THE INDEX

Every paper we have read

Each one summarised from the full article, not its abstract, and kept only if it speaks to physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech-language pathology or nursing. Newest first.

35,183 PAPERS · PAGE 355 OF 704 · NEWEST FIRST

• PTPilot2020Effects of the Ergon® instrument-assisted soft tissue mobilization technique (IASTM), foam rolling, and static stretching application to different parts of the myofascial lateral line on hip joint flexibility.Journal of physical therapy scienceApplying instrument-assisted soft tissue mobilization (IASTM) to the lateral line improved hip flexibility more than foam rolling or stretching. Treating either the upper or lower section alone worked as well as treating the whole line. Results apply to short-term changes in healthy young adults.
• PTOther2020Blood Pressure Screening by Outpatient Physical Therapists: A Call to Action and Clinical Recommendations.Physical therapyThis is a clinical recommendations article, not a study. It suggests physical therapists screen blood pressure, but it reports no participants, methods, or outcomes, so there is no research finding to act on.
• PTOTOther2020Menthol-induced cutaneous stimulation combined with self-paced walking training improves knee extension performance in untrained older healthy females.Journal of physical therapy scienceSelf-paced walking alone improved maximum knee strength but not the speed of force development in older women. Adding menthol gel to the thigh before walking improved both maximum strength and the rate of force development. This suggests menthol may help recruit fast-twitch fibers during low-intensity exercise.
• PTOTSLPCohort2020Factors influencing the amount of therapy received during inpatient stroke care: an analysis of data from the UK Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme.Clinical rehabilitationInpatient stroke patients received 14 minutes of physiotherapy per inpatient day on average, below the 45-minute guideline. More therapy was associated with specialist rehabilitation teams, weekend services, timely assessment, and higher staffing, but this audit did not test whether these factors caused more therapy.
• Narrative Review2020Neurogenesis, Myelination, and Circuitry: The Case for a Distributed Therapeutic Regimen in Down Syndrome.American journal on intellectual and developmental disabilitiesThis paper proposes a biological timeline for Down syndrome deficits, suggesting that different therapies might be needed at different life stages. It is a theoretical argument with no clinical data, so it offers no guidance on current treatment.
• SLPOther2020Fragile X Syndrome-Associated Emergency Department Visits in the United States, 2006-2011.American journal on intellectual and developmental disabilitiesNearly half of emergency department visits coded for Fragile X syndrome resulted in hospital admission, compared with about one in seven nationally. This high admission rate suggests these patients often have health issues that standard care has not managed well.
• SLPProtocol2020RELEASE: a protocol for a systematic review based, individual participant data, meta- and network meta-analysis, of complex speech-language therapy interventions for stroke-related aphasia.AphasiologyThis paper outlines the plan for a future study pooling data on speech therapy for aphasia. It contains no results, findings, or evidence to guide current clinical decisions.
• PTOTSLPSystematic Review2020Effect of neonatal therapy on the motor, cognitive, and behavioral development of infants born preterm: a systematic review.Developmental medicine and child neurologyTherapist-designed programs where parents actively engage preterm infants in daily motor practice showed moderate-to-large short-term gains in motor and cognitive skills. Interventions delivered only by therapists or started late showed little to no long-term benefit.
• PTSystematic Review2020Systematic Review on Exercise Training as a Neuroplasticity-Inducing Behavior in Multiple Sclerosis.Neurorehabilitation and neural repairExercise training improved some walking, balance, strength, or thinking outcomes in MS, but studies rarely showed matching brain changes linked to those gains. Evidence that exercise works through brain plasticity is too sparse and small to guide prescription.
• Systematic Review2020A Conceptual Framework for Understanding the Cultural and Contextual Factors on Autism Across the Globe.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchThis paper proposes a framework for understanding how culture affects autism diagnosis. It does not test interventions or report patient outcomes, so there is no clinical evidence here to change practice.
• PTOTCohort2020Association of Physical Activity and Cognitive Activity With Disability: A 2-Year Prospective Cohort Study.Physical therapyHigh physical activity and high cognitive activity were linked to the lowest rate of 2-year disability onset in older Japanese adults. Cognitive activity without high physical activity was not linked to lower disability.
• SLPOther2020Audiovisual Enhancement of Speech Perception in Noise by School-Age Children Who Are Hard of Hearing.Ear and hearingChildren with mild to severe hearing loss gained 31.7% more keywords from watching the speaker than hearing-only, compared to 15.8% for normal-hearing peers. This suggests auditory-only tests underestimate their speech perception skills in noisy classrooms.
• PTPilot2020A multicomponent intervention to decrease sedentary time during hospitalization: a quasi-experimental pilot study.Clinical rehabilitationOverall sedentary time did not differ between usual care and the multicomponent physical therapy intervention during hospitalization or after discharge. On Day 6, sedentary time was lower in the intervention group, equivalent to 41 minutes.
• PTOTSLPRCT2020Task-Specific Versus Impairment-Based Training on Locomotor Performance in Individuals With Chronic Spinal Cord Injury: A Randomized Crossover Study.Neurorehabilitation and neural repairTask-specific stepping training improved walking speed and endurance more than impairment-based exercises in people with chronic incomplete spinal cord injury. However, the stepping group experienced significantly more minor adverse events, including falls. Clinicians must weigh these gains against the increased fall risk and educate patients on safety.
• PTRCT2020The effect of high-intensity versus low-level laser therapy in the management of plantar fasciitis: randomized participant blind controlled trial.Clinical rehabilitationHILT and LLLT groups each had less heel pain in plantar fasciitis, but neither laser was better on pain, pressure pain, or fascia thickness. More HILT than LLLT participants rated treatment over 50% effective.
• PTOTSLPOther2020Predictors of Arm Nonuse in Chronic Stroke: A Preliminary Investigation.Neurorehabilitation and neural repairIn 20 people with chronic stroke, attention and arousal deficits predicted non-use of the affected arm more strongly than the arm's physical capacity. This suggests that for patients who can move their arm but choose not to, addressing attentional engagement is critical.
• PTOther2020Augmenting propulsion demands during split-belt walking increases locomotor adaptation of asymmetric step lengths.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationInclining the treadmill during split-belt walking made step lengths more symmetric during and after training in 12 people with chronic stroke. It did not test whether overground walking improved.
• Other2020A preliminary examination of brain morphometry in youth with Down syndrome with and without parent-reported sleep difficulties.Research in developmental disabilitiesSeventeen youth with Down syndrome and parent-reported sleep difficulties had smaller total brain volume and frontal, temporal, and parietal lobe volumes than nine peers with Down syndrome without sleep difficulties. This small imaging study cannot show sleep caused the differences.
• SLPCohort2020Aided Hearing Moderates the Academic Outcomes of Children With Mild to Severe Hearing Loss.Ear and hearingFor children with mild to severe hearing loss, hearing aids that made more speech audible were associated with a weaker link between unaided hearing loss and oral language. Oral language then related to school skills such as reading and writing.
• SLPOther2020Lexical diversity and lexical skills in children who stutter.Journal of fluency disordersChildren who stutter scored lower on standardized vocabulary tests than matched peers, but showed no difference in lexical diversity during spontaneous conversation. Both groups remained within the normal range. This suggests subtle weaknesses appear in structured testing, not natural speech.
• Other2020Mesenchymal Stem Cell-Derived Exosomes Improve Functional Recovery in Rats After Traumatic Brain Injury: A Dose-Response and Therapeutic Window Study.Neurorehabilitation and neural repairIn rats with brain injury, exosomes from human stem cells improved maze and movement scores, especially 100 micrograms given 1 day after injury. This is animal evidence only, not a treatment tested in people.
• SLPOther2020Frequency Following Response and Speech Recognition Benefit for Combining a Cochlear Implant and Contralateral Hearing Aid.Trends in hearingIn 12 bimodal listeners, a stronger brainstem response to voice pitch was linked to better bimodal benefit for single words in quiet. It did not reliably predict sentence benefit in noise, and audiogram and lab tests did not.
• PTOTSLPCohort2020Neurodevelopmental Characterization of Young Children Diagnosed with Niemann-Pick Disease, Type C1.Journal of developmental and behavioral pediatrics : JDBP22 of 29 young children with NPC1 had delays qualifying them for early intervention, yet only 10 received services before age 3. Motor and language delays were common.
• PTCohort2020Is the SPARTACUS 15-15 test an accurate proxy for the assessment and tracking of maximal aerobic capacities in adolescents with obesity?Journal of physical therapy scienceAfter 12 weeks in adolescents with obesity, Spartacus 15-15 changes did not track measured VO2peak changes, although baseline scores related to lab-measured aerobic capacity.
• PTOTSystematic Review2020Gait and postural control patterns and rehabilitation in Down syndrome: a systematic review.Journal of physical therapy sciencePeople with Down syndrome walk with a wider base and shorter steps to stay stable, using stiff hips and knees to compensate for weak ankles. Early, intensive treadmill training helps children walk sooner and more efficiently, but adults see little change.
• SLPOther2020Respiratory-Swallow Coordination in Healthy Adults During Drinking of Thin to Extremely Thick Liquids: A Research Note.Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHRAcross thin to extremely thick liquids, respiratory pause duration did not differ by consistency or sex, and breathing-swallow phase pattern was stable; barium liquids had shorter pauses, and one exploratory sex difference appeared.
• PTRCT2020Effect of plyometric training on the fascicle length of the gastrocnemius medialis muscle.Journal of physical therapy scienceEccentric calf raises increased medial gastrocnemius fascicle length by week 6 in healthy adults; normal calf raises did not. Dorsiflexion angle and muscle thickness also rose. This is a muscle structure change, not proven performance or injury benefit.
• Case-Control2020Maternal blood folate status during early pregnancy and occurrence of autism spectrum disorder in offspring: a study of 62 serum biomarkers.Molecular autismHigher maternal blood folate at week 14 was linked to autism in offspring, but this failed significance after correcting for testing many markers. Vitamin D and inflammation showed no link. The study was too small to confirm any association.
• SLPOther2020A parent-report scale of behavioral inhibition: Validation and application to preschool-age children who do and do not stutter.Journal of fluency disordersPreschoolers who stutter scored higher on behavioral inhibition than fluent peers. Higher inhibition correlated with greater stuttering frequency and severity. In children over four, inhibition also linked to more negative communication attitudes and stronger reactions to stuttering.
• PTOther2020Posterior thigh thermal skin adaptations to radiofrequency treatment at 448 kHz applied with or without Indiba® fascia treatment tools.Journal of physical therapy scienceRadiofrequency warmed the posterior thigh skin after 15 minutes in healthy men. Adding fascia-tool strokes did not make the immediate warming greater, but it kept warmth for 164.2 minutes after treatment instead of 54.8 minutes.
• PTRCT2020Locomotor Kinematics and Kinetics Following High-Intensity Stepping Training in Variable Contexts Poststroke.Neurorehabilitation and neural repairHigh-intensity stepping training improved walking speed more than low-intensity training, but biomechanical changes were limited and varied by training type. Variable high-intensity training showed more paretic-limb joint power and coordination changes than low-intensity training.
• SLPCase-Control2020Neural features of sustained emotional information processing in autism spectrum disorder.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceAdolescents with autism showed sustained brain activity in regions handling emotional salience and control for up to 30 seconds after seeing negative words. This neural persistence predicted emotion dysregulation, suggesting that negative reactions may continue internally long after the stimulus is gone.
• PTCohort2020Anteroposterior balance reactions in children with spastic cerebral palsy.Developmental medicine and child neurologyIn children with spastic CP who walked without aids, older children had to step at smaller forward treadmill pushes than typically developing peers; younger children did not differ. Backward pushes were similar.
• OTSLPOther2020Revised scored Sensory Perception Quotient reveals sensory hypersensitivity in women with autism.Molecular autismFemales with autism reported significantly more sensory hypersensitivity across all five senses compared to control females, but showed no difference in hyposensitivity. Mothers of children with autism did not report elevated sensory sensitivity compared to controls.
• Narrative Review2020Recent advances in human stem cell-based modeling of Tuberous Sclerosis Complex.Molecular autismStem cell models of Tuberous Sclerosis Complex reveal that timing of mTOR inhibition is critical: early treatment prevents differentiation defects, but later treatment cannot reverse established cell fate decisions. This suggests a narrow developmental window for potential therapeutic intervention.
• PTOTSLPCohort2020Inpatient stroke rehabilitation: prediction of clinical outcomes using a machine-learning approach.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationAdmission scores on the FIM, Ten-Meter Walk, Six-Minute Walk and Berg Balance were the strongest predictors of discharge scores, stronger than age, sex or stroke details. The models were rough and built from 50 patients at one hospital.
• SLPCohort2020Production of noun suffixes by Turkish-speaking children with developmental language disorder and their typically developing peers.International journal of language & communication disordersTurkish-speaking children with developmental language disorder produced noun suffixes significantly less accurately than their typically developing peers, even though Turkish has many learner-friendly features. The gap remained wide across all suffix types, showing that language structure alone does not close the deficit.
• SLPCohort2020Social brain activation during mentalizing in a large autism cohort: the Longitudinal European Autism Project.Molecular autismIn a large brain-imaging study, adults and children with autism showed the same brain activation as typically developing people when watching animations of moving shapes. The expected difference in the 'social brain' was absent, even though the task reliably activated these regions in everyone.
• PTOther2020Ability to categorize end-feel joint movement according to years of clinical experience: an experiment with an end-feel simulator.Journal of physical therapy scienceTherapists with clinical experience identified simulated joint end-feel more accurately than students, particularly when always conscious of end-feel. Muscular and tissue approximation were often confused, so end-feel alone may not pinpoint the cause of limited motion.
• SLPOther2020Electrophysiological Estimates of the Electrode-Neuron Interface Differ Between Younger and Older Listeners With Cochlear Implants.Ear and hearingCochlear implant users implanted in childhood had larger evoked nerve responses and steeper response growth than users implanted in adulthood. Response thresholds did not differ, and these measures did not predict vowel recognition. This is an electrophysiological finding, not evidence for a programming change.
• SLPOther2020Sensitivity and Specificity of Pure-Tone and Subjective Hearing Screenings Using Spanish-Language Questions.American journal of audiologyPure-tone screening caught more hearing loss than Spanish self-report questions in mostly older Hispanic/Latinx adults. The single question 'Do you think you have hearing loss?' was the best self-report screen, but it still missed people.
• Other2020Neuroinflammatory Gene Expression Alterations in Anterior Cingulate Cortical White and Gray Matter of Males With Autism Spectrum Disorder.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchNo measured brain immune gene levels differed between autism and typically developing control tissue after all tests were checked together. Small trends appeared before that check, but they were not firm.
• PTOTCohort2020Time Course of Wrist Hyper-Resistance in Relation to Upper Limb Motor Recovery Early Post Stroke.Neurorehabilitation and neural repairPassive wrist resistance became higher in patients who could not extend their fingers early after stroke, while it stayed mostly stable in those who could.
• PTOTQualitative2020Web-Based Consumer Health Education About Back Pain: Findings of Potential Tensions From a Photo-Elicitation and Observational Study.JMIR rehabilitation and assistive technologiesPeople with back pain using a website described tensions between reducing pain and living with it, staying active and resting, choosing treatments and needing guidance, hearing warnings without feeling judged, and biomedical facts without human context.
• PTOther2020Knee extensor muscle strength as a predictor of peak oxygen uptake in patients with heart disease.Journal of physical therapy scienceHigher knee strength measured by handheld dynamometer went with higher peak oxygen uptake in 45 heart disease patients. A cutoff of 0.46 kgf/kg corresponded to 5 METs.
• PTOTRCT2020Effects of transcranial direct current stimulation with virtual reality on upper limb function in patients with ischemic stroke: a randomized controlled trial.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationAdding real cathodal tDCS to VR and conventional occupational and physical therapy improved upper limb impairment after ischemic stroke more than sham tDCS with the same VR and conventional occupational and physical therapy in this small trial.
• SLPOther2020South African hearing conservation programmes in the context of tele-audiology: A scoping review.The South African journal of communication disorders = Die Suid-Afrikaanse tydskrif vir KommunikasieafwykingsNo study directly tested tele-audiology in hearing conservation programmes. Only indirect audiometry studies suggest remote hearing tests may be possible when noise is controlled. This means tele-audiology is not yet evidence-based for hearing conservation.
• PTOther2020Using force data to self-pace an instrumented treadmill and measure self-selected walking speed.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationSelf-paced treadmill walking speeds closely tracked the standard 10-meter walk in healthy adults, but the three slowest walkers chose slower treadmill speeds. The treadmill can measure comfortable speed, not replace overground speed values.
• SLPNarrative Review2019Research-based Updates in Swallowing and Communication Dysfunction in Parkinson Disease: Implications for Evaluation and Management.Perspectives of the ASHA special interest groupsParkinson disease commonly affects swallowing and speech, but patients often do not report it. Objective assessment is needed. Medication and deep brain stimulation do not reliably improve these symptoms, while behavioral therapy can help short term.
• PTOTOther2020Repetitive peripheral magnetic stimulation improves severe upper limb paresis in early acute phase stroke survivors.NeuroRehabilitationIn 19 adults with severe arm weakness after stroke, final FMA scores did not differ significantly between groups. The rPMS group had higher FMA score gain relative to treatment duration (2.65 versus 1.10).