1,721,015 research outputs found
Discrimination of the neutral low back sitting posture in people with and without low back pain, before and after a shift of work
No full textBackground: The "neutral" lumbar posture is considered the position least likely to cause low back pain, with errors as little as 2° from the neutral spinal posture substantially decreasing the axial compressive load capacity of the spine. Accurate sensory feedback from, and activation of, appropriate trunk muscles is essential for appreciation and maintenance of the neutral spinal posture. If these muscles are dysfunctional due to low back pain and/or workrelated activity and fatigue, this might impair people’s ability to discriminate the neutral spinal posture. This study investigated whether LBP or a shift ofwork alters people’s ability to discriminate the neutral low back sitting posture.Methods: Sixty one subjects with, and forty subjects without, a history of LBP were recruited. Each subject’s spinal position sense was assessed before and after a shift of work by an electro-goniometer placed over the lumbar sacral spine. Subjects were blindfolded and instructed to actively locate the neutral low back sitting posture – the "test" position. They were then asked to flex or extend their low back and stop at a random position for 3 seconds, before returning to the neutral low back sitting position; the position they returned to was the "reproduced" position. This procedure was repeated 20 times in total. The absolute error between the "test" position and each "reproduced" position was calculated in degrees. The average mean error was then calculated and compared between the two groups using an independent-samples t test.Results: Data was not normally distributed and therefore log-transformed before analysis. Anti-logged (returning data to original scale) values are also presented. LBP subjects had slightly higher average mean error values before work, showing that they found it more difficult than NLBP subjects to discriminate the neutral low back sitting posture, but the difference was nonsignificant. Conclusions: The ability of people with and without LBP to appreciate the neutral low back sitting posture was similar, both before and after a shift of work
Proprioception of the cervical spine in subjects with and without a history of neck pain
No full textBackground: Proprioception is considered to make an essential contribution to functional stability of a joint. It is thought that pain can reduce proprioceptive acuity and that this may promote joint pathology. Neck pain is a common musculoskeletal problem and to date there are few studies that have investigated its relationship with proprioception of the cervical spine. The purpose of this study was to determine whether a history of neck pain is associated with altered proprioceptive acuity of the cervical spine.Methods: Twelve subjects with, and twelve subjects without a history of neck pain aged between 17 and 45 years, were recruited from a university population. Subjects sat in a chair wearing a cervical range of motion goniometer (CROM) on their head. Target angles for proprioceptive testing were calculated for each subject at 25% and 75% of their total left and right cervical rotation. The subjects were then blindfolded and their head passively rotated to one of the target angles where it was held for ten seconds. The subjects actively returned their head to the start position and were then asked to actively reproduce this target angle nine times. Deviation from the target angle was recorded in degrees for each of the 9 repositioning attempts. This procedure was repeated for all four target angles. The mean error for deviations from each of the target angles were compared for the two groups using unrelated t- tests (normally distributed interval/ratio data) and Mann-Whitney U test (non-normally distributed interval/ratio data).Results: Neck pain subjects had a greater repositioning error than nonneck pain subjects. Mean errors for the four target angles were between 3.72 (SD=1.82) to 6.19 (SD=3.05) degrees in neck pain subjects and 2.39 (SD=1.70) to 3.61 (SD=3.55) degrees in non-neck pain subjects. The difference in mean errors was statistically significant (p<0.05) for the 25% and 75% left rotation target angles (p=0.025 and p=0.031 respectively) and the 25% right rotation target angle (p=0.020). Repeatability testing of the data collection procedure showed mean measurement errors of less than 1.0 degree. Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that the subjects with a history of neck pain had a significant reduction in the ability to reproduce specified target angles of cervical spine rotation. i.e. reduced proprioceptive acuity of their cervical spine. These results give impetus for further research into the relationship between neck pain and proprioception
Hand impairment and hand disability in rheumatoid arthritis: do they correlate: should they correlate?
No full textBackground: Chronic shoulder and neck pain is a very common and costly condition, for which manipulative physiotherapy is frequently recommended, although evidence to support its use is limited. This study examined the effectiveness of a scheme of manipulative physiotherapy examination and treatment in the management of a subject with neurogenic cervicobrachial pain.Methods: A single case study ABC design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of manipulative physiotherapy. The patient was a 44-year old woman with an eight-month history of left-sided neurogenic cervicobrachial pain. Clinical examination demonstrated signs of upper quadrant neural tissue mechanosensitivity suggesting that neural tissue was the origin of the subject's complaint of pain. Corroborative magnetic resonance imaging verified that the cause for the patient's radicular signs and symptoms was discal pathology at the C5/6 intersegmental level. The study involved three phases Phase A was a four-week pre-assessment phase; Phase B was a four-week treatment phase; Phase C was a two-week home exercise phase. Before phase A and at the end of each phase the patient's function (Northwick Park Neck Pain Questionnaire), pain (Short Form McGill Pain Questionnaire or SF-MPQ) and cervical and left shoulder abduction range of motion were measured. Manipulative physiotherapy treatment consisted of a lateral glide mobilisation technique of C5 on C6 towards the right side, performed by a physiotherapist with a postgraduate qualification in manipulative physiotherapy. Treatment was 3 sessions per week for 2 weeks and 2 sessions per week for 2 weeks. The two-week home exercise phase consisted of the patient performing an active cervical right side flexion movement.Results: From the end of Phase A to the 1 month follow-up there was a 42% improvement in functional disability; there was a 70% reduction in pain level recorded in the VAS aspect of the SF-MPQ; shoulder abduction increased from 280 to 1400 and cervical right side flexion increased from 180 to 520. Because of the controversy regarding performing statistical tests on single case studies, and because there was obvious clinical improvement, no statistical tests were performed on the results.Conclusion: This treatment protocol produced beneficial effects on functional disability, pain and cervical and shoulder mobility in a patient with chronic cervicobrachial pain. These improvements were maintained until a one-month follow-up. The single case design of the study limits generalisation of the findings, but the results give further impetus for a clinical trial
Proprioceptive acuity of the lumbar spine in low back pain and non-low back pain subjects
No full textBackground: Proprioceptive acuity - our ability to appreciate body position and movement - is considered to make an essential contribution to functional stability of the spine. Pain may impair proprioceptive acuity and initiate or exacerbate joint damage. Low back pain (LBP) is a pervasive problem and the incidence and socio-economic consequences are increasing. Few studies have investigated the relationship between LBP and proprioception of the lumbar spine. This study investigated whether a history of LBP is associated with altered proprioceptive acuity of the lumbar spine. Methods: Sixty one subjects with, and forty subjects without a history of LBP were recruited. Each subject's spinal reposition sense was assessed by an electro-goniometer placed over the lumbar spine. Testing was performed in standing and sitting. For both sitting and standing tests each subject was blindfolded and asked to flex or extend their low back slowly and stop at a random "test" position for 3 seconds. The subject was then instructed to return to the upright position. After 3 seconds the subject attempted to return to the "test" position the position they returned to was the "reproduced" position. This procedure was repeated 10 times in total. The absolute error between each "test" position and the "reproduced" position was calculated in degrees. The average mean error was then calculated and compared between the two groups using an independent-samples t test. Results: No significant differences were found in the average mean error between the LBP and non-LBP subjects. In standing, the average mean error was 2.480 (SD=1.040) for LBP subjects and 2.210 (SD=0.650) for non-LBP subjects, with a mean difference of -0.270 (95% CI = -0.600 to 0.070; P = 0.118). In sitting, the average mean error was 1.780 (SD=0.800) for LBP subjects and 1.810 (SD=0.950) for non-LBP subjects, with a mean difference of 0.030 (95% CI = -0.310 to 0.380; P = 0.854).Conclusions: There was no difference in proprioceptive acuity of the lumbar spine during flexion and extension movements for LBP and non-LBP subjects in sitting or standing
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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