and validity. (1-4) Although clinicians and researchers have been using and reporting outcome measures for more than 20 years, many upper-extremity motor function tests used for adults following a stroke have not been shown...

Does rehabilitation improve gait and quality of life for chronic stroke survivors?
ABSTRACT Mobility and functional dependence worsen over time for stroke survivors and opportunities for further rehabilitation also diminish. Following stroke the majority of survivors return to living in the community and half will have residual motor deficits at one year following their stroke. This narrative review was...

Stroke (American Academy of Neurology Press Quality of Life Guide Series).
Stroke (American Academy of Neurology Press Quality of Life Guide Series) Caplan LR. New York, NY 10016, Demos Medical Publishing, 2006, paperback, 256 pp, illus, ISBN: 193260314X, $19.95 This book is intended to be a guide to the complex topic of stroke for patients and their families...

An Analysis of the Relationship Between the Utilization of Physical Therapy Services and Outcomes for Patients With Acute Stroke.
Key Words: Health services research, Outcomes, Stroke. Stroke is the leading cause of disability among adults in the United States.[1] Of the 550,000 individuals who have a stroke each year, approximately 75% survive and live with varying degrees of impairment or disability.[1] The economic burden of stroke...

Determinants of mobility and self-care in older people with stroke: importance of somatosensory and perceptual functions.
Stroke is the somatic disease that demands the most hospital days per year in Sweden. (1) Impairments after stroke may be of a somatosensory, a mental (perceptual, cognitive, and depressive), or a motor nature and may have various degrees of impact on a patient's ability to perform activities, such...

The AROC annual report: the state of rehabilitation in Australia 2006.
Abstract This is the second comprehensive annual report that describes patients discharged from subacute inpatient rehabilitation programs provided by facilities that are members of the Australasian Rehabilitation Outcomes Centre (AROC). The inaugural annual report was published in April 2007 and described the 2005 data. (Aust...

Scale for contraversive pushing: cutoff scores for diagnosing "pusher behavior" and construct validity.
"Pusher behavior" (PB) is a poorly understood disorder ii exhibited by some people with stroke. This behavior has 3 typical features: (1) contralesional tilted posture with severe imbalance, (2) tendency to push strongly toward the paretic side with the non-affected limbs, and (3) resistance to external correction of the...

Introducing the Foundation's July 2008 Scientific Review Committee appointees.
The Foundation for Physical Therapy Board of Trustees is pleased to announce the selection of 2 physical therapist researchers to serve as members of the Foundation's Scientific Review Committee (SRC). The 9-member SRC reviews all doctoral scholarship and research grant applications received by the Foundation for funding. Their terms...

Pinning your hope on ... acupuncture.
CAM stands for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a group of diverse therapies and products that are neither part of conventional medicine as taught in U.S. medical schools, nor generally available at U.S. hospitals. The practice of using an unconventional therapy together with conventional medicine is called "complementary medicine." ...

Questions raised about late-life depression.
BALTIMORE -- Executive dysfunction appears to have a mediating effect on the relationship between vascular risk and the development of late-life depression, Benjamin T. Mast, Ph.D., said at the annual meeting of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry. "We do have something fairly useful that we can...