Diagnostic test strategies in children at increased risk of inflammatory bowel disease in primary care

Background: In children with symptoms suggestive of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) who present in primary care, the optimal test strategy for identifying those who require specialist care is unclear. We evaluated the following three test strategies to determine which was optimal for referring children with suspected IBD to specialist care: 1) alarm symptoms alone, 2) alarm symptoms plus c-reactive protein, and 3) alarm symptoms plus fecal calprotectin. Methods: A prospective cohort study was conducted, including children with chronic gastrointestinal symptoms referred to pediatric gastroenterology. Outcome was defined as IBD confirmed by endoscopy, or IBD ruled out by either endoscopy or unremarkable clinical 12 month follow-up with no indication for endoscopy. Test strategy probabilities were generated by logistic regression analyses and compared by area under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUC) and decision curves. Results: We included 90 children, of whom 17 (19%) had IBD (n = 65 from primary care physicians, n = 25 from general pediatricians). Adding fecal calprotectin to alarm symptoms increased the AUC significantly from 0.80 (0.67-0.92) to 0.97 (0.93-1.00), but adding c-reactive protein to alarm symptoms did not increase the AUC significantly (p > 0.05). Decision curves confirmed these patterns, showing that alarm symptoms combined with fecal calprotectin produced the diagnostic test strategy with the highest net benefit at reasonable threshold probabilities. Conclusion: In primary care, when children are identified as being at high risk for IBD, adding fecal calprotectin testing to alarm symptoms was the optimal strategy for improving risk stratification

Recovery of gait after stroke

In the Netherlands annually about 30,000 people suffer a stroke for the first time. One third of these stroke patients die within the first year, while 41% experience long term disabilities. This makes stroke a major disease in medical and in socio-economic terms. Not just on society but also, and far most, on the afflicted individual and his or her environment the impact is felt of a sustained stroke. Following a stroke a person's independence in moving about may be significantly compromised. The expected level of walking to a great extent determines the expected level of activities of daily living and possible discharge to home. This thesis describes the long term recovery of hemiplegic gait in severely affected stroke patients. Based on the application of a repeated measurement research design, data were obtained within the first post-stroke year period. This information subsequently enabled the identification of time-related changes and was used to address the following main questions: Are intensive stroke rehabilitation programmes, implemented within the early and subacute post-stroke phases, worthwhile in terms of long term functional gains and can this long term recovery be estimated early after stroke onset for better individualized reliable therapeutic goal setting and discharge planning? For this purpose, early and late recovery patterns were studied as functional recovery after stroke tends to be non-linear and time-dependent. Subsequently, this information was used in the interpretation of some of the mechanisms involved in the long term recovery of hemiplegic gait and the impact of intensity of therapeutic interventions on this recovery. The main findings of the studies presented in the first part of this thesis indicate predictive relationships between early determinants and late outcome and the relevance of measuring frequently and longitudinally in order to take into consideration the non-linear time-dependent relationship of covariates with recovery of gait after stroke. In the second part it is demonstrated that the long term effects of intensity of stroke rehabilitation, implemented during the initial 20 post-stroke weeks, are maintained for up to one year. However, a significant number of patients with incomplete recovery showed improvements or deterioration of walking ability and ADL beyond the error threshold between 6 and 12 months post-stroke. Several mechanisms involved in stroke recovery are discussed, such as recovery of penumbral tissues, neural plasticity, resolution of diaschisis and behavioural compensation strategies. Rehabilitation is believed to modulate this logistic pattern of recovery, most likely by interacting with these underlying processes. Our prediction models suggest that outcome is largely defined within the first weeks post-stroke

Do Patients With Multiple Sclerosis Show Different Daily Physical Activity Patterns From Healthy Individuals?

Background. Reduced physical activity is an important consequence of multiple sclerosis (MS). However, little is known about the real quantity and type of daily activities that people with MS perform in their own home environment. Objective. To gain insight into differences in the amount and patterns of physical activities performed over a 24-hour period in the own community environment of patients with MS and healthy individuals. Methods. A total of 43 ambulatory patients with MS and 26 age- and gender-matched healthy individuals participated. Physical activity recorded with an ambulatory activity monitor was classified into postures and motions. Multilevel analyses were conducted to investigate whether the pattern of physical activities across daily periods (morning, afternoon, and evening) was dependent on the group (MS vs healthy individuals). Results. Results showed a significant overall lower amount of dynamic activity as compared with a group of healthy controls (P < .001). Patients with MS started with lower physical activity levels already in the morning (P < .001), and this difference persisted in the afternoon (P = .002) and evening (P = .032). Conclusion. Activity monitoring gives insight into real-world daily physical behavior. Our findings suggest that patients with MS may adopt a deliberate anticipatory strategy of lower activity in the morning, which persists throughout the day. Future trials evaluating daily changes in physical activity behavior should simultaneously sample self-report measures of energy levels and fatigue to elucidate the complex interaction between symptoms and physical activity. © The Author(s) 2014

The effectiveness of the Bobath concept in stroke rehabilitation: what is the evidence?

Contains fulltext : 81271.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: In the Western world, the Bobath Concept or neurodevelopmental treatment is the most popular treatment approach used in stroke rehabilitation, yet the superiority of the Bobath Concept as the optimal type of treatment has not been established. This systematic review of randomized, controlled trials aimed to evaluate the available evidence for the effectiveness of the Bobath Concept in stroke rehabilitation. Method- A systematic literature search was conducted in the bibliographic databases MEDLINE and CENTRAL (March 2008) and by screening the references of selected publications (including reviews). Studies in which the effects of the Bobath Concept were investigated were classified into the following domains: sensorimotor control of upper and lower limb; sitting and standing, balance control, and dexterity; mobility; activities of daily living; health-related quality of life; and cost-effectiveness. Due to methodological heterogeneity within the selected studies, statistical pooling was not considered. Two independent researchers rated all retrieved literature according to the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) scale from which a best evidence synthesis was derived to determine the strength of the evidence for both effectiveness of the Bobath Concept and for its superiority over other approaches. RESULTS: The search strategy initially identified 2263 studies. After selection based on predetermined criteria, finally, 16 studies involving 813 patients with stroke were included for further analysis. There was no evidence of superiority of Bobath on sensorimotor control of upper and lower limb, dexterity, mobility, activities of daily living, health-related quality of life, and cost-effectiveness. Only limited evidence was found for balance control in favor of Bobath. Because of the limited evidence available, no best evidence synthesis was applied for the health-related quality-of-life domain and cost-effectiveness. CONCLUSIONS: This systematic review confirms that overall the Bobath Concept is not superior to other approaches. Based on best evidence synthesis, no evidence is available for the superiority of any approach. This review has highlighted many methodological shortcomings in the studies reviewed; further high-quality trials need to be published. Evidence-based guidelines rather than therapist preference should serve as a framework from which therapists should derive the most effective treatment

Maintenance use of antidepressants in Dutch general practice: non-guideline concordant

Background: There is hardly evidence on maintenance treatment with antidepressants in primary care. Nevertheless, depression guidelines recommend maintenance treatment i.e. treatment to prevent recurrences, in patients with high risk of recurrence, and many patients use maintenance treatment with antidepressants. This study explores the characteristics of patients on maintenance treatment with antidepressants in general practice, and compares these characteristics with guideline recommendations for maintenance treatment. Methods: We used data (baseline, two-year and four-year follow-up) of primary care respondents with remitted depressive disorder ( ≥6 months) from the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (n = 776). Maintenance treatment was defined as the use of an antidepressant for ≥12 months. Multilevel logistic regression was used to describe the association between sociodemographic, clinical and care characteristics and use of maintenance treatment with antidepressants. Results: Older patients, patients with a lower education, those using benzodiazepines or receiving psychological/psychiatric care and patients with a concurrent history of a dysthymic or anxiety disorder more often received maintenance treatment with antidepressants. Limitations: Measurements were not made at the start of an episode, but at predetermined points in time. Diagnoses were based on interview (CIDI) data and could therefore in some cases have been different from the GP diagnosis. Conclusions: Since patients with chronic or recurrent depression do not use maintenance treatment with antidepressants more often, characteristics of patients on maintenance treatment do not fully correspond with guideline recommendations. However, patients on maintenance treatment appear to be those with more severe disorder and/or more comorbidity. © 2014 Piek et al

How Reproducible Are Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation-Induced MEPs in Subacute Stroke?

Methods: Eighteen patients with stroke and 8 healthy volunteers were tested twice within a 1-week period by 2 examiners using TMS to determine MEPs and TMCT for the abductor pollicis brevis muscle of their affected and unaffected hands. Results: The authors found moderate to perfect reliability of TMS-induced MEPs in healthy volunteers, noninfarcted hemispheres (perfect agreement), and infarcted hemispheres (Kappa's = 0.45-0.87). Reliability of TMCT was good to excellent in the volunteers (intraclass correlation coefficients = 0.77-0.97), excellent in the noninfarcted hemispheres (intraclass correlation coefficients = 0.97-1.00), and poor to excellent in the infarcted hemispheres (intraclass correlation coefficients = 0.44-0.90). Conclusions: The reliability of TMS-induced MEPs and TMCT measurements in healthy volunteers and the noninfarcted hemisphere of patients with stroke with an upper paretic limb was good to excellent. In contrast, TMS measurements in the infarcted hemisphere were less consistent. Based on the lower reproducibility of TMCT measurements in the infarcted hemisphere, we recommend to repeat the TMCT measurements to improve the reliability of tests. Purpose: Motor evoked potentials (MEPs) and total motor conduction time (TMCT) induced by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) are used to make assumptions about the prognosis of motor outcome after stroke. Understanding the different sources of variability is fundamental to the concept of reliability. Reliability testing of TMS-MEPs and TMCTs within and between two independent examiners in healthy and stroke subjects is still an unexplored field in the clinical neurophysiology. Assessing the reproducibility of TMS measurements requires studies to investigate the test-retest reliability of TMS-induced MEPs and TMCT. The authors set out to test the reliability of these TMS measurements

How Do Fugl-Meyer Arm Motor Scores Relate to Dexterity According to the Action Research Arm Test at 6 Months Poststroke?

Objective To determine the optimal cutoff scores for the Fugl-Meyer Assessment of the Upper Extremity (FMA-UE) with regard to predicting no, poor, limited, notable, or full upper-limb capacity according to frequently used cutoff points for the Action Research Arm Test (ARAT) at 6 months poststroke. Design Prospective. Setting Rehabilitation center. Participants Patients (N=460) with a first-ever ischemic stroke at 6 months poststroke. Interventions Not applicable. Main Outcome Measures Based on the ARAT classification of poor to full upper-limb capacity, receiver operating characteristic curves were used to calculate the area under the curve, optimal cutoff points for the FMA-UE were determined, and a weighted kappa was used to assess the agreement. Results FMA-UE scores of 0 through 22 represent no upper-limb capacity (ARAT 0-10); scores of 23 through 31 represent poor capacity (ARAT 11-21); scores of 32 through 47 represent limited capacity (ARAT 22-42); scores of 48 through 52 represent notable capacity (ARAT 43-54); and scores of 53 through 66 represent full upper-limb capacity (ARAT 55-57). Overall, areas under the curve ranged from.916 (95% confidence interval [CI],.890-.943) to.988 (95% CI,.978-.998; P31 points correspond to no to poor arm-hand capacity (ie, ≤21 points) on the ARAT, whereas FMA-UE scores >31 correspond to limited to full arm-hand capacity (ie, >22 points) on the ARAT