1,721,090 research outputs found
The Italian Consensus Conference on Pain in Neurorehabilitation
Get PDFPain is frequent in several neurological conditions, such as stroke, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, diabetic neuropathy, but it is often underestimated and therefore untreated or not successfully treated. Pain reduces quality of life, it may be the cause of adaptive disorders (such as anxiety and depression) and, in patients undergoing rehabilitation, it may negatively impact rehabilitation procedures and hamper the outcome. Unfortunately, there are no significant data regarding the impact of pain in neurorehabilitation patients and what would be the impact of an appropriate pain treatment on rehabilitation outcome. Accordingly, there are no guidelines providing indications on how to treat pain in patients with pain during rehabilitation treatment and thereafter. Given this background, and to comply with the Italian law 38 released on 2010 by the Italian Ministry of Health to guarantee adequate care and treatment of patients with pain both in hospital and in primary care, the Italian Society for Neurological Rehabilitation (SIRN) along with the Italian Society for Physical and Rehabilitative Medicine (SIMFER), promoted a work-in-progress platform, the Italian Consensus Conference on Pain in Neurorehabilitation (ICCPNR)
D2/D3 receptor agonism: paving the way for a new therapeutic target for taste disorders in Parkinson's disease and other conditions?
Get PDFChemosensory (i.e., olfaction and taste) dysfunction is common in neurodegenerative (e.g., Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, and dementia), psychiatric (e.g., depression, bipolar disorders, other conditions), post-infectious (i.e., long COVID) diseases and in the elderly. Despite its impact on patient's quality of life, no established treatment for taste disorders exists so far. A recent report on the effect of pramipexole, a D2/D3 agonist, on taste performance in healthy subjects provides support for a new potential therapeutic target for taste dysfunction to be tested in future randomized, placebo-controlled, clinical trials across several populations reporting gustatory symptoms
Effects of a nutraceutical combination in patients with chronic lumbosacral radicular pain
No full textDrugs used for the treatment of chronic lumbosacral radicular pain (LRP) may have frequent adverse effects leading to medication withdrawal. The use of add-on nutraceuticals, which have no side effects, may therefore play a role in LRP treatment. We performed a six-week, single-center, open label prospective uncontrolled clinical study to evaluate the effect of a nutraceutical combination (Noxiall®) used as an add-on therapy in patients with chronic LRP. Fifteen patients were treated with Noxiall® twice a day for 10 consecutive days, followed by once-daily administration up to the end of the six-week treatment. The participants were evaluated at two visits (before-after), when primary and secondary outcomes were assessed. We found a significant reduction in pain severity post-treatment, as assessed using a numerical rating scale (p= 0.03), and a significant reduction in painkiller intake (p=0.03). Nutraceuticals could be a complementary therapy for chronic LRP
Modificazioni a livello del sistema nervoso periferico nel paziente con ictus cerebrale e spasticità di arto superiore. correlati neurofisiologici, ecografici e clinici
No full textIntroduzione: La spasticità post stroke ha una prevalenza che varia dal 4 al 42%. L’uso dell’ecografia muscolo- scheletrica nell’ambito della spasticità è ormai ampiamente riconosciuto. Viene usata non solo come guida a procedure invasive, ma anche come strumento valutativo delle caratteristiche del muscolo al fine di stabilire l’eventuale risposta ad un trattamento focale della spasticità. Per quanto riguarda l’ecografia di nervo periferico nella spasticità, sin ad ora l’attenzione è stata più che altro rivolta all’uso dell’ecografia come guida a procedure invasive diagnostico-terapeutiche (blocchi anestetici, fenolici, alcolizzazioni); sono pochi gli studi presenti in letteratura sulle caratteristiche ecografiche di esso nell’emiparesi e nella spasticità. Lo scopo dello studio è valutare i parametri ecografici e neurofisiologici dei nervi mediano ed ulnare nel paziente con spasticità di arto superiore come esito di ictus cerebrale, confrontandoli con le caratteristiche dell'arto superiore sano, al fine di evidenziare eventuali alterazioni specifiche di tali nervi in relazione al quadro clinico. Materiali e Metodi: Sono stati inclusi pazienti adulti con spasticità ai muscoli dell'arto superiore. Di questi pazienti sono state calcolate ecograficamente la cross sectional area e la durezza (mediante elastosonografia) dei nervi mediano ed ulnare a livello di polso, avambraccio e gomito; sia dell’arto superiore affetto che di quello sano. Inoltre di entrambi gli arti superiori è stato eseguito uno studio neurofisiologico degli stessi nervi. A questi dati strumentali si è accompagnata una valutazione clinica della spasticità di polso e dita attraverso scale di valutazione specifiche (MAS, Grado di Tardieu, Angolo di Tardieu). Risultati: Sono stati esaminati 20 soggetti (15 uomini e 5 donne) con età media di 67 anni, con un quadro di spasticità a livello dei muscoli flessori del polso e delle dita della mano come esito di ictus, sia ischemico che emorragico. L’analisi dei dati raccolti evidenzia una differenza statisticamente significativa della conduzione motoria e sensitiva di entrambi i nervi nell’arto superiore spastico rispetto al controlaterale, nonché un’aumentata CSA del nervo mediano al gomito nell’arto affetto rispetto al sano. A questo si associano correlazioni tra il grado di spasticità e i valori neurofisiologici ed ecografici del nervo ulnare nell’arto superiore affetto. Conclusione: Possiamo concludere dicendo che nel paziente con spasticità di arto superiore come esito di ictus cerebrale sono presenti delle alterazioni neurofisiologiche ed ecografiche dei nervi mediano ed ulnare dell’arto superiore affetto quando confrontato con quello sano. Tali alterazioni possono essere giustificate sia da modificazioni primarie conseguenti all’ictus (inibizione trans-sinaptica, neuropatia a “dying back”) che da modificazione secondarie a livello periferico (alterazioni strutturali del muscolo dell’arto emiplegico, ipoafflusso vascolare dell’emisoma colpito). A questi aspetti si aggiunge la postura obbligata dell’arto superiore spastico (nel nostro campione il pattern IV secondo Hefter era il maggiormente rappresentato), che può determinare punti di intrappolamento nervoso. Dal punto di vista clinico queste informazioni sono utili per indirizzare il trattamento focale della spasticità con tossina botulinica. La riduzione della flessione di polso e delle dita anche in una mano non funzionale può essere utile per ridurre il rischio a lungo termine di neuropatia da compressione. Analogamente, se alla valutazione ecografica del nervo mediano al gomito troviamo una CSA al limite superiore dei valori fisiologici, potrebbe essere utile ridurre la flessione di gomito e la pronazione di avambraccio al fine di allentare la tensione sul nervo mediano a livello del pronatore rotondo
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Working memory in healthy aging and in Parkinson’s disease: evidence of interference effects
No full textDi Rosa E, Pischedda D, Cherubini P, Mapelli D, Tamburin S, Burigo M. Working memory in healthy aging and in Parkinson's disease: evidence of interference effects. AGING, NEUROPSYCHOLOGY, AND COGNITION. 2017;24(3):1-18.Focusing on relevant information while suppressing the irrelevant one are critical abilities for different cognitive processes. However, their functioning has been scarcely investigated in the working memory (WM) domain, in both healthy and pathological conditions. The present research aimed to study these abilities in aging and Parkinson's disease (PD), testing three groups of healthy participants (young, older and elderly) and one of PD patients, employing a new experimental paradigm. Results showed that the transient storing of irrelevant information in WM causes substantial interference effects, which were remarkable in elderly individuals on both response latency and accuracy. Interestingly, PD patients responded faster and were equally accurate compared to a matched control group. Taken together, findings confirm the existence of similar mechanisms for orienting attention inwards to WM contents or outwards to perceptual stimuli, and suggest the suitability of our task to assess WM functioning in both healthy aging and PD
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“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
Get PDFWe 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
Get PDFWe 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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