1,720,958 research outputs found
Protocollo di osservazione-imitazione per il recupero dell’arto plegico. Considerazioni sulle prime esperienze.
No full textProtocollo di osservazione-imitazione per il recupero dell’arto plegico. Considerazioni sulle prime esperienze
Construct Validity of the Activities Scale for Kids Performance in Children with Cerebral Palsy: Brief Report
Full text linkAims: This study collects evidence of construct convergent validity of the Activity Scale for Kids performance (ASKp), comparing its results with the 66-item Gross Motor Function Measure (GMFM-66) and with the Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) and testing the ASKp’s ability to discriminate between individuals with different functional capabilities. Methods: This cross-sectional study involved 60 children with spastic cerebral palsy (CP) assessed with the GMFM-66 who self-administered the Italian version of the ASKp. Results: Children were 10.9 (±3) years old with GMFCS Level I–III. Moderate correlations were found between GMFM and ASKp scores (r = 0.577; p < .001), and between GMFCS levels and ASKp score (rs = −0.541, p < .001). The ASKp discriminated between children with different functional capabilities, determined by the GMFCS (F = 18.2, p < .001). Conclusions: ASKp is valid to assess physical functioning, a crucial domain in rehabilitation of children with spastic CP. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03325842
Individualized intensive physiotherapy-orthosis treatment in hand functional recovery of children with spastic hemiplegia after botulinum toxin injection
No full textBackground: The 2010 Cochrane review regarding Botulinum
Toxin A (BoNT-A) upper limb injections in children
with CP, underlined the need to better define the associated
physiotherapy treatment. Through an RCT involving 24
children with hemiplegic CP, an attempt was made to
define the physiotherapy protocol. The results confirmed
the determinant role of intensive individualized goaldirected
physiotherapy in activity domain improvement.
Objective: To define precise criteria for individualized physiotherapy
planning and a functional exercise inventory after
BONT-A injections.
Method: After BONT-A injection an individualized physiotherapy
programme was created for each child considering
not only injected muscles and functional goals but also
motor learning capacity and modifiability, pointing, reaching,
grasping, manipulating, releasing strategies, sensoryperceptual
disorders, bottom-up components, cognitive
level, age, sex and personality. Physiotherapeutic treatment
consisted of everyday stretching maneuvers, therapeutic
exercises and activities organized in three 45 minute
weekly sessions, for 24 weeks. Functional individualized
goals were established with family and child. The treatment
was combined with nighttime positional splints and
daytime functional orthoses aimed at facilitating grasping
and handling. The therapeutic approach was specific timed
to BONT-A action. During the first month therapists
focused on segmental treatment such as stretching, with
simple unimanual or bimanual exercises; both transitive
and intransitive tasks were proposed, aimed at activating
muscles antagonistic to injected ones. From the second to
the sixth post-injection month increasing complex functional
activities, bimanual and unimanual tasks, with or
without functional orthoses were utilized. Either motor
tasks, requiring previously selective then sequential executive
control, or perception oriented tasks were considered.
Setting was particularly important in guiding and supporting
activities, every exercise was incorporated into a game
or routine activity. Toys, common objects or specifically
constructed items were used. Repetition was often needed
to fix newly learned abilities, but each exercise was slightly
modified every few repetitions in order to maintain interest,
limit frustration and improve generalization. Family
cooperation helped transfer exercised abilities to daily life.
Video recording and testing before, during and after treatment
were performed.
Conclusion:Functional intensive individualized child-focused
approach, combining physiotherapy and orthoses, is effective
in improving manipulation after botulinum injection.
Positive standardized test results (AHA, Abilhand-kids,
Shuee, soon to be released data) are encouraging. This
approach is limited by the time required for preparing
individualized treatments and personalizing settings
Lesion mapping and functional characterization of hemiplegic children with different patterns of hand manipulation
Full text linkBrain damage in children with unilateral cerebral palsy (UCP) affects motor function, with varying severity, making it difficult the performance of daily actions. Recently, qualitative and semi-quantitative methods have been developed for lesion classification, but studies on mild to moderate hand impairment are lacking. The present study aimed to characterize lesion topography and preserved brain areas in UCP children with specific patterns of hand manipulation. A homogeneous sample of 16 UCP children, aged 9 to 14 years, was enrolled in the study. Motor assessment included the characterization of the specific pattern of hand manipulation, by means of unimanual and bimanual measures (Kinematic Hand Classification, KHC; Manual Ability Classification System, MACS; House Functional Classification System, HFCS; Melbourne Unilateral Upper Limb Assessment, MUUL; Assisting Hand Assessment, AHA). The MRI morphological study included multiple methods: (a) qualitative lesion classification, (b) semi-quantitative classification (sq-MRI), (c) voxel-based morphometry comparing UCP and typically developed children (VBM-DARTEL), and (d) quantitative brain tissue segmentation (q-BTS). In addition, functional MRI was used to assess spared functional activations and cluster lateralization in the ipsilesional and contralesional hemispheres of UCP children during the execution of simple movements and grasping actions with the more affected hand. Lesions most frequently involved the periventricular white matter, corpus callosum, posterior limb of the internal capsule, thalamus, basal ganglia and brainstem. VMB-DARTEL analysis allowed to detect mainly white matter lesions. Both sq-MRI classification and q-BTS identified lesions of thalamus, brainstem, and basal ganglia. In particular, UCP patients with synergic hand pattern showed larger involvement of subcortical structures, as compared to those with semi-functional hand. Furthermore, sparing of gray matter in basal ganglia and thalamus was positively correlated with MUUL and AHA scores. Concerning white matter, q-BTS revealed a larger damage of fronto-striatal connections in patients with synergic hand, as compared to those with semi-functional hand. The volume of these connections was correlated to unimanual function (MUUL score). The fMRI results showed that all patients, but one, including those with cortical lesions, had activation in ipsilesional areas, regardless of lesion timing. Children with synergic hand showed more lateralized activation in the ipsilesional hemisphere both during grasping and simple movements, while children with semi-functional hand exhibited more bilateral activation during grasping. The study demonstrates that lesion localization, rather than lesion type based on the timing of their occurrence, is more associated with the functional level of hand manipulation. Overall, the preservation of subcortical structures and white matter can predict a better functional outcome. Future studies integrating different techniques (structural and functional imaging, TMS) could provide further evidence on the relation between brain reorganization and specific pattern of manipulation in UCP children
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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