OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY

Research for occupational therapy

Papers an occupational therapist can act on, across daily living, mental health, hand therapy, paediatrics and rehabilitation, each read in full rather than from its abstract.

10,853 PAPERS · PAGE 189 OF 218 · NEWEST FIRST

• PTOTSLPCohort2025Cognitive Impairments Impact Functional Mobility in Stroke Survivors.Neurorehabilitation and neural repairStroke survivors with cognitive impairment showed worse balance, walking, and driving than cognitively normal survivors, despite similar motor strength. Driving performance was the most affected area. Cognitive deficits impact mobility independently of physical weakness, suggesting routine cognitive screening is vital for safe mobility planning.
• OTSystematic Review2025Taking stock of psychosocial rehabilitation in children and adolescents: a systematic review with meta-analysis.Frontiers in rehabilitation sciencesAcross 18 studies of time-limited rehabilitation for children and adolescents with physical conditions, pooled before-after improvement was moderate, but only 4 studies contributed data and only 2 had controls.
• PTOTCase-Control2025Foot placement coordination is impaired in people with Parkinson's disease.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationPeople with Parkinson's disease place their feet less precisely than healthy adults, with errors of 3 to 4 mm. This loss of fine control occurs even when walking speed is normal, suggesting a specific deficit in how the body coordinates steps to maintain balance.
• PTOTCase Report2025Case Report: Nonsurgical management of painless cervical motor radiculopathy.Frontiers in rehabilitation sciencesA 67-year-old man with sudden, painless, severe right shoulder weakness recovered full function in five weeks using epidural steroid injections, physical therapy and medication. This single case suggests conservative management can work, but cannot prove it is safe or effective for others.
• OTOther2025Stage-specific EMG feature optimization for enhanced post-stroke hand gesture recognition.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationDifferent muscle-signal features worked best for different Brunnstrom recovery stages in 13 post-stroke patients, improving hand gesture recognition. No patient outcomes were tested, so this is a wearable system design finding.
• PTOTSLPOther2025Genetic testing in cerebral palsy with clinical and neuroimaging variables.Developmental medicine and child neurologyClinicians support genetic testing for cerebral palsy but lack clear guidelines on who to test. In a retrospective cohort, no single clinical or MRI factor reliably predicted a genetic cause after multivariable analysis, though dysmorphic features and normal MRI were suggestive in univariable models.
• PTOTRCT2025Participation in activities of daily living after the Akwenda Intervention Program for children and young people with cerebral palsy in Uganda: A cluster-randomized trial.Developmental medicine and child neurologyChildren with cerebral palsy in rural Uganda who received the Akwenda program increased their attendance in daily activities more than waiting-list controls. Gains were largest for those with greater mobility limitations and in community activities like celebrations and employment.
• PTOTSLPCohort2025Evaluation of sonographic ulnar nerve cross-sectional area cutoff values at and around the medial epicondyle for diagnosing ulnar neuropathy at the elbow in wheelchair users.European journal of physical and rehabilitation medicineA 10 mm² ulnar nerve size on ultrasound is highly specific for cubital tunnel syndrome in wheelchair users, making it useful for confirming the diagnosis. However, sensitivity was low, so a normal scan does not rule out the condition.
• OTSLPOther2026Teacher-Student Interactions of Autistic Adolescents: Relationships between Teacher Autonomy Support, Structure, Involvement and Student Engagement.Journal of autism and developmental disordersTeachers rarely offered autistic students choices, spending most time neutral. Structure helped engagement, but only when clear. Involvement showed no consistent link to engagement. Autonomy support was the rarest positive interaction.
• PTOTSLPQualitative2026"Shutdowns Are Like You're Stuck on the Blue Screen of Death": A Metaphor Analysis of Autistic Shutdowns.Autism in adulthoodAutistic adults described shutdowns using six metaphors: being frozen, a computer crash, going inside myself, can't keep up, survival mode, and playing a role. These terms highlight the internal, physical, and protective nature of the experience, offering a shared language for clinicians to understand patient distress.
• OTSLPOther2026The Relationship Between Interoception, Alexithymia, Autistic Traits and Eating Pathology in Autistic Adults.Journal of autism and developmental disordersAtypical eating, distinct from weight concerns, predicts eating disorder pathology in autistic adults. However, body image dissatisfaction remains a strong predictor in both autistic and non-autistic groups. Assessments must screen for sensory or routine-based eating issues alongside traditional weight and shape concerns.
• OTOther2026How Long Does it Last? The Enduring Benefits of Neurodiversity Training and Diagnostic Disclosure on Hiring Outcomes for Adults with ASD.Journal of autism and developmental disordersRaters who watched neurodiversity training videos and knew a candidate’s diagnosis rated autistic candidates as equally likely to be hired as non-autistic candidates. This held two weeks and two months after training, despite some social ratings remaining lower.
• OTSLPOther2026Social Functioning in Autistic Children with Below-Average vs. Average IQ: Limited Behavioral and Neural Evidence of Group Differences.Journal of autism and developmental disordersAutistic children with below-average IQ scored worse on direct face-memory, theory-of-mind, and role-play tasks, but caregivers reported similar everyday social functioning. Brain responses showed limited differences.
• OTSLPSystematic Review2026Examining Virtual Reality Interventions for Social Skills in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review.Journal of autism and developmental disordersVR social skills training shows promise for children with autism, but results are inconsistent. Many studies lacked control groups or failed to show skills transferring to real life. It is not yet proven superior to standard therapy.
• OTOther2026The Vocational and Educational Index: An Update to the Vocational Index to Reflect Contemporary Postsecondary Educational Options for Autistic Adults.Journal of autism and developmental disordersThe updated Vocational and Educational Index separates education from work for autistic adults. It captures modern options like internships and disability-specific college programs that the old index missed. Code agreement was high, ranging from 92.7% to 97.6% across dimensions.
• PTOTSLPQualitative2026Barriers and Facilitators to Participating in Pediatric Oncology Rehabilitation: Childhood Cancer Survivor and Caregiver Perspectives.Archives of physical medicine and rehabilitationChildhood cancer survivors and caregivers identified barriers to rehabilitation participation, including inconsistent providers, lack of oncology-specific knowledge in community therapists, and insurance gaps. Facilitators included building trust through consistent care, flexible scheduling for treatment side effects, and clear discharge planning.
• OTSLPOther2026Chronic Parenting Stress in Parents of Children with Autism: Associations with Chronic Stress in Their Child and Parental Mental and Physical Health.Journal of autism and developmental disordersParents of children with autism showed high reported stress linked to poor mental health and emotional eating. Hair cortisol, a biological stress marker, correlated between parents and children but did not match reported stress levels. Higher biological stress in mothers linked to higher glucose.
• PTOTPilot2025Monitoring wheelchair propulsion patterns: feasibility and validity of using wearable sensors.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationA hand-mounted sensor correctly identified four wheelchair propulsion patterns in 12 users, including those with no experience. The system worked equally well for men and women and across all four movement styles.
• PTOTRCT2025The impact of bimanual reach training with augmented position sense feedback on post-stroke upper limb somatosensory and motor impairment.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationBimanual robot training improved position sense and motor impairment in chronic stroke patients, but adding force-coupling to the less-affected arm provided no benefit over visual feedback alone. Both groups improved similarly, suggesting the active practice itself drives recovery.
• PTOTPilot2025EMG-guided human-machine interaction training develops new intermuscular coordination patterns in stroke: a pilot study.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationFour stroke survivors learned to separate two co-activating arm muscles using EMG feedback over six weeks. This changed how their muscles coordinated and improved reaching and wrist movement, but the study was too small to prove the method works.
• PTOTRCT2025Comparison of Body Weight Support-Assisted Balance and Gait Training With or Without Balance Perturbations in Poststroke Rehabilitation: Multisite Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR rehabilitation and assistive technologiesAdding eight balance perturbations to body-weight supported gait training did not improve balance, confidence, or walking speed more than standard training alone in poststroke inpatients. Both groups improved similarly. The added perturbation module offers no functional advantage over standard care in this setting.
• PTOTMeta-Analysis2025Telerehabilitation in Postoperative Breast Cancer Care: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.JMIR rehabilitation and assistive technologiesCompared with standard care, telerehabilitation after breast cancer surgery improved quality of life and reduced pain. Upper-limb function did not show a significant pooled improvement.
• PTOTRCT2025High-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation for stroke patients lower extremity function: primary motor cortex versus cerebellar stimulation. A randomized controlled trial.European journal of physical and rehabilitation medicineAfter stroke, two weeks of high-frequency brain stimulation to the motor cortex or cerebellum, with conventional rehab and medication, improved lower-limb function and balance more than sham. The contribution of brain stimulation alone cannot be separated from the other treatments.
• PTOTSLPPilot2025Sonomyography accurately captures joint kinematics during volitional and electrically stimulated motion in healthy adults and an individual with cerebral palsy.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationUltrasound imaging tracked wrist and ankle movement accurately in four people, including one with cerebral palsy. This method resisted electrical stimulation noise that blinded standard muscle sensors, but it is a technical feasibility check, not a clinical tool yet.
• PTOTSLPCohort2025Sex Differences in Subacute Blood Biomarker Levels and Associations With Post-Concussion Symptom Severity in Adolescents With Concussion.The Journal of head trauma rehabilitationIn adolescents with concussion, females had higher tau levels than males. Biomarkers linked to symptoms differently by sex: p-tau181 correlated with cognitive issues in both, but NFL and UCH-L1 predicted physical symptoms in males and emotional symptoms in females. These are associations, not diagnostic tools.
• PTOTRCT2025The Berlin bimanual test for stroke survivors (BeBiT-S): evaluating exoskeleton-assisted bimanual motor function after stroke.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationA new 10-task bimanual test for stroke survivors scored reliably and agreed with existing hand function scores. With a brain-controlled hand exoskeleton, 15 participants scored higher on the test, mainly in grasping and stabilizing.
• PTOTSLPCohort2026Disorder Type and Severity as Predictors of Mental Health in Siblings of Children with Chronic Disorders.Journal of autism and developmental disordersHow severe the child's condition is predicts sibling mental health problems. The specific diagnosis itself does not. Fathers' ratings of severity matched siblings' own reports better than mothers' did. Screen for risk based on functional impairment and daily life disruption, not just the diagnostic label.
• OTSLPSystematic Review2026Exploring the Human-Animal Interaction (HAI) for Children with ASD Across Countries: A Systematic Review.Journal of autism and developmental disordersDogs and horses dominated human-animal interaction for children with ASD, and animal-assisted interventions were more common than pet ownership. Country patterns differed, with US home-based pet ownership and Europe/Asia therapy-animal use.
• OTSLPCohort2026Adaptive Functioning Across Contexts: A Comparison of Parent and Self-Reported Ratings in Autistic and Non-Autistic Youth.Journal of autism and developmental disordersAutistic teens and young adults rated their social adaptive skills higher than their parents did. Parent and self-ratings disagreed across all areas, and autistic youths' self-ratings aligned with an independent social functioning rating.
• OTCohort2026Unpacking housing needs: Utilization of rental assistance among a national sample of households with children with disabilities.Disability and health journalChildren with disabilities are overrepresented in HUD rental assistance, making up 8% of assisted households. They are significantly more likely to receive Housing Choice Vouchers than Multi-Family Housing, suggesting these flexible vouchers are the primary mechanism for families managing disability-related housing needs.
• PTOTSLPQualitative2026Autistic Burnout on Reddit: A Sisyphean Struggle with Daily Tasks.Journal of autism and developmental disordersAutistic adults on Reddit describe burnout as a chronic state of exhaustion, sensory overload, and skill loss, often lasting years. They prioritise reducing external stimuli and masking over causal analysis. Community validation was a key theme, with 13% of posts expressing shared experience.
• OTSLPQualitative2026Theory of Change of Caregiver Coaching for an Early Parent-Mediated Autism Intervention.Journal of autism and developmental disordersCoaches described how joint goal setting, modeling, and feedback build caregiver confidence and skill. Embedding strategies in daily routines helped families maintain them. Caregivers valued improved connection and reduced stress over specific developmental milestones.
• PTOTCohort2025Perceived quality of life, fatigue and the metabolic cost of walking in generalized hypermobility spectrum disorder and hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.Frontiers in rehabilitation sciencesPeople with hypermobility spectrum disorders and hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome reported significantly worse quality of life and higher fatigue at baseline. After walking, they experienced substantially more leg pain and fatigue than healthy controls. Pain did not correlate with metabolic cost.
• PTOTSLPCohort2025Community participation, physical activity, and quality of life for children born very preterm.Developmental medicine and child neurologyHelpful environments and active participation linked to more movement and better quality of life. Adapting physical or social demands of community activities may support children, especially those born very preterm, more than targeting child impairment alone.
• PTOTOther2025Assessment of gait patterns in breast cancer survivors: a cross-sectional study.European journal of physical and rehabilitation medicineBreast cancer survivors walked slower with shorter steps and a wider base than healthy women. These gait changes appeared within 12 months of surgery, suggesting early rehabilitation could help prevent mobility decline.
• PTOTCohort2025Overground robotic walker use in the home and community: a six-month prospective cohort study.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationOver six months, family-directed use of a robotic walker in the home was associated with modest improvements in walking ability, physical activity, and sleep. Most participants remained wheelchair users, and gains rarely crossed the threshold for clinical importance.
• PTOTCase-Control2025Inter-segmental coordination patterns in Parkinson's disease are particularly disturbed during preferred walking speed: a data-driven network approach.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationPeople with Parkinson's disease show severely disturbed whole-body coordination during their preferred walking speed, but much less so when walking fast or slow. The overall movement structure remains intact, but variability is higher, suggesting the automatic nature of normal-speed walking is the main challenge.
• PTOTCase-Control2025Distinct patterns in neuromuscular adaptation to repeated perturbations in chronic ankle instability.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationPeople with chronic ankle instability did not lower their ankle muscle stiffness during repeated balance perturbations, unlike healthy controls. However, they did improve balance by shifting control to the hip. This suggests rehab should target whole-body coordination rather than just ankle stiffness.
• PTOTMeta-Analysis2025Upper extremity pain after stroke: a systematic review and meta-analysis on primary prevention.European journal of physical and rehabilitation medicineMost common prevention methods like slings, taping, and exercises did not significantly reduce upper limb pain after stroke. Only intramuscular injections showed potential benefit, but evidence was very weak. Current guidelines lack strong data to support specific preventive strategies.
• PTOTPilot2025Noisy galvanic vestibular stimulation and static balance in parkinson's disease: a multimodal resting‑state fMRI feasibility study.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationIn 41 patients with Parkinson's, one session of noisy galvanic vestibular stimulation improved Berg Balance scores immediately and at one week. Functional reach and discomfort also improved, but Timed Up and Go did not change significantly at first. No sham group was used.
• OTSLPCohort2025Deep developmental phenotyping in children with tuberous sclerosis complex, with and without autism.Developmental medicine and child neurologyIn children with tuberous sclerosis, autism was common, and autistic children had more intellectual disability, language deficits, executive dysfunction and externalizing behaviour. ADHD symptoms were frequent in both groups. Formal language screening is warranted even without autism or intellectual disability.
• PTOTSLPOther2026Understanding and Assessing Health-Related Quality of Life in Caregivers of Individuals With Traumatic Brain Injury and Comorbid Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.Archives of physical medicine and rehabilitationCare partners of people with both traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder report significantly worse quality of life than those caring for brain injury alone. These caregivers face unique strain beyond physical disability or hours spent caregiving, marking them for targeted support.
• PTOTSLPSystematic Review2026The Meaning of Autism Friendly in Hospital Settings: A Scoping Review of the Autism Community's Perspectives.Journal of autism and developmental disordersAutistic patients and families identified three key areas for hospital care: people, place, and time. Staff communication and autism-specific training were critical. Flexible environments that reduce sensory overload and shorter wait times helped. Rigid systems and lack of preparation created barriers.
• PTOTSLPRCT2026Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder as a moderator of the efficacy of family-based problem solving after pediatric traumatic brain injury.Rehabilitation psychologyFamily-based problem solving improved daily functioning in teens without ADHD, but not those with pre-injury ADHD. Teens who developed ADHD after injury showed delayed gains at 18 months. Identify ADHD history before prescribing this intervention.
• PTOTRCT2025REAsmash-ET: a methodological framework for combined cognitive and motor assessment through eye-tracking and kinematic metrics in immersive VR search-and-reach task.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationIn healthy adults, a VR search-and-reach task showed harder visual search slowed responses and increased looking at distractors, especially with age. It is a research framework, not yet tested in stroke.
• PTOTCohort2025Dystrophin isoform deficiency and upper-limb and respiratory function in Duchenne muscular dystrophy.Developmental medicine and child neurologyParticipants with Duchenne muscular dystrophy predicted to lack Dp140 had lower grip strength, pinch strength and respiratory function than participants predicted to retain Dp140. Hand-tapping scores did not differ. This is an association, not proof that one cause explains the difference.
• PTOTOther2025Towards AI-based precision rehabilitation via contextual model-based reinforcement learning.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationA proposed AI dose-scheduler outperformed fixed upper-limb therapy schedules in synthetic stroke simulations, but it was not tested in people, so it cannot change clinic practice yet.
• PTOTSLPSystematic Review2025Artificial intelligence in rehabilitation: a living systematic mapping review - first release.European journal of physical and rehabilitation medicineMost AI research in rehabilitation is small, internal, and focused on stroke or gait, with very few trials testing real clinical benefit. Half the studies had no comparison group, and external validation was rare, so these tools are not yet proven to improve patient outcomes.
• PTOTOther2025Interpretable machine learning for differentiating SCA3 and MSA-C using gait and postural features from wearable sensors.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationWearable insoles distinguished SCA3 from MSA-C with 95.91% accuracy. Cadence variability and eyes-closed sway were key markers. SCA3 patients showed more side-to-side instability, while MSA-C patients had more irregular walking rhythm. This supports using gait data to help differentiate these overlapping ataxias.
• PTOTRCT2025Motor imagery training promotes motor learning and brain plasticity without fatigability in people with progressive multiple sclerosis.European journal of physical and rehabilitation medicinePhysical finger training caused fatigue and failed to improve speed in people with progressive MS. Imagining the same movements improved speed and brain excitability without causing fatigue, though gains did not last an hour.