Revista Iberoamericana de Fisioterapia y Kinesiología最新文献

Introduction

The physical therapy diagnosis of a vertebral dysfunction is essential in order to classify musculoskeletal diseases. Passive assessment of quantity and quality of movement on the different vertebral segments guides the decision-making process relative to manual therapy treatment.

The aims of this present study have been to determine the interobserver reliability of passive accessory intervertebral postero-anterior unilateral lumbar motion test as a test to identify subjects with joint dysfunction, and to analyze galvanic current as a diagnostic tool to identify joint dysfunction in the lumbar spine with the motion test.

Material and methods

Two physiotherapists, experts in manual therapy, carried out the test in 30 asymptomatic subjects at L1 to L5 levels (right and left sides), performing a total of 300 tests. To determine the diagnostic value of galvanic current, two other physiotherapists performed galvanic palpation consecutively to the motion test in lumbar zygapophysial joints in the same asymptomatic subjects.

Results

Percentage agreement was 86.3% for the motion test. The Kappa index showed substantial agreement (according to Landis and Koch, 1977) (k=0.5). PA accessory motion test was more reliable to identify symptomatic spinal L4-L5 and L5-S1 level.

Regarding galvanic palpation, the agreement percentage was 83%. Kappa coefficient (k) showed moderate agreement for identification of joint dysfunction (k=0.41). Sensitivity was high in the lumbar level L3-L4 and L4-L5 and was low in L1-L2 level; specificity was high (82.7–96.3%) throughout the lumbar spine.

Conclusions

Interobserver reliability of the passive motion test is moderate (k=0.5).

Galvanic palpation identifies joint dysfunction, however sensitivity is low in the upper lumbar spine.

Objective

Evaluate the spinal cord injuried individuals’ with their wheelchair, and identify the relevant points of the selection and acquiring process of the equipament.

Materials and methods

This is an evaluation study. Twenty-five spinal cord injuried individuals with paraplegia or quadriplegia, who use wheelchair for mobility and receive physical therapy treatment at the Physiotherapy's Ambulatory of the Londrina State University, were invited to participate in this study. All them agreed to participate and underwent an interview for administering a questionnaire made by the authors of this study, with questions about the selection and acquisition of the wheelchair, as well as satisfaction with their device.

Results

At the time of choosing and acquiring the wheelchair, the aspects taken into consideration of most of the individuals were weight (52%) and praticity (32%). The majority (66.4%) of patients were totally satisfied with their wheelchair. The aspects in which there was greater prevalence of total or partial satisfaction were: durability (84%) and praticity for mounting and dismounting the device (96%).

Conclusion

User satisfaction with his wheelchair is an important factor to be considered in the rehabilitation process of individuals with spinal cord injury.

Objective

To determine how the quality of life of pregnant women who participate in a community program of hydrokinesis therapy for pregnant women (PHTPW) changes.

Material and methods

Quasi-experimental, pre-post intervention study. This study was conducted in a community center for physical activity and health promotion. A total of 26 pregnant women, who took part in a community program of hydrokinesis therapy for pregnant women twice a week, were included. Inclusion criteria: provide medical authorization. Exclusion criteria: women who exceeded 24 weeks of pregnancy, who did not provide authorization or who refused to participate in the study. The SF-12 and EuroQol questionnaires were used as specific instruments to measure the variations of quality of life and general health status of the participants.

Results

The participants had a mean age of 32±4.09. The results obtained were: general physical health condition 1.73 (95% CI −3.00 to 6.46); mental health condition −2.19 (−6.67 to 2.29), EuroQol_5D −0.01 (−0.10 to 0.07) and EuroQol_VAS 0.29 (−7.39 to 7.97).

Conclusions

An 8-week long community program of hydrokinesis therapy for pregnant women may stop the normal decrease in health-related quality of life in pregnant women.

Introduction

Currently, there is increasing concern regarding the quality of scientific performance and productivity of the investigators and academicians and aspects of their evaluation. Scientific productivity is considered an indicator of scientific activity of a discipline. Most bibliometrics studies are based on citation analysis. The impact factor is defined as the quotient between the number of citations received by a journal in a specific year compared to the number of articles published in the same journal during the previous two years.

Objective

The objective of this review has been to identify the impact factor as an evaluation criterion of scientific productivity and its quality, applied to periodic publications, institutions and researchers.

Material and methods

To do so, we carried out a search in the data bases MEDLINE, Academic Search Premier and Sportdiscus, using the descriptors Journal Impact Factor, Impact Factor and Bibliometrics, Academies and Institutes, Research.

Conclusions

We found that there is great controversy regarding the use of the impact factor in the evaluation procedures of the quality of scientific productivity of the journals, institutions and researchers. However, the few criteria and alternative indicators accepted by the scientific community and the evaluation committees makes the impact factor to be practically the only one that is accepted and used, especially in Europe.

This article has aimed to analyze the scientific and research capacity of physical therapy professionals in Colombia, considering the difficulties and development opportunities in the framework of Science, Innovation and Technology policies in Colombia–COLCIENCIAS 2008 (included in the section of Health Sciences under the sub-section of Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy). To do so, we have discussed the areas of interest in which research groups develop their scientific activities, what they generate, how they do it, the types of products obtained, who makes up the groups and the education level of the members, among other categories. Finally, recommendations aimed at facilitating the formation and development of organizational structures capable of promoting research are presented.

Injuries are usual events in sports, both when they occur in recreational sports and in competition. This study has aimed to analyze the occurrence of injuries throughout one season in 48 athletes practicing 3 different competitive sports: Olympic Wrestling, Canoeing and Taekwondo. All of the injuries recorded were classified according to their anatomical location, diagnosis and severity while treating the athlete's physical discomfort. Another part of the research has aimed to link the injuries with the athlete's personality characteristics using the questionnaire EPQ of Eysenck and Eysenck. The results show a higher proportion of injuries in men than in women, the most common ones being minor injuries in lower limbs. Taekwondo is the sport that has the greater number of injuries, and shoulder tendon injury occurs the most, especially in canoeing. Regarding physical discomfort, overloads in the neck, lumbar and thigh stand out. A positive correlation is also obtained between the number of injuries and scores on the personality dimension of personality neuroticism. Finally, we discuss these aspects.

The therapeutic management proposed for Low Back Pain Syndrome includes a many different types of interventions with analgesic purposes, within which prescription and application of Physiotherapies are quite common. We have synthesized the evidence on the effectiveness of Physiotherapy based on a Systematic Review of Randomized controlled Trials.

Objective

To determine if there is scientific evidence to support the analgesic effect of the thermal and electromagnetic physiotherapy interventions used by the physiotherapies for the clinical handling of non-specific low back pain.

Strategy of search

The following were included in the search Randomized Controlled Clinical Trials (RCCTs), Metaanalysis (MT) and Systematic Revisions (RS). The databases used were: Cochrane Library Plus, DARE, PEDro, MEDLINE/PubMed, Pub Med Central, ScienceDirect and Biomed Central.

Results

13 RCCTs that met the eligibility criteria were selected.

Conclusions

There is moderate evidence that Heat-Wraps diminish the short term pain in Acute Low Back Pain and there is controversial evidence regarding the use Laser and TENS in Sub-Acute and chronic Low Back Pain.