Analysis of Physical Therapy Interventions vs. Kinesio Taping for Relieving Low Back Pain

Introduction/Background: This topic focuses on the utilization of kinesio taping (KT) to assist with decreasing pain in the low back. According to Shipton, low back pain has gone up by more than 50% since 1990. These factors are attributed to smoking, obesity, sedentary occupations, and to low socioeconomic status.Globally, in 2016, it is said that low back pain contributed 57.6 years to disability and the prevalence peaks around the ages of 35-55 years according to the World Health Organization. Purpose: The purpose of this literature review is to compare research articles between KT with physical therapy interventions as compared to sole physical therapy interventions for alleviating LBP. Methods: The three search engines used for this literature review were Google Scholar, PubMed, and the University of St. Augustine Library database. The inclusion criteria for this study were participants \u3e18 years old, no allergies to KT, and have LBP. The exclusion criteria were participants younger than 18, allergies to KT, patients that do not have LBP. There are eighteen articles that were analyzed in this literature review. Results: In the overall analysis of this literature review, 12 out of the 18 articles were in favor of KT taping to provide relief as a secondary intervention for alleviating low back pain. Discussion: This literature review provides interpretation that KT as a secondary intervention provides further support than relying on sole physical therapy interventions to improve functional mobility and pain for patients with chronic non-specific LBP. As a result of this review, most of the research was in favor of KT as a secondary intervention to relieve symptoms of low back pain. Even though the results of this literature review reveal that KT assists as a secondary intervention to relieve low back pain, the overall research is low quality since there are many studies to confirm that there is no significant difference between utilizing KT versus other interventions to alleviate low back pain. The limitations with this study are that there are only 12 articles to support in favor of KT to assist with relieving back pain and that the results are low quality for many of the studies analyzed in this literature review due to the smaller sample sizes. This literature review can contribute to the utilization of KT in physical therapy practice to determine if it assists in alleviating back pain for those who present with symptoms of low back pain.https://soar.usa.edu/casmsummer2020/1009/thumbnail.jp

Case Study: Efficacy of Physical Therapy on a Patient with CVA in Normalizing Gait and Shoulder Mechanics

Background & Purpose: Cerebrovascular Accident (CVA) is known as Stroke. It is a damage to the brain due to an interruption of blood supply. Two main types of stroke are ischemic stroke and hemorrhagic stroke. Ischemic stroke, the most common type of stroke, is due to a blocked artery and a hemorrhagic stroke is due to a leak or burst of a blood vessel. Signs and symptoms of stroke are presented contralaterally. The purpose of this case report is to demonstrate the use of PT interventions to improve shoulder function and gait mechanics in a post CVA patient. Case Description: Patient is a retired 75-yo male who sustained a left ischemic CVA in 2017 with an insidious onset. Comorbidities include Central and Obstructive Sleep Apnea, HTN, and Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia. He has been receiving PT, OT, and SLP intermittently for the past 2 years. The patient’s body structure and function impairments include balance and coordination deficits, R hemiparesis, impaired sensation RUE, decreased ROM of RUE, RUE partial flexor synergy, difficulty speaking, right homonymous hemianopsia, and decreased endurance. Activity limitations include difficulty walking greater than 1 mile and inability to reach overhead with the RUE. Participation restrictions include difficulty cooking independently (I) and socializing in groups due to his speech impairment. Specific interventions included balance and gait training, therapeutic exercise and neuromuscular re-education for RUE and RLE, and patient education. PT services were provided 1 time per week for 4 weeks. Outcomes: Patient had significant improvement in functional gait as well as awareness of ankle motion. Dynamic Gait Index (DGI) increased from 18/24 to 20/24 with improvements in alternating gait speed, ambulation with head turns, and pivoting on command compared to pre-test. Although his time for Timed Up and Go (TUG) went from 7 sec to 7.3 sec, he did not stumble as compared to the pre-test. Patient also demonstrated decreased RUE partial synergy during TUG and DGI. He was d/c from PT services with a plan to continue progressing shoulder flexion ROM, increasing endurance of R ankle dorsiflexors, and continuation of LE stretches to improve gait. Discussion: For a patient who has experienced a CVA, scapulohumeral rehabilitation and gait training are effective PT management options to increase functional mobility and (I). This study supports previous research for the effectiveness of scapulohumeral rhythm in increasing shoulder ROM and gait training in implementing proper gait mechanics, efficiency, and endurance. Although the patient’s stroke had occurred two years ago, the patient was able to make significant functional improvement with shoulder ROM and improved quality in gait mechanics. The outcome of this study may help guide future clinicians in decision making with stroke patients who need improvement with shoulder ROM and gait mechanics.https://soar.usa.edu/casmfall2019/1014/thumbnail.jp

An assessment of high touch object cleaning thoroughness using a fluorescent marker in two Australian hospitals

An Unassigned Group, An Unassigned DepartmentFull Tex

Photosynthesis across African cassava germplasm is limited by Rubisco and mesophyll conductance at steady-state, but by stomatal conductance in fluctuating light

Sub‐Saharan Africa is projected to see a 55% increase in food demand by 2035, where cassava (Manihot esculenta) is the most planted crop and a major calorie source. Cassava yield has not increased significantly for 13 years. Improvement of genetic yield potential, the basis of the first Green Revolution, could be increased by improving photosynthetic efficiency. First, the factors limiting photosynthesis and their genetic variability within extant germplasm must be understood. Biochemical and diffusive limitations to leaf photosynthetic CO2 uptake under steady‐state and fluctuating light in thirteen farm‐preferred and high‐yielding African cultivars were analyzed. A cassava leaf metabolic model was developed to quantify the value of overcoming limitations to leaf photosynthesis. At steady‐state, in vivo Rubisco activity and mesophyll conductance accounted for 84% of the limitation whereas under non‐steady‐state conditions of shade to sun transition stomatal conductance was the major limitation contributing resulting in an estimated 13% and 5% losses in CO2 uptake and water use efficiency, across a diurnal period. Triose phosphate utilization, while sufficient to support observed rates, would limit improvement in leaf photosynthesis to 33%, unless improved itself. The variation of carbon assimilation among cultivars were three times greater under non‐steady‐state compared to steady‐state, pinpointing important overlooked breeding targets for improved photosynthetic efficiency in cassava

Mark report satellite tags (mrPATs) to detail large-scale horizontal movements of deep water species: First results for the Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus)

The deep-sea is increasingly viewed as a lucrative environment for the growth of resource extraction industries. To date, our ability to study deep-sea species lags behind that of those inhabiting the photic zone limiting scientific data available for management. In particular, knowledge of horizontal movements is restricted to two locations; capture and recapture, with no temporal information on absolute animal locations between endpoints. To elucidate the horizontal movements of a large deep-sea fish, a novel tagging approach was adopted using the smallest available prototype satellite tag – the mark-report satellite tag (mrPAT). Five Greenland sharks (Somniosus microcephalus) were equipped with multiple mrPATs as well as an archival satellite tag (miniPAT) that were programmed to release in sequence at 8–10 day intervals. The performance of the mrPATs was quantified. The tagging approach provided multiple locations per individual and revealed a previously unknown directed migration of Greenland sharks from the Canadian high Arctic to Northwest Greenland. All tags reported locations, however the accuracy and time from expected release were variable among tags (average time to an accurate location from expected release = 30.8 h, range: 4.9 – 227.6 h). Average mrPAT drift rate estimated from best quality messages (LQ1,2,3) was 0.37 ± 0.09 m/s indicating tags were on average 41.1 ± 63.4 km (range: 6.5–303.1 km from the location of the animal when they transmitted. mrPATs provided daily temperature values that were highly correlated among tags and with the miniPAT (70.8% of tag pairs were significant). In contrast, daily tilt sensor data were variable among tags on the same animal (12.5% of tag pairs were significant). Tracking large-scale movements of deep-sea fish has historically been limited by the remote environment they inhabit. The current study provides a new approach to document reliable coarse scale horizontal movements to understand migrations, stock structure and habitat use of large species. Opportunities to apply mrPATs to understand the movements of medium size fish, marine mammals and to validate retrospective movement modelling approaches based on archival data are presented

Exploring what lies behind public preferences for avoiding health losses caused by lapses in healthcare safety and patient lifestyle choices

© 2013 Singh et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0),which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Background: Although many studies have identified public preferences for prioritising health care interventions based on characteristics of recipient or care, very few of them have examined the reasons for the stated preferences. We conducted an on-line person trade-off (PTO) study (N=1030) to investigate whether the public attach a premium to the avoidance of ill health associated with alternative types of responsibilities: lapses in healthcare safety, those caused by individual action or lifestyle choice; or genetic conditions. We found that the public gave higher priority to prevention of harm in a hospital setting such as preventing hospital associated infections than genetic disorder but drug administration errors were valued similar to genetic disorders. Prevention of staff injuries, lifestyle diseases and sports injuries, were given lower priority. In this paper we aim to understand the reasoning behind the responses by analysing comments provided by respondents to the PTO questions. Method: A majority of the respondents who participated in the survey provided brief comments explaining preferences in free text responses following PTO questions. This qualitative data was transformed into explicit codes conveying similar meanings. An overall coding framework was developed and a reliability test was carried out. Recurrent patterns were identified in each preference group. Comments which challenged the assumptions of hypothetical scenarios were also investigated. Results: NHS causation of illness and a duty of care were the most cited reasons to prioritise lapses in healthcare safety. Personal responsibility dominated responses for lifestyle related contexts, and many respondents mentioned that health loss was the result of the individual’s choice to engage in risky behaviour. A small proportion of responses questioned the assumptions underlying the PTO questions. However excluding these from the main analysis did not affect the conclusions. Conclusion: Although some responses indicated misunderstanding or rejection of assumptions we put forward, the results were still robust. The reasons put forward for responses differed between comparisons but responsibility was the most frequently cited. Most preference elicitation studies only focus on eliciting numerical valuations but allowing for qualitative data can augment understanding of preferences as well as verifying results.EPSRC through the MATCH programme(EP/F063822/1 and EP/G012393/1) and HERG within Brunel University

Regulating services

No abstract available

A phylogenomic approach reveals a low somatic mutation rate in a long-lived plant.

Somatic mutations can have important effects on the life history, ecology, and evolution of plants, but the rate at which they accumulate is poorly understood and difficult to measure directly. Here, we develop a method to measure somatic mutations in individual plants and use it to estimate the somatic mutation rate in a large, long-lived, phenotypically mosaic Eucalyptus melliodora tree. Despite being 100 times larger than Arabidopsis, this tree has a per-generation mutation rate only ten times greater, which suggests that this species may have evolved mechanisms to reduce the mutation rate per unit of growth. This adds to a growing body of evidence that illuminates the correlated evolutionary shifts in mutation rate and life history in plants

Defining a spinal microcircuit that gates myelinated afferent input: implications for tactile allodynia

Chronic pain presents a major unmet clinical problem. The development of more effective treatments is hindered by our limited understanding of the neuronal circuits underlying sensory perception. Here, we show that parvalbumin (PV)-expressing dorsal horn interneurons modulate the passage of sensory information conveyed by low-threshold mechanoreceptors (LTMRs) directly via presynaptic inhibition and also gate the polysynaptic relay of LTMR input to pain circuits by inhibiting lamina II excitatory interneurons whose axons project into lamina I. We show changes in the functional properties of these PV interneurons following peripheral nerve injury and that silencing these cells unmasks a circuit that allows innocuous touch inputs to activate pain circuits by increasing network activity in laminae I–IV. Such changes are likely to result in the development of tactile allodynia and could be targeted for more effective treatment of mechanical pain