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 624 OF 704 · NEWEST FIRST

• SLPRCT2025Enhanced episodic memory and LTP-like plasticity in subjective cognitive decline following 10-Hz repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationOverall episodic memory did not differ between active and sham rTMS groups, but one delayed-memory subtest improved only in the active group. Hand-muscle responses to a plasticity test also increased only within the active group.
• PTOTOther2025Clinical feasibility of motor hotspot localization based on electroencephalography using convolutional neural networks in stroke.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationAn EEG-based algorithm accurately located stroke patients' motor hotspots within 1.77 mm, a precision comparable to TMS. This method works with as few as 5 electrodes, suggesting it could replace expensive TMS for targeting stimulation in rehabilitation.
• PTCase Report2025Intramuscular hemorrhage during rehabilitation in a post-stroke patient with vascular Ehlers-Danlos syndrome: a case report and review of spasticity-related muscle injury.Frontiers in rehabilitation sciencesA post-stroke man with vascular Ehlers-Danlos syndrome had thigh muscle bleeding during routine passive hamstring stretching while taking clopidogrel and antihypertensive medication. This single case cannot separate stretching, medication, and tissue fragility.
• SLPPilot2025Feasibility of delivering TeleCHAT: A comprehensive high-dose aphasia treatment via telerehabilitation.Clinical rehabilitationAll 12 participants completed a high-dose aphasia programme delivered remotely. Technical issues rarely stopped therapy, and support people attended most sessions. This shows the system works, but does not yet prove the treatment improves outcomes compared to standard care.
• Other2025Do we need internal medicine specialists in physical therapy? Recognizing the need for updating the clinical practice paradigm.Frontiers in rehabilitation sciencesNo patient outcome is reported. This perspective paper argues for an internal medicine specialty for physical therapists. It gives no evidence that the specialization works.
• PTOTRCT2025A pilot randomised controlled trial of an online self-management programme for people with persistent pain post-knee replacement (Kneed).Clinical rehabilitationAn online pain self-management programme was feasible but saw high dropout in the first four weeks. Among those who finished, half reported a 50% pain reduction compared to 18% in usual care, though the study was too small to confirm this benefit.
• OTQualitative2025Promoting financial empowerment after brain injury: Findings from focus groups.Clinical rehabilitationAdults with brain injury and caregivers proposed financial help that is proactive, individualized, free or low-cost, and delivered by professionals who understand brain injury. Ideas include financial coaches, advocacy, awareness campaigns, and accessible products. These are ideas, not tested interventions.
• PTOTSLPQualitative2025How recovery influences community reintegration: perspectives of persons with spinal cord injury and their support persons.Frontiers in rehabilitation sciencesPeople with spinal cord injury and their support persons often feel satisfied with their community reintegration even when they are unhappy with their physical recovery. Improving function alone does not guarantee a return to life; psychological adjustment and social support are critical drivers.
• PTPilot2025Enhancing Self-Efficacy Through Robotic Safety Support in Balance-Challenging Reach Tasks: Feasibility Study in Young Adults.JMIR rehabilitation and assistive technologiesA fall-safety robot and familiarization with it raised confidence before challenging reaches, but did not improve reach distance, forward-back sway, or task persistence beyond the control group in healthy young adults.
• SLPRCT2025Effects of intermittent theta-burst stimulation on cognition and glymphatic system activity in mild cognitive impairment and very mild Alzheimer's disease: a randomized controlled trial.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationActive brain stimulation did not improve cognition immediately or change glymphatic clearance markers. However, cognitive scores improved significantly four weeks after treatment ended. This delayed benefit suggests monitoring patients for several weeks post-intervention rather than expecting immediate results.
• PTOTCohort2025Development of the Italian version of the modified Barthel index and preliminary reliability in adults with stroke.Journal of rehabilitation medicineAn Italian version of the modified Barthel Index showed high agreement among 51 adults with stroke when scored by different raters and repeated within days. Total scores were stable, but some individual items were less consistent.
• PTSystematic Review2025The effectiveness of physiotherapy for chronic headaches in patients with temporomandibular disorders: a systematic review.Frontiers in rehabilitation sciencesFour of five trials found TMJ-focused physiotherapy reduced headache pain or disability, while one found no headache benefit. The trials differed too much to combine and study quality was uneven, so support for trying TMJ and neck physiotherapy in chronic headache with TMD is limited.
• PTOTOther2025Musculoskeletal changes and treatments in paediatric spinal cord disorders: A scoping review.Journal of pediatric rehabilitation medicineChildren with spinal cord disorders often lose bone and muscle, with scoliosis, hip dysplasia, spasticity and fractures. Evidence on treatments is small and mixed, so do not assume any intervention works.
• OTPilot2025Evaluation of wrist and finger function in healthy children through music-based video game therapy.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationIn healthy children, background music during wrist and finger video games made movements more consistent but did not improve game scores. Ten children rated the glove and games as satisfying and reported that music helped them concentrate and relax.
• PTOTSLPCohort2025Early cognitive decline in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and its relation to driving: an observational study.Journal of rehabilitation medicineCognitive scores in ALS patients stayed stable over eight months, but did not predict who stopped driving. Screening early with the ECAS gives a reliable baseline, yet impaired patients continued to drive.
• PTRCT2025Analgesic effects and neural oscillatory mechanisms of music-synchronized virtual reality intervention.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationIn healthy young adults, a 25-minute music-synchronized VR session made pressure feel less painful and improved pain inhibition more than conventional VR or tablet viewing. The benefit likely came from music, movement, and immersion together, not music alone.
• PTOther2025Effective assistance timing using characteristics of paretic ground reaction force in ankle robotic gait training for individuals with hemiparesis after stroke: a cross-sectional study.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationApplying ankle push-off assistance later in the stance phase (40-60% of gait cycle) increased paretic propulsion in most stroke survivors. This timing worked for both those with early and late push-off patterns, contradicting the hypothesis that timing must match individual gait characteristics.
• PTOTOther2025Quantitative assessment of dynamic movement reveals deficits due to hemiparetic stroke.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationStroke survivors with moderate-to-severe impairment lose the ability to move quickly. Their upper limbs fail at frequencies above 1.5Hz, meaning they cannot perform fast daily tasks like stirring or brushing teeth, even if they can still reach the objects.
• PTOther2025Capturing Objective Functional Measures Using Smartphone Inertial Sensors: Feasibility and Usability Study With Older Adults.JMIR rehabilitation and assistive technologiesOlder adults found a smartphone app feasible for recording sit-to-stand movements, with high data quality. However, single-leg balance recordings failed frequently. Users requested feedback and reminders, highlighting that current prototypes lack the motivation drivers needed for long-term home monitoring.
• PTOTOther2026Validity of Scores From the 12-Item Multiple Sclerosis Walking Scale Among Young, Middle-Aged, and Older Adults With Multiple Sclerosis.Archives of physical medicine and rehabilitationThe 12-item Multiple Sclerosis Walking Scale accurately reflects walking ability in older adults with MS, not just younger ones. Scores tracked closely with timed walk tests and endurance measures across all ages, and cognitive decline did not distort the results.
• PTOTRCT2026Multiple eumenorrheic cycles are necessary to observe a significant increase in estrogen exposure and ovulation in exercising women with functional hypothalamic oligo/amenorrhea undergoing a nutritional intervention: Insights from the REFUEL study.PM & R : the journal of injury, function, and rehabilitationIncreasing energy intake led to menstrual recovery in 58% of exercising females. However, significant estrogen exposure increases and reduced relapse rates were only observed after three consecutive normal cycles. A single period was insufficient for hormonal recovery.
• PTOTSLPCohort2026Patient Functional Outcomes in Skilled Nursing Facilities: The Mediating Role of Declining Therapy.Archives of physical medicine and rehabilitationTherapy minutes dropped sharply in skilled nursing facilities after payment changes and during the pandemic. This decline accounted for nearly half of the increase in patients losing function and significantly reduced the chance of major recovery. Less therapy meant worse outcomes.
• PTOTSLPPilot2025Tailored implementation of a behaviour change intervention for post-stroke physical activity: A mixed-methods feasibility study.Clinical rehabilitationStroke teams found a facilitated, tailored process feasible for delivering a physical activity programme after stroke, but all four teams only partially achieved their plans. This is about embedding support, not evidence that the programme improves patient outcomes.
• PTOTSLPCohort2025Concussion Classification in a Multicenter Patient Cohort: The Updated ACRM Diagnostic Criteria and Concordance With Physician Impression of Injury.The Journal of head trauma rehabilitationApplying the 2023 ACRM criteria to 1447 patients found 96.9% had definite or suspected mild TBI, versus 69.7% diagnosed by physician impression. Most missed cases involved patients with lower symptom severity, suggesting clinical judgment may underdiagnose concussion when symptoms are less obvious.
• PTOTSLPPilot2025A feasibility study of digital self-report measurement for brain injury patients utilizing an adapted version of the Mayo-Portland Adaptability Inventory - fourth edition.Journal of rehabilitation medicinePatients with mild to moderate cognitive deficits completed a digital brain injury inventory twice with high consistency. The tool matched community integration scores and showed that naming ability, not overall cognition, linked to reported participation difficulties. This supports using digital self-report for routine monitoring.
• Protocol2025Assessing assistive technology needs, unmet demands, barriers, and gaps in the Indian population: a protocol for large epidemiological survey.Frontiers in rehabilitation sciencesNo findings are reported. This paper outlines the plan for a future survey of assistive technology needs in India, detailing how data will be collected but not what was found.
• OTCohort2025Divided attention and manual visuomotor control in stroke: a combined dual-task and eye movement study.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationStroke patients did not get worse at grip force control when adding a memory or attention task, unlike controls. They still made more tracking errors than controls and showed poorer divided attention and working memory during dual-tasking.
• PTRCT2025Deep oscillation therapy enhances early rehabilitation after ACL reconstruction: a randomized controlled trial.Journal of rehabilitation medicineAdding deep oscillation therapy to standard physiotherapy after ACL surgery significantly improved pain tolerance, reduced swelling, and increased knee movement compared to physiotherapy alone over 4 weeks. Patients in the treatment group achieved full knee extension, while the control group retained a deficit. This supports DOT as an effective early adjunct.
• Case Series2025Characterizing spinal reflexes evoked by sensory spinal cord stimulation in people with lower-limb amputation.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationSpinal cord stimulation used to restore sensation in three people with lower-limb amputation triggered spinal reflexes but did not change their walking speed or limb symmetry. The reflex activity did not interfere with their existing gait patterns during overground walking.
• PTQualitative2025Home-Based Augmented Reality Exercise For People With Parkinson Disease: Qualitative Acceptability Study.JMIR rehabilitation and assistive technologiesPeople with Parkinson disease found this home-based augmented reality exercise acceptable as a complement to, not a replacement for, clinic therapy. They valued the flexibility to train at home but relied on clinicians for movement feedback, adherence support, and social connection.
• PTOTSLPSurvey2025Assessing and Managing Agitation During Early Recovery in Children With Moderate-to-Severe Traumatic Brain Injury in Australia: A National Survey.The Journal of head trauma rehabilitationMost Australian clinicians managing agitated children with brain injury use general recovery scales, not agitation-specific tools. They rely on environmental changes and individualized care, with family education key. Practice varies widely, and formal training on agitation management is often lacking.
• PTOTSLPCase Series2025Sustainability of Digital Home Care and Health Care Services in 2 Case Studies in Finland: Combined Climate and Social Impact Assessment.JMIR rehabilitation and assistive technologiesDigital home care services are not automatically climate-friendly. Medicine robots significantly reduced travel needs, but video call services using dedicated tablets had a higher carbon footprint than the robot service. Clinicians should assess the specific technology's lifecycle impact rather than assuming digitalization is green.
• PTCase Series2025Hyperselective neurectomy for spastic equinovarus in pediatric patients with hypertonia.Journal of pediatric rehabilitation medicineIn seven children with spastic foot deformity, nerve surgery targeting calf muscles, sometimes with posterior tibial nerve surgery and physical therapy, lowered spasticity and improved ankle motion; no strength loss was reported.
• Narrative Review2025Integrating big data and artificial intelligence to predict progression in multiple sclerosis: challenges and the path forward.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationThis paper reviews why AI tools for predicting MS progression are not yet used in clinics. It highlights data fragmentation and regulatory barriers but offers no new clinical evidence or results for therapists.
• PTOTRCT2025Ankle Bracelet Laser as a Novel Portable Device to Improve Walking in Patients With Parkinsonism: Randomized Crossover Controlled Trial.JMIR rehabilitation and assistive technologiesA prototype ankle laser improved gait speed by 0.07 m/s and stride length by 0.17 m in 10 patients with parkinsonism during a brief clinic test. The device automatically projects a line with each step, reducing the need for manual control. These immediate effects have not yet been proven to last in daily life.
• PTOTSystematic Review2025A systematic literature review to explore lived experiences with phantom limb phenomenon following a lower extremity amputation: a qualitative synthesis.Frontiers in rehabilitation sciencesPatients with lower limb amputation often receive little or no early education about phantom limb pain, leading to distress and dissatisfaction. They prefer self-management strategies like massage and distraction over medication, and report that phantom sensations can actually help them accept their prosthetic limb.
• PTOTCohort2025Relationship between post-COVID-19 symptoms and daily physical activity.Frontiers in rehabilitation sciencesIn adults with post-COVID symptoms, higher dizziness severity predicted fewer daily steps the same and next day. Walking at least 5,000 steps was linked to less fatigue and chest pain the following day. These are observational associations, not proof that activity improves symptoms.
• PTOTCohort2025Longitudinal interaction between muscle impairments and gait pathology in growing children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationWeakness in the hips and knees tracked closely with specific changes in walking patterns over time. This confirms that anterior pelvic tilt links to hip weakness, while tiptoeing links to knee weakness. Preserving these strengths may delay the need for compensatory movements.
• PTOTRCT2025Safety and efficacy of add-on robotic therapy for early mobilization in intermediate neurocritical care: a pilot study.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationAdd-on robot therapy for early mobilization in neurocritical care was safe, with no adverse events. It improved physical function scores more than standard physiotherapy alone. However, the study was tiny, unblinded, and participants in the robot group received extra daily therapy, so efficacy is not proven.
• PTOTPilot2025Real-time biofeedback monitoring rehabilitation of distal radius fracture.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationA wearable prototype used muscle signals to predict hand fracture healing in real time. It triggered vibration warnings when exercises risked slowing recovery. The system worked accurately on healthy volunteers, but has not yet been tested on patients with fractures.
• PTOTSLPCohort2025Optimizing the clinical functioning information tool (ClinFIT) in routine clinical practice: development of functional staging cutoff scores for rehabilitation provision and intensity.Journal of rehabilitation medicineAdmission ClinFIT scores above 192 identified patients needing high-intensity rehabilitation, while scores below 135 indicated light intensity. These thresholds help triage inpatient cases but are exploratory and require external validation before routine use.
• PTOTSLPQualitative2025Recommendations for Combining Brain-Computer Interface, Motor Imagery, and Virtual Reality in Upper Limb Stroke Rehabilitation: Qualitative Participatory Design Study.JMIR rehabilitation and assistive technologiesFor upper-limb brain-computer interface, motor imagery, and virtual reality training, stroke survivors and clinicians recommended daily tasks, sessions no longer than 20 minutes, simple to complex progression, and feedback adjusted for attention, neglect, and fatigue. These are design recommendations, not tested effectiveness.
• Other2025A time-efficient continuous ramp protocol for data-driven walking energy expenditure estimation across multiple speeds.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationCorrecting for delayed breathing let a continuous treadmill ramp measure walking energy expenditure as well as steady-speed testing in healthy young men. A model trained on that shorter testing estimated energy expenditure with similar overall accuracy to the conventional model and better than a smartwatch.
• PTOTSLPCohort2025Persistent obstacles for return to work after COVID-19 infection - an explorative follow-up study in Sweden.Frontiers in rehabilitation sciencesMost patients with post-COVID symptoms returned to work within a year, but often in an adapted way. Women were 3.5 times more likely than men to remain unable to work. Persistent fatigue and cognitive issues were the main barriers, requiring workplace flexibility.
• Cohort2026Assessing the validity of caregiver-perceived severity in pediatric traumatic brain injury: A comparative analysis with the Glasgow Coma Scale.Journal of pediatric rehabilitation medicineCaregiver reports of injury severity matched medical records in 68% of cases, showing moderate agreement overall. Agreement was strong for mild and severe injuries but poor for moderate ones. Caregivers tended to rate moderate injuries as more severe than the medical records did.
• PTOTSLPSystematic Review2026Considerations of race and ethnicity within rehabilitation studies for post COVID-19 condition: A scoping review.PM & R : the journal of injury, function, and rehabilitationMost long COVID rehabilitation studies are done in the UK and US with samples that are 88% White. Few studies considered race or ethnicity in how they recruited or analyzed results. This limits how much current rehab evidence applies to minority patients.
• PTOTSLPQualitative2026'I've never heard of pulmonary rehab': Healthcare professionals' perceptions in regards to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.Clinical rehabilitationClinicians on general medical wards rarely referred patients to pulmonary rehabilitation, often because they had never heard of it or assumed it was someone else's job. Many primary care staff deferred to nurses or hospital teams, creating a cycle where no one took responsibility for the referral.
• PTOTCohort2026Predictors of wrist extensor muscle recovery following acute traumatic spinal cord injury: A model systems replication study.PM & R : the journal of injury, function, and rehabilitationThree old clinical prediction rules for wrist extensor recovery after spinal cord injury are much less accurate than previously thought. Positive predictive values dropped to 57% to 74%. Do not rely on a single rule to predict recovery or guide surgical referrals.
• PTOTRCT2026Long-term home-based physical exercise, pain, and use of pain medication over a year after hip fracture - A secondary analysis of a randomised controlled trial.Clinical rehabilitationOne year after hip fracture surgery, home-based exercise lowered the number of people reporting hip pain and reduced how much pain interfered with daily life compared to usual care. However, it did not change pain intensity scores or reduce the number of people using pain medications.
• PTOTSLPCohort2026Sex Differences in Autistic Youth Born Extremely Preterm.Journal of autism and developmental disordersIn autistic children born extremely preterm, boys showed more restricted and repetitive behaviors and greater social affect difficulties than girls. However, parent-reported screeners and cognitive scores did not differ by sex. Screening tools alone may miss sex-specific traits in this group.