Iranian Rehabilitation Journal
Volume:15 Issue: 33, Sep 2017

To date, there is no specific scale to assess the quality of life in Bipolar Disorder (BD). The Quality of Life in Bipolar Disorder (QoL.BD) is the first questionnaire designed for this purpose. In this study, we aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the Persian Brief Quality of Life in Bipolar Disorder (Brief QoL.BD).
After forward and backward translation of the questionnaire and comparing the two translations, the Persian version of the questionnaire was prepared to be tested. The statistical population comprised all patients and normal individuals in Tehran . The sample population included 118 patients with BD and 132 healthy individuals without the history of mental disorder; they were selected using a convenience sampling method. The study instruments included the Beck Depression Inventory-II, Bech–Rafaelsen Mania Rating Scale, the 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36), and the Brief QoL.BD. Data were analyzed using SPSS and Lisrel statistical programs.
The confirmatory factor analysis indices indicated a relatively good model fit. Content validity estimates were also acceptable. Convergent validity was examined by calculating the correlation between the scores on the Brief QoL.BD and those on the SF-36 questionnaire; the results were found to be significant (r=0.36, P

Methamphetamine (MA) dependence is a new health problem among Iranian female methadone patients. In recent years, the Matrix Model (a sixteen-week psychosocial treatment) has been provided for treating MA dependence. However, the problems associated with this treatment in methadone services are not clear.
A qualitative study was conducted to explore the problems associated with providing the Matrix Model in methadone clinics. Overall, 42 women were individually interviewed in 12 methadone clinics in Tehran in October 2015. All clinics provided the Matrix Model for MA dependence. Ten health professionals were also interviewed in three roundtable meetings. Data were analyzed using Atlas-ti software (version 9) based on the Grounded Theory of Strauss and Corbin.
The mean age of the women was 34 years old. All of them were MA-dependent on the methadone programme. The most important theme was that the Matrix Model was able to manage MA craving and relapse among women in methadone treatment services. However, the Matrix Model was long, expensive and needed intensive staff training. Furthermore, the coverage of the treatment was inadequate. Conducting brief psychosocial treatments was suggested to reduce these problems.
The results indicated that the Matrix Model is effective for treating MA dependence. However, the long length of the treatment, lack of cost-effectiveness, and intensive staff training are significant problems associated with providing MA treatment. Further studies are suggested to evaluate the role of brief interventions in reducing these problems in methadone treatment services.

Choice theory is rooted in psychological concepts like self-concept, successful identity, and quality of the world. This theory could be useful for people seeking for hope and a better life. The purpose of this research was to investigate the effectiveness of group training of choice theory on life quality and hope in blind people.
The statistical population of this research includes all the blind members of the Asaye Sefid Charity of Tehran in 2015. The research sample included 30 blind people from the Asaye Sefid Charity, selected via simple random sampling. The data in this study have been collected using the Life Quality questionnaire of the World Health Organization (the brief 26-question form) and the Snyder Hope questionnaire. Data analysis was performed by covariance analysis.
The results indicate that the training of choice theory concepts affected the quality of life (F=22.5, P

Clinical education is an important component of physiotherapy education. The students’ and clinical educators’ viewpoints about different aspects of education are being analyzed worldwide for the promotion of educational services. The aim of this study was to identify the challenges of clinical education based on the experiences of physiotherapy students and educators.
A qualitative study was conducted using content analysis method. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews using a purposeful sampling method with a maximum variation based on some factors like first-hand experience, expertise, and their willingness to participate in this research. Data collection was continued until the point of data saturation was attained. The participants included 17 senior physiotherapy students and nine clinical educators with over three years of experience.
After verbatim transcription of the interviews and data analysis, 360 initial or open codes were extracted. The related codes were derived from the students’ and clinical educators’ experiences and challenges and were categorized into three concepts: A. Personal and professional characteristics of physiotherapy students; B. Personal and professional characteristics of clinical educators; and C. Inefficient educational system.
Clinical education efficiency requires a common understanding of the long –term complications involved in addressing the existing barriers. Understanding these challenges can equip the policy makers and educational planners of physiotherapy departments with valuable information for improvement in the quality of physiotherapy clinical education and preventing oversight of clinical education and programs. Thus, the study emphasized the need for comprehensive management for policy makers and educational planners and recommended further research.

Today quality of life is considered as a comprehensive health issue. The paper aims to study the quality of life of the elderly residing in Zahedan, Iran, in 2016. The study is regarding the increasing number of elderly people and the effect of socio-environmental factors on their health.
It was a descriptive and correlational study. The sample included 117 elderly people residing in Zahedan city who were recruited by population-based cluster random sampling. Data was collected by Quality of Life questionnaire (SF-36) and analyzed by Pearson correlation coefficient, ANOVA, and t-test using SPSS software, version 19.
The mean score of quality of life was 58.2±6.25. Quality of life of women was significantly lower than that of men (P=0.04). Quality of life scores were associated with marital status; so widowed individuals gained less score than married or single individuals (P=0.048), but the quality of life showed no significant relationship with other demographic variables such as age and educational level (P>0.05).
In the study conducted it was found that the quality of life among the elderly was moderate and that the status of social performance was better than their physical health. It was also found that there was no significant relationship between educational level and quality of life. It was found that the quality of life was low, especially in elderly women; hence more attention needs to be paid to them.

The main purpose of this research was to study the effectiveness of positive thinking skills training on increasing happiness of male adolescents with physical-mobility disability.
In this study an experimental research design with pre-test, post-test, and control group is used. All adolescents (boys) having disabled physical mobility from all the high schools in southern parts of Tehran in the year 2012-2103 were our statistical community. Among them, 16 students were selected by two-stage sampling, including purposive sampling and random sampling. The samples were randomly divided into two groups: experimental and control groups. Positive thinking skills were performed in 8 sessions of 45 minutes each (twice a week) for the experimental group. In this study, happiness questionnaire was used for collecting data. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and Statistical Package for Social Science 16 (SPSS 16) programs were used for statistical analysis.
Results of the analysis indicated that positive thinking skills training had a significant and positive effect on increasing happiness of adolescents with impaired physical mobility in the experimental group (P

Mirror therapy is a unique treatment with a touch of modality that is purported to improve the motor function of the affected limb in individuals with hemiplegia. Previous studies have focused on the neuro-physiological factors underlying the mechanism of the clinical effect of this technique. The present study aims to understand the mechanism using the rehabilitation method and neuro-occupation model as well as analyze the effects of mirror therapy on the upper limb function of subjects with spastic hemiplegic cerebral palsy.
Single subject design known as withdrawal design was used by a convenience sample of four subjects. The study involved three observational phases known as baseline, treatment, and withdrawal phases that took place during a 10 week period. The study contained a home-based mirror therapy protocol whereby the participants were instructed to do some exercises on a daily basis. The improvement of the hand function of the hemiplegic side was examined by Box and Block test along with two more activities including Threading Beads and Stacking Rings.
The ability to perform the Box and Block test, Threading Beads, and Stacking Rings tended to remain steady in the baseline phase, whereas there was a noticeable improvement during the treatment phase and a decline in the withdrawal phase.
From the perspective of visual feedback neuro-occupation model, it could be hypothesized that alterations to the sensory system caused by the mirror reflection of non affected hand may have led to the destabilization of the sensory cortices that changed the participants’ intention, meaning, and perception, thereby improving the subject’s motor control.

The study aims to investigate the effectiveness of Cognitive-Behavioral Play Therapy (CBPT) on the self-esteem of children with intellectual disability.
Pre-test and post-test, control group, quasi-intervention design was adopted for the study. The study sample consisted of 40 children conveniently selected based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria from among educable intellectually-disabled children in two care centers for children with special needs in Tehran, who were randomly assigned into intervention and control groups. In both the groups, the pre-test was conducted by the Cooper-smith Self-Esteem Inventory (CSEI) and then for the intervention group, CBPT sessions were performed in 12 sessions of 60-minute each (two days a week). The post-test was also administered to both the groups after intervention. The data obtained were analyzed using independent t-test and Levine's test by SPSS software.
Self esteem was observed to be significantly increased in the intervention group (P

Spastic hemiplegia cerebral palsy is the second type of cerebral palsy among pre-mature infants, which affects the mobility of one side of the body by impairing the brain’s ability to send nerve impulse to the muscles. The present research aims to examine the effect of motor training in mirror therapy on the gross motor skills in Spastic Hemiplegia Cerebral Palsy (SHCP) children.
This experimental study, 14 children with SHCP were selected using convenience sampling and randomly divided into two groups, i.e. mirror therapy or therapy group (7 children) and the control group or without mirror therapy (7 children). The gross motor skills for both groups was measured using Box and Block Test in the first session as pre-test. Later, the first group participated in motor training such as wheeling shoulder, adduction and abduction arm, throwing tennis balls into the basket, pushing a cylinder, rolling a tennis ball, rowing with elastic bands, etc. Both groups participated in 16 sessions of 30 minutes each. The control group completed the above program without a mirror. The post-test was conducted using the same procedure as the pre-test.
Results showed that the gross manual dexterity significantly promoted from pre- to post-test in both groups (P

Neuro-critical Intensive Care Units (NICUs) have functioned to deliver intensive medical care services for patients with acute neurology problems. However, physicians and ICU staff do not have any feedback about their patients and their abilities after successful discharge. Various studies have documented short-term survival in ICUs, but the long-term outcome and quality of life (QOL) are less studied.
This is a retrospective cohort study over a period of one year from February 2011 to February 2012 (Shiraz, South of Iran). Patient's charts were used to collect the data. Survival and QOL after one year following NICU admission were assessed for surviving patients by a telephone interview with patients or their family members using Karnofsky Performance Scale (KPS).
Out of 93 patients, 42(45.2%) were male, and 51(54.8%) were female. Malignant ischemic stroke (34%) was the most common cause followed by Guillain Barre Syndrome (21%). Among the living successfully discharged patients, 45% were able to perform normal activity and work without any special assistance. The patients who were unable to work were 28%, but they were able to live at home and care for their most personal needs. The patients who were unable to care for themselves were 3% and required institutional or hospital care. Over one year following discharge, 24% patients were passed away.
is lower in NICU survivors compared with general population; however, if patient's selection and out of hospital care are done appropriately and continuously, more patients can live independently or even come back to their work. Indeed, it is important to identify patients who benefit more from NICU during decision making for ICU admission. As a result, more efficient rehabilitation could be achieved in the future. However, our conclusions are only related to our ward and do not apply to the total population of critical neurology patients.

Anomia is one of the most common and persistent symptoms of aphasia. Although treatments of anomia usually focus on semantic and/or phonological levels, which both have been demonstrated to be effective, the relationship between the underlying functional deficit in naming and response to a particular treatment approach remains unclear. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between the effects of specific treatments (Semantic feature Analysis and Phonological Components Analysis) and their underlying functional deficit patterns within the framework of a cognitive processing model.
In an ABCB reversal control task design, four participants with aphasia were selected according to the criteria based on using a cognitive model of lexical processing. Each patient received two types of treatment. In SFA, features semantically associated to the target words were elicited from the patient, whereas in PCA treatment, the phonological components of the target words were the focus of treatment. Naming accuracy scores obtained in pre-treatment baseline phase were compared to post-treatment accuracy scores. Here, both item-specific effects and generalization of untrained items were analyzed.
Both SFA and PCA treatments have the potential to improve naming ability in participants; however, the treatment approach that corresponds exactly to the underlying deficit causing failure in word retrieval is more effective.
While PCA is more effective for participants with phonological impairments, SFA is more effective for participants with semantic impairments. Therefore, a direct relationship between underlying functional deficit and response to specific treatment was established for all participants.

Parental responses to children’s negative emotions play a key role in developing emotional competence. Poor emotional competence has been linked to disruptive behavior problems in children. The Tuning in to Kids program is a new emotion-focused parenting intervention for preschoolers. The Tuning in to Kids aims to improve children’s behavior by changing mothers’ emotion socialization practices including teaching emotion coaching skills and reducing dismissing of children’s emotion. This study is an introductory evaluation of an 8-session group parenting program, Tuning into Kids, for mothers of preschool children with behavior problems in Iran.
Fiftyfour children (aged 3 to 6), who were screened via preschools and agreed to participate in the research, were randomized into intervention or waitlist control condition. Mothers in the intervention group attended the six-sessions of the Tuning in to Kids program followed by two booster sessions at two-monthly intervals thereafter. Mothers completed the Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory, the Parent Emotional Style Questionnaire, and the General Health Questionnaire prior to the intervention, immediately following intervention completion, and at three months follow-up. Data were analyzed using repeated measures ANOVA in SPSS 22.
Mothers in the intervention group reported significantly less emotion dismissing and child behavior problems than controls at 3-month follow-up (P≤0.01); there were no significant differences for emotion coaching and maternal mental health in either condition (P≥0.05).
The Tuning in to Kids program appears to be a promising parenting intervention for mothers and children with disruptive behavior problems, offering a useful addition to usual programs used in Iran.

Clinical reasoning is at the heart of clinical work; it is affected by different field factors. A clear understanding of the reasoning process could solve practitioner's problems on how to make their underlying theories, assumptions and values more explicit. The aim of this research is to understand how clinical reasoning process is formed in the context of occupational therapists working in different clinical settings in Iran.
A purposeful and theoretical sampling of 15 occupational therapists working in clinical settings was performed through semi-structured interviews. All the data were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using Strauss and Corbin’s (2008) grounded theory approach and constant comparative analyses.
Conceptual model was developed to explain the relationships among the main categories extracted through the grounded theory. Achieve an observable change emerged as the core category. Other important categories linked to the core category were, performing the continuum of clinical reasoning, context of clinical reasoning, and effective factors in clinical reasoning.
Findings showed that achieving an observable change in the client was the main consequence of the action/interaction strategies. Some facilitating factors related to the therapist, helped to process reasoning with a holistic and client-centered view, while also helping to develop the self-belief and professional identity. The dominance of medical views and a lack of health insurance were two intervening factors that constrained the dynamics of clinical reasoning within the context of practice.

Despite numerous studies conducted to explore the manifestations of aphasia in different languages of the world, language-specific patterns of aphasic patients in Kalhori as a southern dialect of Kurdish spoken in part of Kermanshah Province, Iran, remains largely unpacked. The present study aims at investigating language deficits of a forty-year-old Kurdish-Persian aphasic woman, here F. D., who was diagnosed with Broca’s aphasia.
To assess her linguistic competence, and more particularly, her knowledge of syntax and semantics, we administered a modified version of the Bilingual Aphasia Test in Kalhori.
Although she showed severe deficits in almost all modalities and levels examined, results indicated definiteness, prepositions and verb agreement with the subject as the most problematic areas.
While impairments to do with prepositions and parts of speech are expected features of aphasic patients, as far as the assessment of verbal morphology of Kalhori is concerned, results seem to replicate the results achieved by Nilipour et al. (2001) researching Persian bilingual aphasics.

The Matrix Model is used for MA dependence in methadone services in Iran, the most populated Persian Gulf country. However, there are no studies of the efficacy of the Matrix Model for MA dependence while in treatment. The present study reports on the efficacy of sixteen weeks of the Matrix Model for MA abstinence and general health.
There were MA-dependent male (n=30) and female (n=30) patients in the study sites whom received the Matrix Model. The sites included three large methadone clinics in Tehran, Iran during 2015. The Persian versions of the Time Line Follow Back (TLFB) and the General Health Questionnaire-28 (GHQ-28) were completed by each participant at baseline and treatment weeks of four, ten and sixteen. Abstinence from MA was confirmed on the TLFB and with doing urinalyses at the same time.
All subjects were daily MA users on the TLFB at baseline. General health was poor among all subjects at baseline. There was no reported subject attrition at baseline. But, ten subjects left the Matrix treatment before the end of week nine and 21 subjects left the Matrix treatment before the end of week 13. At week 4, only 20% of the subjects were abstinent from MA. At week ten, 35% of the subjects were abstinent from MA while at week 16, 65% of the subjects were abstinent from MA. The Matrix Model led to an increased rate of abstinence from MA (P