The cerebrovascular accident often results in motor impairment of one of the upper limbs, hence, compromising the quality of life of stroke survivors. Rehabilitation aims to restore the movement abilities of the paralyzed/paretic upper limb. An important element in rehabilitation is to apply a quantified measure of the quality of movement, in order to follow the recovery and select the most appropriate therapeutic modality. We developed a method that uses data recorded during planar movements and outputs an objective measure that relates to the smoothness, velocity and precision of the movement. This method is universal, in a sense that hand position can be recorded by any available means (e.g., robot assistant, digitizing board, motion tracking systems, etc). The method follows the Drawing Test, but generates results that show the ability of the patient to make point to point movements and track the presented trajectory. The method is based on measurements of hand position during movement along a target path in form of a 2 cm wide rectangle. The patient’s task is to move the hand along the target path as quickly as possible, with as few contacts (collisions) with the sides of the path. This paper addresses the aspects of automatic detection of parameters that quantify the quality of movement (speed, smoothness and precision). The use of this method is presented with 10 patients. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 175016

We present the use of the modified internal model controller (MIMC) and the ?Probability Tube? (PT) action representation for robot-assisted upper extremities training of hemiplegic patients. The robot-assisted training session has two phases. During the first "demonstration" phase the robot learns from the therapist the target path through examples. In the second "exercise" phase the robot assists a patient to follow the target path. During this process, the control limits the interface force between the robot and the hand to be below the preset threshold (F = 50 N). The system allows the assessment of the range of movement, the positional error between the target and the reached position, the amount of added assistance (the interface force between the hand and the robot). We demonstrate the operation in two hemiplegic patients. The patients and therapist suggested after the tests that the new system is straightforward and intuitive for clinical applications. [Projekat Ministartsva nauke Republike Srbije, br. RS35003]

Introduction: Clostridium difficile is the cause of the post antibiotic colitis. This anaerobe, sporogenous, gram-positive bacteria is most often recognized as the cause of the nosocomial diarrhea. The aim of this work is to show the impact of the infection Clostridium difficile on the result of rehabilitation of the patients that have been treated in the rehabilitation facility.Methods: 448 patients treated at the Clinic for physical medicine and rehabilitation of the Clinical Center University of Sarajevo were included in the study. Gender, age, Barthel index, length of hospitalization, and values of the albumin in the serum were documented. Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, Mann-Whitney U test and One Sample Wilcoxon Signed Rank test were used for data analysis.Results: There were 57% female and 43% of male patients. The average age was 67.5 years for women and 52 years for men. Barthel index at admission was 4.0 and at discharge raised to 8.0 (p=0.047). The length of the hospitalization for patients without infection was shorter (28.8 days) compared to patients with infection (43 days) (p=0.015). Values of the albumin in the blood at patients with confirmed Clostridium difficile infection were significantly lower than referent values (p = 0.016).Conclusion: Patients with Clostridium difficile infection had longer period of the rehabilitation and the results were less favorable.

Situs viscerum inversus totalis is a rare condition in which organs are transposed from the normal side to the opposite side in the abdominal and chest cavity. It occurs in a ratio from 1:5000 to 1:20000. In this case report, a case of a 50-yearold man who was diagnosed with the symptomatic presence of gallstones with the usage of ultrasound. The patient underwent the laparoscopic cholecystectomy, the surgical procedure lasted for 90 minutes, it was successfully completed and the patient was discharged on the first postoperative day.

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