Harefuah最新文献

Introduction: Functional neurological disorder (FND) and complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) are disorders that affect quality of life. CRPS diagnosis is based on Budapest criteria that include various signs/symptoms. Despite the similarity in the etiology/pathophysiology of FND and CRPS, the joint prevalence of these two conditions in youth has not yet been reported. Given that both phenomena are less familiar among pediatric patients, it is crucial to thoroughly characterize them and establish a clear differential diagnosis. This, in turn, holds significant implications for guiding therapeutic interventions.

Objectives: We aimed to examine: 1) the clinical profile of children with FND; 2) the prevalence of CRPS among children with FND; and 3) differences in clinical characteristics and in Budapest's symptoms/signs between children with FND and those with a co-diagnosis of FND and CRPS.

Methods: Sixty-one children (mean age: 13.70+2.93 years; 75.4% females) diagnosed with FND were studied. Sample's demographic, clinical characteristics and the Budapest CRPS classification criteria were collected from medical files.

Results: Most children with FND reported sensory (67%) and motor (88%) symptoms. Forty-four percent had a co-diagnosis of FND and CRPS. Among these children, 100% reported sensory and motor/tropical, 74% vasomotor, and 65% sudomotor symptoms. The prevalence of Budapest symptoms, except for motor-function impairment, was significantly higher among children with a co-diagnosis compared to children with FND alone.

Conclusions: The high frequency of symptoms and clinical signs in children with co-incidence of CRPS and FND may indicate a shared developmental mechanism and is important for the development of appropriate rehabilitation interventions.

Background: The field of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation is as diverse and broad as any field in medicine. The two, seemingly different, fields developed separately and over time (as later presented) merged into one specialty. This resulted in an initial asymmetry of focus amongst training programs - and indeed countries. In Israel, although rehabilitation medicine is on par with the highest levels in the world, its partner, physical medicine (PM) has suffered to the extent that it is practically invisible in some of the training hospitals in our country.

Objectives: We will define PM, explain why it is less developed in Israel, and present the methods being employed to rectify the training imbalance.

Methods: A systematic literature review was performed for prior descriptions and issues in PM in Israel. The search was conducted using four databases (PubMed, Google Scholar, ScienceDirect and the Cochrane Library). Searches were not limited by language or date, reflecting all available data.

Results: No articles were identified. This was anticipated as the field of PM is in the process of development in Israel.

Conclusions: Whereas PM has been an official partner of rehabilitation medicine in Israel and prominently featured in academic syllabi, the reality has been otherwise. Our article delineates why this developed and the plans and methods on how it is changing, allowing Israel to be a world leader in all aspects of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.

Introduction: Modern rehabilitation medicine focuses on evaluating and treating patients whose quality of life has been compromised by medical conditions. This field endeavors to enhance well-being and independence levels by adopting a comprehensive approach that addresses physical, mental, psychological, and social aspects, while incorporating advancements in medical research. Grounded in the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) model by the World Health Organization, rehabilitation targets diverse levels of functional impairment. A collaborative effort among professionals from various disciplines characterizes the rehabilitative process, guided by an Individual Rehabilitation Project, and oversight by a specialist in physical medicine and rehabilitation. Through initiated prompt post-injury, rehabilitation progresses through hospital-based interventions and extends to community-based therapies upon the patient's return home. In this special edition of "Harefuah" readers will find profound scientific articles and literature reviews spanning a breadth of topics within the realm of physical medicine and rehabilitation. These insights offer a glimpse into the expansive domain of rehabilitation medicine.

Background: Falls occur among old people and sometimes cause fractures in the hip. There are many reasons for falls.

Objectives: To examine which ocular diseases are frequent among old people who fell and had hip fractures; to verify whether the use of glasses can prevent fall events.

Methods: A survey was conducted on a sample of 100 patients, 63 women and 37 men, who fell and broke their hip between the years 2008 - 2012, were operated on and hospitalized for rehabilitation. Their mean age was 78+8.4 years old and mean weight, 69+14.4 kg. All these patients were examined by an ophthalmologist to detect ocular diseases.

Results: Only 67% of them suffered from ophthalmic disease. Among them, 49.3% suffered from problems in the anterior compartment of at least one eye, 32.8% in the posterior compartment and 17.9% in both compartments. The cataract was the most frequent disease (42%), and the second, was the retinopathy. We must mention that 77.6% of the patients who needed glasses were not using them at the time of the fall. The mean age of the patients who had no ocular disease was 4 years younger than the age of those who suffered from it (Independent t-test, p=0.0115 1-side).

Conclusions: Treatment for optic diseases and the use of glasses are important factors in falls prevention among the elderly.

Discussion: Elderly people are more prone to fall and break their hip than younger people. Even though it was not statistically proved, disorders in visual acuity and in the visual field, can cause falls among old people.

Introduction: The use of artificial intelligence applications in medicine has been common in recent decades. Machine learning, a subfield of artificial intelligence, is a methodology that allows computers to learn from examples and draw conclusions about new data. Advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning may play a central role in making clinical decisions in rehabilitation, diagnosing functional impairments, developing, improving existing protocols and building personalized rehabilitation programs. In addition, artificial intelligence applications in rehabilitation will be integrated into rehabilitation treatment for the purpose of improving impairments in body functions and compensating for body functions that cannot be restored (using human-machine interfaces).

Introduction: Medical rehabilitation is developing rapidly in Israel and around the world due to the aging of the population, improvement of results of medical care, and growing awareness of the importance of rehabilitation medicine. An option of comprehensive community rehabilitation treatment is also developing quickly, both in the model of replacing hospitalization and as a professional treatment after early discharge from an inpatient program. Rehabilitation in the community has many benefits, including financial, high patient satisfaction, and in some cases even more successful results of rehabilitation. The key to successful community rehabilitation lies in team cooperation and synchronization and in transferring the weight of rehabilitation from the inpatient department to rehabilitation in the community by the rehabilitation doctor as a team manager and the multi-disciplinary team. A 2018 Ministry of Health document defines home rehabilitation as "An orderly, multi-professional and vigorous program, intended for all ages, to achieve goals in rehabilitation according to a functional assessment and a rehabilitation plan, in the patient's home." In writing this article we defined two main goals. The first is to review current data, which can be found in the scientific literature on community rehabilitation. The second goal was to define the principles and systems of community rehabilitation, relevant to the State of Israel.

Aims: The COVID-19 pandemic has long-lasting deleterious effects on many aspects of the survivors' life. However, the correlations between the severity of COVID-19 infection and rehabilitation outcomes are still unknown.

Methods: Sixty-one post-acute COVID-19 patients underwent a customized rehabilitation program in a rehabilitation daycare facility. The severity of the COVID-19 infection was measured according to the WHO clinical progression scale (CPS). Motor, cognitive, psychological and functional variables were measured using standard and specified scales; 19 out of 61 patients underwent nerve conduction studies.

Results: The mean age of participants was 54 years (range 18-84 years), 66% were males, 65% had severe disease according to CPS. The mean length of acute hospitalization was 5.6 ± 4.2 weeks, mean rehabilitation time and mean follow up time was 3.2 ± 2.1 months and 7.2 ± 3.2 months, respectively. A significant improvement was found in activities of daily living (ADL) functions as well as in hand motor strength and walking endurance. A significant correlation was found between higher CPS, prolonged acute hospitalization and ventilation and lower admission functional independence measure (FIM), however no correlation was found between the parameters of acute diseases and FIM at discharge. Moreover, lower CPS was correlated with higher anxiety, depression and lower executive functions score. There was correlation between electrophysiological findings of the median and the peroneal nerves and the motor FIM at discharge.

Conclusions: A customized rehabilitation program can overcome initial motor, mental and cognitive impairments and significantly improves the motor function of covid-19 recovered patients. The results of this study highlight the importance of monitoring and treating the emotional status, particularly anxiety, of COVID-19 patients. Nerve conduction measurements in COVID-19 patients are important in order to evaluate prognosis and improvement in rehabilitation outcomes.

Introduction: Converging evidence from studies of patients suffering focal brain lesions and results from animal models led to the notion of two functionally and structurally distinct memory systems, declarative-explicit-episodic and procedural-implicit-skill.

Aims: Assessment of skill acquisition and procedural memory in patients after blunt traumatic brain injury (TBI) who suffer from deficit of explicit (episodic) memory in comparison to patients without such a deficit.

Methods: Comparison of skill acquisition in the Finger Opposition Sequence task in two patients after TBI presenting with episodic-explicit memory deficit to eight patients without such a deficit.

Results: Both subjects demonstrated severe declarative-episodic memory deficits as demonstrated in the Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test (RBMT) but showed robust learning and retention of skill in practicing a finger movement sequence, improving performance speed with no speed-accuracy trade-off. The practice related gains in performance and their retention in a one-month follow-up test were as robust as in patients without explicit memory deficit.

Conclusions: The results coincide with previous case reports demonstrating a dissociation between procedural-implicit and declarative-explicit memory systems. The evaluation of the two memory systems may contribute to patient rehabilitation as a residual functioning of one system can be used to compensate for deficit of the other, in order to improve daily functioning.

Introduction: The Iron Swords War broke out with an unprecedented attack of brutality, leaving soldiers, civilians, residents of the Israeli settlements surrounding Gaza, and participants of the Nova Festival severely traumatized. Israel was exposed to loss, bereavement, sexual abuse, kidnapping of civilians and soldiers, including children, women, and the elderly. Identification of bodies to be brought to honorable burial, while simultaneously organizing for combat and the ongoing war, resulted in physical and mental injuries. This prolonged war has also led to the evacuation of communities from the areas surrounding Gaza and from the cities and settlements on Israel's northern borders to safer locations, causing them to be displaced persons in their own country. At the outbreak of the war, the public mental health system was at an unprecedented low, lacking professional therapists, with long waiting lists for treatment across all domains of mental health care. Psychiatric hospitals, health funds' mental health clinics and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and the military mental health care system have been working tirelessly to train therapists to seek more effective trauma treatment and to maximize treatment capacity. The activities resulting from this intensive effort, are reflected in the articles in this special issue. This issue, is primarily dedicated to saluting the efforts of mental health care providers, while looking forward and understanding that the mental damage from the war, the displacement, the captivity, the sexual abuse, and more, will need to be addressed and treated for many years to come. Many works were submitted for this special issue, and the number of articles accepted were beyond the normal range of the issue. We could not have faced the challenge of handling these materials without the support (and tireless leadership) of Mrs. Rena Kurs, to whom we are deeply grateful. We all look forward to the return of all the hostages and a return to focusing on health and normality.

Introduction: Studies that focus on coping strategies, especially among civilian hostages, are scant. Research findings may help predict the chances of readjustment upon return from captivity. The present study aimed to examine the challenges that the civilian hostages faced during captivity and how they dealt with the conditions of captivity. The study was based on seventeen interviews conducted with citizens who returned from Hamas captivity in the first release of hostages. All interviews were conducted by experienced journalists and were broadcast on the main television networks between 11.12.2024 and 4.1.2024. Two main themes were identified using inductive thematic analysis-difficulties in captivity (e.g., dealing with uncertainty, dependent relationships, conditions of isolation, and boredom). The second theme included coping strategies (e.g., hope, regaining control, building certainty, etc.). In each of these themes, several sub-themes that detail the difficulties in captivity and the ways of dealing with them were identified. In addition, the citizens who returned from captivity described using two coping strategies: problem-focused, which aims to manage the problem by "removing" or changing the stressful factor (e.g., planning, building certainty), and emotion-focused coping, which aims to reduce or eliminate the emotional stress and emotions that arise following the trauma (such as distraction, appeal to beliefs, humor, etc.). The themes revealed attempts to regain resources while trying to understand the situation, interpret it, reduce the emotional stress, and act in threatening situations effectively in order to make it possible to survive.