An Italian version of the Disability of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH) questionnaire has been devised and its reliability and validity have been assessed in a cross-sectional study of 108 consecutive patients with upper extremity pathologies. A sub-sample of 30 patients was used to assess re-test reliability. The principal DASH scale showed a high correlation with other patient-oriented measures and demonstrated good reproducibility, consistency and validity, which were similar to those for other languages' versions of DASH. These findings suggest that the evaluation capacities of the Italian DASH are equivalent to those of other language versions of the DASH.

No abstract

Background Although nonoperative treatment is considered the standard of care for the treatment of grade I and II acromioclavicular joint injuries, the treatment of grade III injuries is controversial. There are as many methods of nonoperative treatment as there are for operative stabilization. That is why we conducted a literature research to find out the best evidence regarding the treatment of acute grade III acromioclavicular dislocation. Method The research was limited to RCTs, systematic review and meta-analysis in the most representative databases. Even if research identifies more than 600 articles, only five were included in the study because there were RCTs, and systematic reviews, but no meta-analysis articles were found. Moreover, no meta-analysis was performed because of differences of data published in the three RCTs (different type of surgical treatments and different outcome measures).Results From the literature evaluation, clinical results seem to be comparable between the operative and the conservative treatments, but complications are more evident in the surgery group. Since there is not a preponderance of positive papers showing the benefits of a surgical technique over conservative therapy, the nonoperative treatment is still considered a valid procedure in the grade III acromioclavicular separation. Conclusion More prospective randomized studies using validated outcome measures are needed to identify the suitable operation techniques for the acute injuries.

Over the last 10 years, patient-oriented evaluations using questionnaires have become an important aspect of clinical spinal outcome studies. Any questionnaire must be translated and culturally adapted in order to be used with different language groups, and the translated version must then be evaluated for reliability and validity, which are fundamental attributes of any measurement tool. The Roland Disability Questionnaire, a low back pain disease-specific tool, was submitted to translation into Italian and to cross-cultural adaptation following the Guillemin criteria. It was then validated on 70 patients (37 male and 33 female; mean age 58, range: 28-67) suffering from low back pain as assessed by clinical examination, imaging and also electromyography in cases of suspected neurological impairment. The test-retest reliability, assessed with intraclass correlation, was 0.92 and the internal consistency reached a Cronbach's alpha of 0.82. The Italian version of the Roland Disability Questionnaire satisfied the validation criteria, showing characteristics of reliability and validity similar to previously published versions translated and adapted for other countries.

No abstract