Measures of Participation Outcomes Related to Hand Use for 2- to 12-Year-Old Children With Disabilities: A Systematic Review.

Measures of participation outcomes related to hand use for 2- to 12-year-old children with disabilities: a systematic review.

Child Care Health Dev. 2013 Mar 5;
Chien CW, Rodger S, Copley J, McLaren C

Many interventions have been used to improve children’s hand-related impairments or hand skill performance in functional activities so as to promote life participation. There is thus a need to have suitable instruments assessing children’s participation in life situations that specifically require hand use in order to support and evaluate such interventions. This systematic review investigated the availability of potential instruments that can be used to assess children’s participation specifically in life situations requiring hand use. Clinical utility and evidence for psychometric properties were also sourced. Database searches initially identified measures that were used to evaluate participation of children aged 2-12 years, involved self- or proxy report or interview administration and had generic application for a range of disabilities/diagnoses. These measures were further evaluated to determine if they fulfilled the above inclusion criteria and contained at least 60% of the items involving hand use. Further searches for psychometric evidence were undertaken for the eligible measures. Fourteen measures were identified and nine met the inclusion criteria. However, none of these measures, except for the Children Helping Out: Responsibilities, Expectations, and Supports (CHORES), contained all items related to hand use. Most of the included measures had limited psychometric properties. Only the Children’s Assessment of Participation and Enjoyment/Preferences for Activities of Children (CAPE/PAC), the School Function Assessment-Participation section (SFA-P) and the Children Participation Questionnaire (CPQ) revealed sufficient evidence of validity and reliability. The findings suggest a need for adapting existing participation measures or developing new ones that specifically assess participation in life situations requiring hand use to support interventions. HubMed – rehab

Modulation of proprioceptive feedback during functional electrical stimulation: an fMRI study.

Eur J Neurosci. 2013 Mar 5;
Christensen MS, Grey MJ

Functional electrical stimulation (FES) is sometimes used as a therapeutic modality in motor rehabilitation to augment voluntary motor drive to effect movement that would otherwise not be possible through voluntary activation alone. Effective motor rehabilitation should require that the central nervous system integrate efferent commands and appropriate afferent information to update the internal models of acquired skills. Here, we investigate whether FES-evoked (FES-ev) and FES-assisted (FES-as) movement are associated with the normal integration of motor commands and sensory feedback in a group of healthy participants during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Sensory feedback was removed with a peripheral ischaemic nerve block while the participants performed voluntary (VOL), FES-ev or FES-as movement during fMRI. Before the peripheral nerve block, secondary somatosensory area (S2) activation was greater for the FES-ev and FES-as conditions than for the VOL condition. During the ischaemic nerve block, S2 activation was reduced for the FES-ev condition but not for FES-as and VOL conditions. The nerve block also reduced activation during FES in the primary somatosensory cortex and other motor areas including primary motor cortex, dorsal premotor cortex and supplementary motor area. In contrast, superior parietal lobule (area 7A) and precuneus activation was reduced as a consequence of the ischaemic nerve block in the VOL condition. These data suggest FES-related S2 activation is mainly a sensory phenomenon and does not reflect integration of sensory signals with motor commands. HubMed – rehab

“A Different Atmosphere of Love”: A Qualitative Study of the Experiences of Participants in Evangelical Substance User Rehabilitation Programs in the Russian Federation.

Subst Use Misuse. 2013 Mar 5;
Stoltzfus KM, Cecil D

This article explores the lived experiences of individuals who have participated in faith-based substance user rehabilitation programs in the Russian Federation. The Russian Federation has high rates of alcohol and opioid dependence and a dearth of professional treatment options. In the post-Soviet period, Evangelical Christian groups have developed substance user rehabilitation programs to attempt to address substance use and its related problems. Data were collected during 2010 via focus group interviews with participants in three Evangelical rehabilitation programs in the Volga region of the Russian Federation. Themes emerging from the qualitative data analysis process were classified into three broad categories: Typical Day, Personal Background/Decision to Enter Rehabilitation, and Helpful Aspects of Rehabilitation Process. HubMed – rehab