No abstract

Cognitive rehabilitation' is the term used to refer to the training given to people with brain injury to address and improve the specific mental abilities that are impaired. This is usually done to improve return to work, independence in managing daily routines, and quality of life. Review question Does cognitive rehabilitation for people with traumatic brain injury improve their return to work, independence in daily activities, community integration and quality of life? Study characteristics We included nine studies with 790 participants. Seven of the studies were conducted in the US, and one each in Australia and China. Followup (monitoring) duration in the studies ranged between two weeks and two years. Key findings Cognitive rehabilitation for adults with traumatic brain injury to improve occupational outcomes (Review)

The various existing measures to quantify upper limb use from wrist-worn inertial measurement units can be grouped into three categories: 1) Thresholded activity counting, 2) Gross movement score and 3) machine learning. However, there is currently no direct comparison of all these measures on a single dataset. While machine learning is a promising approach to detecting upper limb use, there is currently no knowledge of the information used by machine learning measures and the data-related factors that influence their performance. The current study conducted a direct comparison of the 1) thresholded activity counting measures, 2) gross movement score,3) a hybrid activity counting and gross movement score measure (introduced in this study), and 4) machine learning measures for detecting upper-limb use, using previously collected data. Two additional analyses were also performed to understand the nature of the information used by machine learning measures and the influence of data on the performance of machine learning measures. The intra-subject random forest machine learning measure detected upper limb use more accurately than all other measures, confirming previous observations in the literature. Among the non-machine learning (or traditional) algorithms, the hybrid activity counting and gross movement score measure performed better than the other measures. Further analysis of the random forest measure revealed that this measure used information about the forearm’s orientation and amount of movement to detect upper limb use. The performance of machine learning measures was influenced by the types of movements and the proportion of functional data in the training/testing datasets. The study outcomes show that machine learning measures perform better than traditional measures and shed some light on how these methods detect upper-limb use. However, in the absence of annotated data for training machine learning measures, the hybrid activity counting and gross movement score measure presents a reasonable alternative. We believe this paper presents a step towards understanding and optimizing measures for upper limb use assessment using wearable sensors.

A Mathew, S Samuelkamaleshkumar, S Radhika and A ElangoStudy design: Cross-sectional survey. Objective: To compare the relationship between engagement in occupational activities and pressure ulcer (PU) development in persons with spinal cord injury (SCI). Study setting: Tertiary care university teaching hospital, Tamil Nadu, India. Method: One hundred and eight persons with SCI who were previously rehabilitated from our center were included in the study. A questionnaire was developed to collect information about occupational activities and particulars of PU development. Results: The comparison between work, self-care and leisure with PU development showed no significant correlation. However, completeness of the SCI was found to be associated with PU development. The study also found a relationship between the type of work patients did and the severity of the PU they developed. Conclusion: This study clearly indicates that poor pressure relief practices lead to PU development in persons with SCI, irrespective of their level of independence, employment status or leisure pursuits thus hampering their functional independence at home, work and in daily activities that subsequently reduces their quality of life.

No abstract