Prevalence, Comorbidities, and Correlates of Challenging Behavior Among Community-Dwelling Adults With Severe Traumatic Brain Injury: A Multicenter Study.

Prevalence, Comorbidities, and Correlates of Challenging Behavior Among Community-Dwelling Adults With Severe Traumatic Brain Injury: A Multicenter Study.

J Head Trauma Rehabil. 2013 May 1;
Sabaz M, Simpson GK, Walker AJ, Rogers JM, Gillis I, Strettles B

OBJECTIVE:: Investigate the prevalence, comorbidities, and correlates of challenging behaviors among clients of the New South Wales Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program. SETTING:: All community-based rehabilitation services of the statewide program. PARTICIPANTS:: Five hundred seven active clients with severe traumatic brain injury. DESIGN:: Prospective multicenter study. MAIN MEASURES:: Eighty-eight clinicians from the 11 services rated clients on the Overt Behaviour Scale, Disability Rating Scale, Sydney Psychosocial Reintegration Scale-2, Care and Needs Scale, and Health of the Nation Outcome Scale-Acquired Brain Injury. RESULTS:: Overall prevalence rate of challenging behaviors was 54%. Inappropriate social behavior (33.3%), aggression (31.9%), and adynamia (23.1%) were the 3 most common individual behaviors, with 35.5% of the sample displaying more than 1 challenging behavior. Significant associations were found between increasing levels of challenging behavior and longer duration of posttraumatic amnesia, increasing functional disability, greater restrictions in participation, increased support needs, and greater degrees of psychiatric disturbance, respectively (P < 0.004). Multivariate binomial logistic regression found that premorbid alcohol abuse, postinjury restrictions in participation, and higher levels of postinjury psychiatric disturbance were independent predictors of challenging behavior. CONCLUSIONS:: Challenging behaviors are widespread among community-dwelling adults with severe traumatic brain injury. Services need to deliver integrated anger management, social skills, and motivational treatments. HubMed – rehab

Biased Homozygous Haplotypes Across the Human Caveolin 1 Upstream Purine Complex in Parkinson’s Disease.

J Mol Neurosci. 2013 May 4;
Darvish H, Heidari A, Hosseinkhani S, Movafagh A, Khaligh A, Jamshidi J, Noorollahi-Moghaddam H, Heidari-Rostami HR, Karkheiran S, Shahidi GA, Togha M, Paknejad SM, Ashrafian H, Abdi S, Firouzabadi SG, Jamaldini SH, Ohadi M

The alpha-synuclein-caveolin 1 axis is suggested to be of role in the pathogenesis of Parkinson’s disease in cell line models. The objective of this study was to analyze the homozygous haplotype compartment of the human caveolin 1 gene upstream purine complex in patients afflicted with Parkinson’s disease. This complex was screened in patients with Parkinson’s disease (n?=?141) and compared with a group of controls (n?=?760) using polymerase chain reaction and sequencing. The expression activity of the homozygous haplotypes was then examined using luciferase Dual-Glo system in human neuronal cell line, LAN-5. Six haplotypes were found to be homozygous in the patients, and not in the control pool (Fisher exact p?HubMed – rehab

Biofeedback rehabilitation of eccentric fixation in ?patients with Stargardt disease.

Eur J Ophthalmol. 2013 Apr 29; 0
Verdina T, Giacomelli G, Sodi A, Pennino M, Paggini C, Murro V, Virgili G, Menchini U

Purpose: To evaluate the efficacy of biofeedback (BF) microperimetric rehabilitation in patients with Stargardt disease (STGD). ?Methods: Eighteen patients with STGD with unstable fixation located in the superior retina and best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) between 20/100 and 20/320 in the better eye were recruited. All the patients underwent Nidek MP-1 microperimetry and fixation analysis. Twelve patients underwent ?8 consecutive BF training sessions of 10 minutes each, performed once a week in the better eye. Six patients did not receive any training and were used as controls. In both groups, BCVA, reading speed, contrast sensitivity, bivariate contour ellipse area (BCEA), and retinal sensitivity were evaluated in the better eye at baseline and after 10 weeks. Paired and unpaired t tests were used as appropriate. ?Results: In the control group, after the follow-up period, fixation pattern did not show any modification and the other parameters worsened or remained unchanged. On the contrary, the BF group showed significantly improved stabilization of fixation (mean BCEA 68.2% from 5.63°2 to 1.58°2), improved mean BCVA (from 34.00 to 37.67 letters), higher mean reading speed (from 66.67 to 84.00 words/min), higher contrast sensitivity (from 16.33 to 18.75 letters), and improved retinal sensitivity (from 10.68 to 12.29 dB). The comparison of the results obtained in the 2 groups was statistically significant for all the considered parameters except for retinal sensitivity. HubMed – rehab