Physical therapy
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Pain is a serious adverse complication after stroke. The combination of a vertical numerical pain rating scale (NPRS) and a faces pain scale (FPS) has been advocated to measure pain after stroke. ⋯ These findings suggest that the NPRS-FPS is a reliable measure of pain in people with stroke, with good relative and absolute reliability.
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Clinical trial registration has become an important part of editorial policies of various biomedical journals, including a few physical therapy journals. However, the extent to which editorial boards enforce the need for trial registration varies across journals. ⋯ Editorial policies on trial registration of physical therapy journals and a rising trend toward reporting of trial registration details indicate a positive momentum toward trial registration. Physical therapy journal editors need to show greater commitment to prospective trial registration to make it a rule rather than an option.
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Skeletal muscle wasting and weakness are common in patients with sepsis in the intensive care unit, although less is known about deficits in diaphragm and limb muscles when mechanical ventilation also is required. ⋯ When measured at bedside, survivors of sepsis and a period of mechanical ventilation may have respiratory muscle weakness without remarkable diaphragm wasting. Furthermore, deficits in peripheral muscle strength and size may exceed those in the diaphragm.
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The Pain Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (PSEQ) is used by physical therapists in clinical practice and in research. However, current understanding of the PSEQ's measurement properties is incomplete, and investigators cannot be confident that it provides unbiased information on patient self-efficacy. ⋯ The individual items of the PSEQ can be validly summed to provide a score of self-efficacy that is robust to age, sex, pain intensity, pain duration, and disability. Although item 7 is the most problematic, it may provide important clinical information and requires further investigation before its exclusion. Although the PSEQ is commonly used with people with low back pain, of whom the sample in this study was representative, the results suggest it targets patients with lower self-efficacy than that observed in the current sample.