Middle East Journal of Rehabilitation and Health Studies
Volume:6 Issue: 1, Jan 2019

Shoulder pain (SP) is one of the most common complaints encountered in patients attending rehabilitation settings. Rotator cuff (RC) tendinopathies and subacromial impingement syndrome (SIS) are the most common disorders involved in SP. Physical examination (PE) is essential to perform the correct diagnosis and treatment. In fact, in the rehabilitation settings, patients are treated based on clinical symptoms and PE as well as clinical evolution. There are 184 maneuvers to evaluate the shoulder complex. PE is extremely important to evaluate the presence, location, and extent of RC tear or shoulder pathology. Unfortunately, PE is neither sensitive nor specific enough to diagnose a unique disorder. The current study aimed at reviewing the main features of clinical and physical evaluation and diagnostic accuracies of the most common PE tests performed in the rehabilitation settings

Treatment success rate and loss to follow-up (LTFU) in patient with tuberculosis (TB) are a great concern in Ethiopia. However, available information is inadequate to assess the magnitude of LTFU and its predictors in geographically remote regions of Ethiopia.

The current study aimed at assessing the survival status and predictors of LTFU among adult patients with tuberculosis registered in TB treatment and care center in public health institutions of Sheka Zone, South-West Ethiopia.

A facility-based, retrospective cohort study was conducted from 01 to 30 August 2016. The LTFU was defined as patient with tuberculosis under follow-up being lost before treatment initiation or treatment interruption for two or more successive months. Kaplan-Meir curve and Cox proportional hazard model were fitted to determine survival time and predictors with survival status, respectively.

A total of 1319 patients with tuberculosis were followed up for a total of 7056.87 months from treatment initiation to outcomes. Of these, 117 (8.9%) patients were lost. The survival status at the completion of the intensive and continuation phases was 93.7% and 90%, respectively. Living farther than 10 Km away from the nearest health facility (adjusted odds ratio (AHR) = 4.9, 95% confidence interval (CI): 3.02 - 12.50) and not being adhered to anti-retroviral therapy (AHR = 5.3, 95%CI: 1.63 - 8.12) were significantly associated with LTFU.

Significant TB patient LTFU was observed during the first two months of treatment and care. LTFU was high in patients not adhered to antiretroviral therapy (ART) and living far.

This methodological study evaluated the psychometric properties of the Persian version of the questionnaire for patients’ satisfaction with physical therapy.

The Persian version of this questionnaire was prepared through forward and backward translation. Its reliability was examined by the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and Cronbach’s alpha. Structural validity was evaluated through confirmatory factor analysis and assessing the correlation between the score of the questionnaire with the visual analog score (VAS) and global rating of change (GRC) scale. The correlation of the questionnaire was checked with PTPSQ.

A total of 297 patients with musculoskeletal disorders at public physical therapy centers in Kerman, Iran, participated in this study and 40 participants, five to seven days later, answered the questionnaire again. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.95 and ICC was 0.88. The confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the four-factor solution. The correlation coefficients of the total score of the questionnaire with the VAS and GRC scores were -0.24 (P = 0.0001) and -0.32 (P = 0.0001), respectively. The correlation of this questionnaire with the other physiotherapy satisfaction questionnaire was good.

The Persian version of the 14 items on patient satisfaction with physical therapy questionnaire exhibited acceptable reliability and validity

Knowledge about the pattern and direct costs of medical services allocated to a given disease in a particular community can help to realize its economic burden in that community better regarding its socioeconomic features. A significant part of medical diagnostics and therapeutics for patients with cancer is made within three to six months after its detection, and their related costs are named as early direct costs. The current study aimed at evaluating the early direct costs of the incidence of cancer in a sample of Iranian patients.

The current descriptive study was conducted on some patients with cancer referred to the only oncology clinic in Semnan city, Iran, from 2011 to 2014 for chemotherapy. Some primary information about the type of services received and their direct costs, and also some demographics and social characteristics were gathered from patients' medical records. Costs were converted to US dollars and their means ± standard deviation (SD) were reported.

Fifty patients participated in the study. The most common types of cancer were breast cancer (n = 18, 36%), followed by colorectal cancer (n = 13, 26%). Other types included the esophagus, gastric, pancreas, lymphoma, ovarian, leukemia, and nasopharyngeal carcinomas. The mean ± SD of cost for doctor visits was US$1666.58 ± 41.64, US$221.97 ± 149.72, for imaging, US$200.55 ± 86.62 for lab tests, US$693.70 ± 530.90 for drugs, US$375.18 ± 156.89 for chemotherapy, US$492.03 ± 774.87 for surgical hospitalization, and US$75.86 ± 40.26 for non-surgical services, with the total average cost of US$2164.52 ± 1156.56. The total calculated early direct costs to manage colorectal cancer were estimated US$3017.26, and for breast cancer US$1923.23. No difference was observed in the costs of services including doctor’s visits, imaging, laboratory tests, medications, or non-surgical services among the different subtypes of cancers; however, higher costs for chemotherapy and surgical services were specified to colorectal cancer.

The study findings suggested that the economic burden of colorectal cancer in Iran was larger than the other types of cancer regarding its early direct costs

Patient satisfaction is one of the indicators of the quality of care received by patients, which can be used as a benchmark to ensure quality of physiotherapy services. However, there is a dearth of data in Nigeria.

The current study aimed at examining the level of patients’ satisfaction with the physiotherapy services in Maiduguri, Nigeria.

The current cross sectional study was conducted on a total of 300 participants (158 males and 142 females) randomly recruited from the physiotherapy outpatient unit of three hospitals. The physical therapy satisfaction questionnaire was administered to assess the participants’ level of satisfaction with the rendered physiotherapy services.

The overall patient satisfaction score was 82.95 ± 14.71. Privacy was the highest satisfactory subscale reported by the participants (83.50 ± 11.21), while facility locations/proximity (68.51 ± 13.20) and bills/cost (70.24 ± 19.40) were the least satisfactory subscales among the others. The result shows that female and old adult participants were significantly more satisfied with the received physiotherapy services compared with the male and young adult participants (P = 0.03 and 0.001, respectively). However, participants did not differ significantly in the level of satisfaction with provided physiotherapy services in terms of their conditions/ailments (P = 0.056).

Overall, patient satisfaction with physiotherapy services in the current study was high. Females, older adults, as well as employed participants were more satisfied. Also, higher satisfaction was observed among participants with primary school education and the ones receiving multiple treatment modalities.

The risk of falling increases with age, and the outcome might sometimes be severe injury or even death.

This study was designed to determine whether a 12-week neuromuscular and proprioceptive training (NPT) plan was impressive on postural stability of active middle-aged men.

The study had a quasi-experimental design with a control group. In 2016, 50 middle-aged males of the Ukrainian Sports Medicine Center (Kiev) were randomly divided to experimental (performed the NPT program, rather than general warm-up routines) and control groups (maintained the general warm-up routines). The mean center of pressure (CoP) fluctuations of postural stability was assessed during eyes open (EO) and closed (EC) using a force platform in the two directions, before and after the 12-week study.

The intervention leads to a significant improvement in the mean CoP velocity in both planes (P < 0.05) in the experimental group compared to the control. All CoP parameters used in this study showed very large correlations.

The NPT program had a positive effect on postural stability. This may have a direct impact on reducing lower limb injury in middle-aged men.

Neck pain is one of the most prevalent musculoskeletal conditions. Manual mobilization plus exercise are recommended for treating people with acute neck pain with movement coordination impairments. Therefore, it is important to consider a safe and effective coordination exercise for the cervical muscles. Using an oscillating device by holding it in the mouth might be a type of coordination exercise for the cervical muscles.

This study aimed to compare the activities of the cervical muscles while using an oscillating blade held in the mouth with different swings.

Ten healthy male university students participated in this study (20.8 ± 0.9 years). The activities of the sternocleidomastoid and cervical extensor muscles were measured using electromyography while using an oscillating blade held in the mouth in horizontal orientation (up-down oscillation). Participants were asked to oscillate the device in one of the following swings: Cervical flexion-extension and knee flexion-extension. Both exercises were performed in a standing position. All EMG activities were normalized by EMG activities during maximum voluntary contractions of those muscles.

The activities of the sternocleidomastoid with knee flexion-extension (5.7 ± 4.8 %) present significantly lower muscle activities (P = 0.011) than those with cervical flexion-extension (12.2 ± 8.6%). The activities of the cervical extensor muscles with knee flexion-extension (10.7 ± 6.5%) present significantly lower muscle activities (P < 0.001) than those with cervical flexion-extension (17.5 ± 10.3%).

The results of this study indicated that the exercise with knee flexion-extension had lower load for the cervical muscles than that with cervical flexionextension. The findings of this study could be basic information for grading intensity of cervical coordination exercise using an oscillating blade held in the mouth

Hepatitis B infection is a serious health problem and two billion people worldwide are infected with the virus. The hepatitis delta virus (HDV) is a satellite virus. Hepatitis D virus infection in HBsAg carriers can be present as a simultaneous and acute infection.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the frequency of HDV in patients with chronic hepatitis B and its association with risk factors.

In this descriptive study, 74 patients with chronic HBV infection were selected from patients that had referred to the Clinical Lab of Blood Transfusion Organization. All patients were positive for HBsAg for more than six months and anti-HBc. All samples were negative for HIV and HCV. An anti-HDV test was performed on HBsAg-positive specimens by the enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) method. Also, HBV-real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing was done to determine the viral load.

In this study, 74 HBsAg positive patients with a mean age of 50.22 ± 15.09 years were studied. Five (6.8%) patients had anti-HDV antibodies. Furthermore, 60% of the patients with HDV had risk factors, such as addiction, family history of hepatitis B, and a history of surgery. Maximal viral load in plasma samples of patients with anti-HDV antibodies, 531 IU/mL, was determined.

For prevention of HDV transmission, all patients of chronic hepatitis B with low-level viral load should be evaluated for hepatitis D infection. Also, for determining the relationship between HDV infections with its risk factors, another study with a larger sample size should be performed.

The organophosphorus pesticides are still applied in some developing countries including most regions of Iran. It is important to make sure that the level of pesticide residues at the time of harvesting vegetable crops (e.g. tomato and cucumber) is assessed in order to control that their levels are within the permissible limit in the domestic as well as overseas markets; and most importantly the governments should ban the application of such compounds. Regarding the increasing consumption of pesticides in agriculture, the current study aimed at determining the amount of pesticide residues in crops such as tomatoe and cucumber to ensure that Codex maximum residue limit (MRL) alimentarius is not violated.

A simple multiresidue method, using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and solid phase extraction, was employed to detect the pesticides with a sufficient extraction method.

The lowest level of pesticide residues were concerning carbaryl, fenpropat, and endosulfan in cucumber samples selected from greenhouses and fields with 11.1%, while the highest level was concerning diazinon in cucumber samples of the fields with 55.5%. Carbaryl and permethrin showed the high residue means of 0.37 and 0.72 µg/g in tomato and cucumber samples, respectively.

Vegetables and fruits with a high level of pesticide residues, which particularly violated the MRL, are sold in markets of Tehran, Iran. Therefore, it is suggested that the application of pesticides on fields and greenhouses be controlled and their residue levels be measured using the multiresidue method before distribution. The current study findings showed that the multi-residue method with GC/MS could detect a large number of pesticide residues at the same time with high accuracy. Therefore, it is recommended that this method be employed for all vegetables and fruits in order to assess their pesticide residue levels before reaching the markets