To determine the effectiveness of mirror therapy and electromyography (EMG)-triggered neuromuscular stimulation on improvement of functions of the upper extremity in patients with subacute stroke in comparison with conventional therapy as well as to evaluate the advantage of each treatment over another, we conducted a prospective, randomized, and controlled trial involving 24 patients with ischemic stroke. The mean age and mean time since stroke of the patients were 58.79±11.49 years and 5.25±2.25 months. Patients were assigned randomly to a mirror therapy group (MT group, n=9), which consisted of therapy with a mirror box 5 days/week, 30 min/day, for 3 weeks, an electrostimulation group (ES group, n=7), which consisted of therapy with EMG-triggered stimulation (EMG-stim) of similar duration and frequency of treatment as the MT group, and a control group (n=8). All the groups received conventional physiotherapy for the same period as the MT group. Patients in the MT group practiced their therapy at home after supervised sessions. The Fugl-Meyer scores of the upper extremity, grip force, wrist extension, and Box and Block Test were evaluated at baseline, after treatment, and at 3 months after the treatment. All of these measures were evaluated by a blinded researcher. We found that there was no significant improvement in wrist extension range and grip force in control group. The MT and EMG-stim were effective in increasing the Fugl-Meyer motor scale for upper extremity (MT group: P<0.01), increasing wrist extension range, grip force, and hand dexterity determined by the Box and Block Test (MT group and ES group P<0.05). Furthermore, hand skills were increased significantly in the MT group compared with the ES group at the follow-up assessment (P<0.05). This pilot study suggested that MT was more efficient in improving motor performance than physiotherapy alone. Also, MT may be more useful in improving the hand skills compared with EMG-stim. We assume that this difference might be related to the feasibility of maintenance of MT at home.

Sexual dysfunction is a common experience in women with fibromyalgia. However, the physiopathology of this association is unclear. We aimed to evaluate whether sleep disturbance has an influence on sexual function in women with fibromyalgia. Fifty-four sexually active premenopausal women with fibromyalgia were enrolled in the study. The following questionnaires were used: the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI), the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Appropriate statistical analyses were used by using SPSS 18. The mean FSFI score was 25.344 ± 6.52 and showed no correlation with age, body mass index, BDI or duration of fibromyalgia. However, a positive correlation between sexual dysfunction and low sleep quality was found (r=0.43; P=0.001). In addition, the median FSFI score was 29.2 (27.2-32.4) in patients with higher sleep quality (PSQI⩽5), whereas it was 21.4 (18.9-25.3) in patients with lower sleep quality (PSQI>5) (P<0.001). There was a positive correlation between sexual dysfunction and symptoms of fibromyalgia as indicated by a higher FIQ score (r=0.37; P=0.006). Sexual dysfunction in female patients with fibromyalgia may be due to low sleep quality. Treatment of the sleep disorder may improve female sexual function.

Treatment of burning mouth syndrome (BMS) is challenging because there is no consensus regarding pharmalogical or nonpharmalogical therapies. The use of anticonvulsants is controversial. We present nine patients BMS who respond to pregabalin. They were diagnosed secondary BMS except two. Etiologic regulations were made firstly in patients with secondary BMS but symptoms did not decrease. We preferred pregabalin in all patients and got good results. Furthermore the addition of pregabalin to the treatment of two patients who did not respond adequately to duloxetine provided good results. We are only aware that pregabalin may reduce symptoms as a result of case reports. We believe that the diagnosis of pathologic etiology with appropriate diagnostic tests will result in better outcomes in treatment.

Objectives: Demonstrate of accidental intravascular injection during lumbar transforaminal anterior epidural steroid injection (TAESI) performed with three-dimensional imaging angiography (3DIA) and fluoroscopy. Methods: We assessed 20 (9 males and 11 females) patients (with a total of 40 levels) whose images were received with simultaneously 3DIA and fluoroscopy-guided TAESI between January 2016 and September 2016 as retrospective. Injections were carried out in the lumbar fourth intervertebral space bilaterally and performed in the same way all of the cases. Results: The mean age and body mass index of the patients were 47.9±2.72 years and 26.95±1.21, respectively. There were 10 patients with disc herniation, seven patients with spinal stenosis, and three patients with failed back surgery syndrome. In 3D imaging, vascular escape was detected in the 7 levels (17.5%) which were thought to be no escape in the fluoroscopy imaging. Conclusion:In chronic lumbar radiculopathy patients, intravascular escapes may occur during the fluoroscopic TAESI procedure. To avoid intravascular injections during TAESI procedure, it may be appropriate to use different imaging methods that can give more detailed results such as 3D angiography.

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