Journal of Rehabilitation Sciences and Research
Volume:10 Issue: 2, Jun 2023

Covid 19 infection has a profound effect on cardiac rehabilitation (CR) program. With public quarantine policies, hospital based cardiac rehabilitation services were impossible in most countries, including Iran. that the consequences of reduced access and long term closure of CR centers may lead to long term complications include increased hospital admission and re-exposure of this vulnerable population to. These challenges have led many countries' rehabilitation centers and health care systems to develop and replace cardiac rehabilitation models such as E - health interventions and the use of mobile technology to provide these services with remote patient monitoring in order to reduce the effects of the spread of the epidemic, and to remove the barriers between physician – patient communication and in order to continue care and secondary prevention measures for cardiovascular patients. Therefore, due to the prolongation of the COVID-19 pandemic period and the identification of various types of coronavirus mutations, it is suggested that health - care services and cardiac rehabilitation associations in Iran create the necessary infrastructure to support and use digital methods and smartphone application

Through research on the role of storytelling skills in building learning and writing elements, little attention has been paid to assessing strengths and weaknesses in story structure, especially microstructure, in dyslexic students. The purpose of this study is to assess the role of this structure as a manifestation of the verbal and cognitive performance of these students.
This is a descriptive analysis study. To identify dyslexic students, the Screening test for dyslexia diagnosis by Shafii et al. and Shirazi-Nilipour's reading diagnostic test were used. A total of 31 dyslexic students at secondary elementary school were identified during testing, and the remaining subjects (n = 35 students) were assigned to the control group. The story retelling test was used to assess students' storytelling skills. A parametric test (independent-samples t-test) was used to compare normally distributed data. A nonparametric test (Mann-Whitney U test) was used for non-normal data. Pearson's correlation test was also used to examine correlations for normally distributed data, and Spearman's correlation test was used for non-normal data.
Students with dyslexia had significantly lower mean scores in all substructures of the macrostructure, including topic maintenance, sequence of events, and the main information. They also had significantly lower microstructure scores, including mean length of utterance, conjunction use, and syntactic complexity, compared to their normal counterparts  (p<0.05).
Dyslexic students perform worse than their peers on most micro- and macrostructures of the retelling test. In other words, these students have poor linguistic and cognitive prerequisites for understanding and mastering reading skills. On the other hand, the results show that there is a meaningful association between storytelling skills and subsequent reading and comprehension acquisition.

Leisure activities are an important part of life for people with multiple sclerosis )MS). Unfortunately, there are no proper assessment tools for evaluating the leisure activities of MS patients. The current research purposed to develop such a questionnaire and to determine its factor structure.

This psychometric study aimed to determine the factor structure of a questionnaire for evaluating the leisure activities of MS patients and was conducted in explanatory and confirmatory phases.

The questionnaire was completed, and the data were entered in SPSS for the explanatory phase and using linear structural relations (LISREL) for the confirmatory phase. The lowest Eigenvalue was 1.01, which corresponds to the Kaiser criterion. The validity coefficients of the extracted factors are considerable. There is a very slight difference between the highest coefficient thatis related to the third factor (0.846) and the lowest coefficient that is related to the fifth factor (0.799), indicating the number of factors was correctly determined. Confirmatory factor analysis illustrated that the goodness-of-fit (GFI) and the comparative fit index (CFI) indices were considerable (higher than 0.95),showing good fit of data. RMSEA was 0.024.

It can be concluded that the 5-factor structure (difficult, social,spiritual/religious, outdoor-physical, and cultural-artistic activities) of the multiple sclerosis leisure questionnaire with 50 items is confirmed.

The current study aimed to determine the quality of life (QoL) scores before and after treatment in patients with acromegaly.
In this longitudinal before-after study, the acromegaly quality of life (AcroQoL) questionnaire was used to assess the QoL. Demographics, clinical manifestations and co-morbidity data, pituitary axis involvement, biochemical and hormonal component tests, and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) before and after treatment (endoscopic transsphenoidal surgery, medication, radiotherapy) were evaluated in patients over 18 years of age. To compare the mean of continuous data, the independent t and Mann–Whitney tests were used. To compare the mean QOL score before and after the study, the paired-t and Wilcoxon tests were performed. The significance level was set at p<0.05.
Among 80 patients with acromegaly who underwent trans-sphenoid surgery with or without radiotherapy or medication therapy with somatostatin analogs, 52 (65%) entered the remission phase within 6 months. Associations were found between the remission phase and female gender (p=0.004) and lower growth hormone (GH) (p=0.04) but not between remission and lower insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF1) after surgery (p=0.02) or gonadal axis disorder after treatment (p<0.001) statistically. Moreover, a significant association was found between not being in the remission phase and gonadal axis disorder before treatment (p=0.04). The QoL score in all dimensions of the AcroQoL questionnaire increased 6 months after treatment (p<0.001). Total AcroQoL score was higher after treatment in the remission group (p=0.03). The psychological scale had a significantly higher score both on the total scale (p<0.001) and on the two subscales of appearance (p<0.001) and personal relationship (p=0.003).
Because of the importance of QoL in acromegaly patients, further studies in this field are recommended.

Considering the prevalence of stroke, an economical and reliable questionnaire is needed for use in research and rehabilitation to measure the amount of burden on caregivers of stroke patients. True to our knowledge, there is no exclusive Persian language instrument for assessing the burden of stroke caregivers. The current study investigated the validity and reliability of the Burden Scale for Family Caregivers-short version (BSFC-s) for stroke patients’ caregivers.

In this cross-sectional study, 51 stroke patients and their caregivers were studied using the above-named questionnaire translated from English into Persian. Construct validity of the questionnaire was evaluated by Spearman and Eta correlation. Cronbach’s Alfa was used to assess internal consistency. Factorial structure was evaluated by exploratory analysis.

The test-retest reliability of the questionnaire was calculated to be 0.93, and the questionnaire’s internal consistency was 0.93. The construct validity of the questionnaire was acceptable.

In general, it can be said that this questionnaire has a good structure for assessing the burden of caregivers. In addition, by 10 items we can consider this questionnaire as an economically viable option in research and practice.

Most physiotherapy treatments require direct contact with patients, which could predispose physical therapists to the transmission of infection. The present study aimed to investigate the depression, anxiety, and stress of physical therapists during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

A cross-sectional, web-based survey was applied during the pandemic. The survey was completed by 135 physical therapists working in Iran. The depression-anxiety and stress scale 21 (DASS-21) was used to evaluate their depression, anxiety, and stress statuses. A multiple regression analysis was used to identify the demographic characteristics factors related to depression, anxiety, and stress.

The results showed that 43.7%, 43.8%, and 54.8% of physical therapists had severe and very severe levels of depression, anxiety, and stress, respectively. In addition, female physical therapists had higher levels of depression, anxiety, and stress. The level of anxiety was higher in physical therapists working in hospitals and those with more work experience.

Our findings indicated that COVID-19 resulted in high levels of depression, anxiety, and stress in Iranian physical therapists. Therefore, the mental health of physical therapists should be regularly monitored, and the proper support and training in coping strategies should be provided for them.

Patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS) is one of the most common knee pathologies that is highly prevalent in adolescents and adults. Patients who suffer from this syndrome usually experience weakness in the hip and knee muscles, as well as myofascial trigger points in the lumbopelvic- hip region, which can negatively impact their lower limb biomechanics. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of exercise therapy combined with self-myofascial release (SMFR) techniques for quadriceps, gluteus medius, and quadratus lumborum muscles on pain, function, and balance in these patients through telerehabilitation.
The study will be a prospective, single-blinded, randomized controlled clinical trial, involving 60 patients who will be randomly allocated to either an experimental group that will receive four weeks of exercise therapy with SMFR techniques through telerehabilitation or a control group that will receive four weeks of exercise therapy only in the same manner.  The outcome measures will include pain, pressure pain threshold, function, and balance. Data will be collected at baseline, at the end of treatment and two weeks after treatment.
Ultimately, the results of this study will provide evidence regarding the efficacy of exercise therapy combined with SMFR techniques for quadriceps, gluteus medius, and quadratus lumborum muscles on pain, function, and balance in patients with PFPS through telerehabilitation.

Sound localization is a valuable skill whose maturation is influenced by auditory experience and is limited by bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. No study has assessed auditory localization in bilateral hearing-impaired children (BHIC) aged 5-6 years. The present study aimed to investigate the auditory localization skill in children with moderate-to-severe bilateral hearing loss and using hearing aids compared to their normally hearing peers.
This cross-sectional study recruited 19 participants aged 5-6 years (60-72 months) with a mean age of 65.31± 3.83 months as the BHIC group and 21 participants aged 5-6 years with a mean age of 60.21±3.02 months as the normally hearing children (NHC) group. The localization ability of both groups was tested in 24 positions with 15-degree intervals by a speaker connected to a laptop and a calibrated speech stimulus named "test." A score of +0.5 for each 15 degrees of error on the right side of the position and -0.5 on the left side of the position were considered.
The results revealed a significant difference in the error rates between the two groups in four (out of 24) positions (p<0.05). Differences were not statistically significant in other positions.
The BHIC had a defect in the localization skill in some situations. Therefore, localization test and localization training are recommended for these children.

Myasthenia gravis (MG) is a rare neuromuscular disorder resulting from the destruction of acetylcholine receptors at the neuromuscular junction by IgG antibodies. Although dysphagia is a common symptom in generalized form of MG, it is rarely reported as a sole manifestation of the disease, specifically in younger patients. Herein, we report a middle-aged adult patient with dysphagia as the sole manifestation of MG.

A 49-year-old male complaining of severe dysphagia underwent an extensive clinical and paraclinical examination. Oropharyngeal dysphagia was confirmed by an experienced speech-language pathologist using the water swallowing test. Unilateral right paresis of the soft palate and vocal fold was confirmed using laryngeal video stroboscopy. Chest computerized tomography (CT) scan, brain Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and routine blood, urine, and thyroid tests were normal. In electromyography, slow repetitive nerve stimulation (RNS) showed a decremental response in the right nasalis muscle. The diagnostic neostigmine test with 1.5 mg of intramuscular neostigmine led to significant recovery of laryngeal and pharyngeal motor dysfunction and dysphagia within 12 hours, so the MG diagnosis was confirmed. The patient was treated with plasmapheresis, pyridostigmine, and prednisolone, which followed an improving course and led to better swallowing of solid and liquid foods.

MG should be considered as a diagnosis in middle-aged adults with complaints of dysphagia.