مجله پژوهش در علوم توانبخشی
سال چهاردهم شماره 4 (مهر و آبان 1397)

Osteoarthritis is the most common type of joint disorder. The present study compared the effects of continuous and intermittent physiotherapy on the pain and function of the individuals with moderate knee osteoarthritis. This randomized clinical trial study included 20 patients with moderate knee osteoarthritis randomly assigned into continuous and intermittent physiotherapy groups. The intervention was exactly the same for both groups including 10 sessions of conventional physical therapy. The treatment frequency was 6 and 3 sessions per week for continuous and intermittent groups, respectively. Using Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) and Intermittent and Constant Osteoarthritis Pain (ICOAP) questioners, 6-minute-walking test, timed get up and go test, pain based on visual analogue scale (VAS), and function were assessed before, after 10 sessions, and after one month of follow up. The outcome was analyzed using independent t-test and, repeated measures ANOVA. Prior to the study, there was no significant difference between groups (P > 0.05). At the end of the 10th treatment session (P = 0.048), and after 1 month of follow up (P = 0.030), only the daily activity subscale of the KOOS questionnaire was significantly less in the continuous group. The records of 6-minute-walk test (P = 0.046), timed get up and go test (P = 0.040), continuous pain (P = 0.006), symptoms (P = 0.020), pain (P = 0.003), and quality of life (P = 0.010) subclasses of KOOS improved significantly in continuous group. After one month of follow up, daily activity subclass and pain based on VAS score were significantly better than baseline records (P = 0.002). In intermittent group, pain based on VAS score (P = 0.002) and continuous pain (P = 0.030) improved significantly after 10th session and follow up period). It seems that the frequency of the treatment sessions has no significant effect on the treatment results in short term. Thus, the physiotherapist may take the subject's preference and their time limitations for scheduling the sessions. Continuous intervention may probably be the better choice to reach better results while intermittent protocol may result in more lasting effects.

The effect of central vision occlusion on two-hand coordination tasks is assessed in previous studies. However, the effect of peripheral vision on these tasks is not clearly identified; therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of limitation of peripheral vision on two-hand coordination tasks. Seven right-handed and right eye-dominant girl students with a mean age of 24.00 ± 3.46 years participated in this study. Subjects tested under four experimental conditions including peripheral vision limitation of the position of right hand, left hand, and both hands, and no peripheral limitations of hand position in the two-handed Vienna coordination task with four tries for each condition. The data were analyzed using 1 × 4 repeated measures ANOVA. All three conditions of visual peripheral limitation showed less errors than the conditions without visual limitation (P < 0.05). However, no significant difference was observed between four experimental conditions in the variable of total time (P > 0.05). It seems that the visual peripheral limitation, as an environmental constraint, may increase the focus and attention of people in the two-hand coordination task.

During the growth period, before and after maturity, considerable biological changes occur. It seems that these changes are related to neuromuscular patterns, and have significant differences in performing functional movements in young boys and girls during the maturation process. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between maturity and functional movement screen (FMS) scores in school-aged girls and boys. The statistical sample included 700 school-aged, 9-18-year-old, boys and girls from Shahrekord City, Iran, categorized into 10 groups of 35 girls and 10 groups of 35 boys. To evaluate maturity and functional movement, the maturity offset prediction equations and FMS tests were used, respectively. To investigate the relationship between maturity and FMS scores the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient test was used (P ≤ 0.050). Spearman correlation test showed a significant correlation between maturity offset and FMS scores (r = 0.154, P < 0.001). Moreover, there was a significant correlation between maturity offset and FMS scores in boys (r = 0.334, P < 0.001), but this correlation was not significant in girls (r = -0.082, P > 0.050). There was a significant correlation between maturity and FMS scores in school-aged boys, but this correlation was not significant for girls. Therefore, realizing what changes may occur on the functional tests on the duration of the maturation process, can be considered as a goal for planning exercises; and some research can be done on the causes of these differences. Moreover, considering that functional tests may be affected by maturity, when interpreting these results, it is more accurate to consider biological age rather than chronological age.

Mental fatigue following long-term mental activity is a reason for the performance decrement in sports. Considering the importance of the effect of mental fatigue on selective attention and performance of athletes, the present study aimed to determine the effect of mental fatigue on the effectiveness of alerting and orienting attention networks among athlete students. This quasi-experimental study with pre- and posttest design was done to collect the data from 22 athlete students selected using convenient sampling method. Attention network test was used to evaluate the effectiveness of alerting and orienting networks before and after mental fatigue. In addition, they performed the Stroop test for 60 minutes in order to create mental fatigue. Then, repeated measures ANOVA (3 × 2) was utilized for analyzing the data at the significance level of 0.05. A significant increase in reaction time was observed in the speed processing of orienting network in mental fatigue (P = 0.016), while mental fatigue improved the reaction speed in the alerting network (P = 0.280). In addition, the error rate decreased in both alerting networks (P = 0.870) and orienting (P = 0.600), although it was not significant. It may be concluded that mental fatigue could alter cognitive performance and negatively affect both accuracy and speed of the alerting and orienting networks, due to its goal-directed and up-down control. Therefore, it seems that athlete students probably sacrifice the speed for maintaining accuracy in the orienting network, and reduce accuracy for maintaining speed in the alerting network.

The health care system should provide qualified health care services to people with disabilities equal to other members of population. The attitude of health professionals in providing standard services to people with disabilities has a significant impact on the quality of health care services. This study aimed to translate the “Scale of Attitudes toward Disabled Persons” (SADP) to Persian, and evaluate its content validity and reliability. Initially, based on the International Quality of Life Assessment project the process of translating to Persian was done by 6 translators. Content validity ratio (CVR) and content validity index (CVI) were assessed by 8 occupational therapists. Relative content validity coefficient was investigated in order to verify the reliability of the questionnaire. The questionnaires were completed twice within 10 days by 52 health professionals who participated in this study. Internal consistency and the reliability of the test-retest were determined by calculating the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC), respectively. From 24 items, the presence of 22 items in the questionnaire was confirmed by calculating the CVR and CVI. The Cronbach's alpha for two subscales of optimism/human right and pessimism/behavior was 0.70 and 0.65, respectively. Intra-class correlation coefficient for the two scales was 0.71 and 0.69, respectively. The Persian version of SAPD has good content validity and internal consistency for evaluation the attitude toward people with disabilities. Test-retest reliability is average due to the nature of attitude evaluation. SADP, along with other tools, can be an appropriate tool for evaluation attitude of health professionals toward persons with disability.

Diabetes mellitus is a common health problem worldwide, especially in Asia. Exercise training plays an important role in controlling diabetes variables. The aim of this research was to consider the effectiveness of exercise on biochemical parameters in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. This randomized controlled clinical trial study was carried out with 40 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus selected out of 702 volunteers. These individuals were randomly divided to two groups, combined (aerobic and resistance) exercise and control. Intervention protocol included 24 sessions (8 weeks) of aerobic exercise on the treadmill with zero slope, three days per week for 30 minutes per session. Intensity of training protocol was 50-70 percent of maximum heart rate, and that subjects wear a weighted vest. Measurements of parameters were done before and after 24 sessions. Basically, there were no significant differences in variable values. After eight weeks, fasting blood sugar (FBS) (P = 0.059), glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) (P = 0.333) were significantly reduced in the combined group; but not low-density lipoprotein (LDL), very low-density of lipoprotein (VLDL), high-density lipoprotein (HDL), total cholesterol, triglyceride, and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (HS-CRP) (P > 0.050 for all). Alternatively, the value remained unchanged in the combined group while it was increased in the control group (P = 0.001). 24 sessions of aerobic exercise improved FBS and HbA1c in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. However, longer training duration is deemed to need to modify other variables.

Rehabilitation of people with disability has ethical dimensions. Therefore, the aim of this study was to review the codes of ethics for rehabilitation in English-speaking countries through a narrative review. In this study, the ethical codes in Australia, Canada, the Unite States, and the United Kingdom were searched electronically through the google search engine, because the language was understandable for researchers. Accordingly, the codes of ethics for rehabilitation (including Orthotics and Prosthetics, occupational therapy, and physiotherapy) were extracted and studied by two researchers independently. A set of professional responsibilities for the rehabilitation services were categorized according to four principles of biomedical ethics and presented as ethical codes for rehabilitation services. As the first step in developing a reliable framework for professional ethics, professional ethics codes for rehabilitation in Australia, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom were reviewed through a narrative review, in order to provide the basis for professional ethics in rehabilitation services based on Iranian Islamic teachings.

Speech prosody is one of the important communication components that describes the paraliguistic features of speech. The tests are suitable tools for quantifying speech and language skills, and of necessary needs for evaluation, screening, describing, diagnosis, and treatment of various aspects. The purpose of present study was to review existing tests in speech prosody recognition, as well as their subtests, implementation and scorings, and ultimately their application in clinical and research fields of children and adults. An electronic search for reviewing common speech prosody tests was performed in Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, Medline, Scientific Information Database (SID), Google Scholar, Ovid, and Magiran databases to obtain relevant articles published from 1981 to 2019. The keywords used included “Prosody”, “Assessment”, “Test”, “Tool”, “Evaluation”, “Diagnosis”, “Instrument”, and “Measurement”. The articles obtained using the inclusion criteria were studied following as access to the full text of the article and the English or Persian language. From 15 articles found, 8 tests that were adhered to the inclusion criteria were selected for consideration. 8 speech prosody tests were evaluated which included 5 perceptual tests, 2 expressive tests, and 1 perceptual expressive test. The oldest test was made in 1981, and the latest in 2012. The literature review shows that some tests have been used more often in recent years due to the specialized expertise of the subtests. A review of speech tests suggests that the Profiling Elements of Prosody in Speech-Communication (PEPS-C) test is more prestigious due to the assessment of perceptual and expression areas, standardization for normal and disabled children, translation into several languages, and high psychometric properties.