The purpose of this randomized trial was to compare the efficacy of manual therapy, including the use of neurodynamic techniques, with electrophysical modalities on patients with mild and moderate carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). The study included 140 CTS patients who were randomly assigned to the manual therapy (MT) group, which included the use of neurodynamic techniques, functional massage, and carpal bone mobilizations techniques, or to the electrophysical modalities (EM) group, which included laser and ultrasound therapy. Nerve conduction, pain severity, symptom severity, and functional status measured by the Boston Carpal Tunnel Questionnaire were assessed before and after treatment. Therapy was conducted twice weekly and both groups received 20 therapy sessions. A baseline assessment revealed group differences in sensory conduction of the median nerve (P < .01) but not in motor conduction (P = .82). Four weeks after the last treatment procedure, nerve conduction was examined again. In the MT group, median nerve sensory conduction velocity increased by 34% and motor conduction velocity by 6% (in both cases, P < .01). There was no change in median nerve sensory and motor conduction velocities in the EM. Distal motor latency was decreased (P < .01) in both groups. A baseline assessment revealed no group differences in pain severity, symptom severity, or functional status. Immediately after therapy, analysis of variance revealed group differences in pain severity (P < .01), with a reduction in pain in both groups (MT: 290%, P < .01; EM: 47%, P < .01). There were group differences in symptom severity (P < .01) and function (P < .01) on the Boston Carpal Tunnel Questionnaire. Both groups had an improvement in functional status (MT: 47%, P < .01; EM: 9%, P < .01) and a reduction in subjective CTS symptoms (MT: 67%, P < .01; EM: 15%, P < .01). Both therapies had a positive effect on nerve conduction, pain reduction, functional status, and subjective symptoms in individuals with CTS. However, the results regarding pain reduction, subjective symptoms, and functional status were better in the MT group.

Observation of neuromotor development at an early stage of an infant’s life allows for early diagnosis of deficits and the beginning of the therapeutic process. General movement assessment is a method of spontaneous movement observation, which is the foundation for contemporary attempts at objectification and computer-aided diagnosis based on video recordings’ analysis. The present study attempts to automatically detect writhing movements, one of the normal general movement categories presented by newborns in the first weeks of life. A set of 31 recordings of newborns on the second and third day of life was divided by five experts into videos containing writhing movements (with occurrence time) and poor repertoire, characterized by a lower quality of movement in relation to the norm. Novel, objective pose-based features describing the scope, nature, and location of each limb’s movement are proposed. Three machine learning algorithms are evaluated in writhing movements’ detection in leave-one-out cross-validation for different feature extraction time windows and overlapping time. The experimental results make it possible to indicate the optimal parameters for which 80% accuracy was achieved. Based on automatically detected writhing movement percent in the video, infant movements are classified as writhing movements or poor repertoire with an area under the ROC (receiver operating characteristics) curve of 0.83.

Fascial therapy is an effective, yet painful, procedure. Information about pain level is essential for the physiotherapist to adjust the therapy course and avoid potential tissue damage. We have developed a method for automatic pain-related reaction assessment in physiotherapy due to the subjectivity of a self-report. Based on a multimodal data set, we determine the feature vector, including wavelet scattering transforms coefficients. The AdaBoost classification model distinguishes three levels of reaction (no-pain, moderate pain, and severe pain). Because patients vary in pain reactions and pain resistance, our survey assumes a subject-dependent protocol. The results reflect an individual perception of pain in patients. They also show that multiclass evaluation outperforms the binary recognition.

The existing data indicate that the result of the Functional Movement Screen (FMS) test influences the likelihood of subsequent injury in professional athletes. Therefore, exercises increasing test scores of the FMS may be useful at various stages of sports activity. This study evaluated the effects of the NEURAC sling exercises method on the FMS test score in teenage volleyball players. The study was conducted on 15 volleyball players aged 14 years. The FMS test was performed three times interspersed with a two-month interval. Between the first and the second assessment, neither additional treatment nor training was applied, while between the second and the third assessment, the participants performed stabilisation exercises based on the NEURAC method. Training was carried out twice a week, for eight weeks. The analysis showed that between the first and the second measurement, no significant differences occurred. The use of specific sling exercises caused a significant improvement in FMS results (p ≤ 0.01) between the first and the third, as well as the second and the third measurement. The applied stabilisation exercises based on the NEURAC method positively influenced the FMS test result in male subjects practicing volleyball. Performance of such exercises also resulted in more than 90% of the subjects having a total FMS test score ≥ 17, which may be important in the prevention of injuries. The preliminary results indicate that this type of exercise should be included in a teenage volleyball training routine.

Background: Back pain represents one of the most common diseases across various populations of workers worldwide. This study analyzes the prevalence and severity of back pain, based on selected demographic variables, and the relationship with physical activity among school teachers. Material...

[Purpose] The objective of the study was to evaluate the symmetry of the thickness of the abdominal muscles at rest and while standing in patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. [Subjects and Methods] An ultrasound assessment was performed of the side-to-side differences of the external oblique (EO), internal oblique (IO), and transversus abdominalis (TrA) muscles in the supine and standing positions in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) and control groups. [Results] In the AIS group, 64.3% of the patients had left scoliosis with a mean Cobb angle of 10.7°, and 35.7% of the patients had right scoliosis with a mean Cobb angle of 10°. In the supine position, the thickness asymmetry of the TrA was greater in the AIS compared with the control group by an average of 14% (95% CI 3.9-24.2). [Conclusion] Among the abdominal muscles examined, patients with AIS exhibited more asymmetry only for the TrA. In the standing position, the TrA was as symmetric in the patients as in the control group. Mild scoliosis has no impact on the symmetry of the thickness of the OE and OI in the supine and standing positions. The direction of curvature had no effect on the symmetry of the abdominal muscles studied.