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 667 OF 704 · NEWEST FIRST

• OTSLPQualitative2026Good intentions are not enough: Autistic perspectives on structural ableism within the walls of our classrooms.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceAutistic students said what stopped them speaking up at school was not their own lack of skill but the system: autism erased from lessons, inflexible staff, punishment for being different, isolation, hidden rules and top-down authority. Teaching self-advocacy alone will not fix that.
• PTCohort2026More Frequent Empathic Communication by Physical Therapists Is Associated With Improved Outcomes for Low-Impact Chronic Pain.Physical therapyPatients whose physical therapists responded to their emotional concerns more often reported lower pain intensity and interference, and their pain fell faster over six weeks. It was an observational study of 31 patients in one clinic, so causation cannot be assumed.
• SLPPilot2026Machine learning-enhanced behavioural approach to detecting reactions to sound in infants and toddlers: proof-of-concept study.International journal of audiologyWhen the algorithm decided which side a sound came from, it was usually right, but it decided in only 7% to 17% of cases. Infant head turns alone were not significantly better than guessing.
• PTOther2026Multidimensional Analysis of the Clinical Spectrum and Symptom Burden of Unexplained Myofascial Pain.Archives of physical medicine and rehabilitationIn neck and shoulder pain, how much pain people reported and how much it interfered with life tracked with physical function, pain catastrophizing, mood and hypermobility, not with whether trigger points were found. Nearly everyone had trigger points, including people with no pain.
• PTSystematic Review2026Home-based, telehealth, and hybrid exercise interventions for adults undergoing or recovering from hematopoietic stem cell transplantation: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials.Frontiers in rehabilitation sciencesHome, telehealth and hybrid exercise for adults having a stem cell transplant appeared feasible and generally safe, with adherence often above 80%. Walking capacity improved most consistently; effects on fatigue, quality of life and muscle strength were mixed across just seven small trials.
• SLPQualitative2026Qualitative Insights on Preventive Group Training in LTC Facilities: Key Influencing Factors.International journal of language & communication disordersFour speech therapists running preventive groups in care homes said sessions lived or died on groundwork: staff expecting them, residents having been told, a warm and available room. Of all the competencies they described, reflecting on their own practice came up most.
• PTCase Report2026Case Report: Ultrasound-guided nerve mobilization and rehabilitation for non-traumatic posterior interosseous nerve palsy associated with a ganglion cyst.Frontiers in rehabilitation sciencesOne patient with a ganglion compressing the posterior interosseous nerve: aspirating the cyst eased pain but finger and thumb extension stayed weak. Adding guided nerve mobilization was followed by recovery. One case cannot show the mobilization caused it.
• PTOther2026The effect of thoracic lateral deviation on gait parameters in blindfolded gait.Journal of physical therapy scienceWalking blindfolded made healthy young men drift to the left. Men with the largest leftward thoracic deviation also rotated their pelvis and trunk further left without vision; men with a smaller deviation drifted left with no change in trunk rotation.
• OTSLPSystematic Review2026Key Factors for Quality End-of-Life Care for People With Intellectual Disabilities. A Critical Interpretive Synthesis Review Using a 'Best-Fit' Framework Approach.Journal of applied research in intellectual disabilities : JARIDAcross the literature, quality end-of-life care for people with intellectual disabilities comes down to three things: care built around the person's own wishes, a network of staff, family and friends working together, and an organisation with the training, equipment and leadership to support them.
• SLPCohort2026Pediatric CI 3-60 Guideline: When to Refer Children for a Cochlear Implant Candidacy Evaluation.Ear and hearingRefer a child for cochlear implant candidacy evaluation when the unaided four-frequency average is 60 dB HL or worse, aided SII is 0.60 or lower, or aided word recognition is 60% or poorer. At least 94% of ears recommended for implantation met one of these.
• OTSystematic Review2026Autism in Viet Nam: A systematic scoping review.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceAutism research in Vietnamese cultural contexts has grown quickly but is mostly poor quality and rarely involves the community: 93% of studies reported no autism community involvement. Family, school and the search for a cause, including wartime dioxin exposure, dominated the 137 studies.
• PTOther2026Links between central visual field loss and movement processing during walking.Gait & posturePeople with central vision loss reported the same amount of worry and conscious control over their walking as sighted peers. Worse contrast sensitivity went with less of that control, not more, and slower walking went with more worry.
• PTPilot2026Effects of rhythmic auditory stimulation prior to walking on step time and trunk acceleration during the first five steps of walking initiation: a preliminary study in healthy adults.Journal of physical therapy scienceHealthy adults who heard nine beats of their own walking rhythm before setting off took their first five steps with more even timing and steadier sideways and forward trunk movement than when they started on the first beat. Seventeen healthy young adults, no patients.
• SLPRCT2026Optimizing Sound Quality Improves Hearing Aid Users' Moods and Listening-Related Fatigue.Trends in hearingWhen hearing aids were set to the sound quality people liked best, their daily mood was better and their listening fatigue lower than with a merely tolerable setting. The benefit showed up only in the participants who still preferred that setting at home.
• PTPilot2026Effect of home-based rehabilitation in frail older adults after cardiac surgery: a prospective feasibility study.Journal of rehabilitation medicineFrail older adults after cardiac surgery improved from 5.5 to 8.6 on a 12-point physical function scale over six weeks of home exercise, but those who completed the most sessions did no better than those who completed the fewest.
• PTQualitative2026"It's an Uncomfortable Subject"-a Qualitative Exploration of the Challenges and Potential Solutions to Depression Screening in Low Back Pain.Physical therapyMSK triage physiotherapists described hinting at mood rather than naming depression, citing 15-20 minute appointments, no training, no clear referral route and fear of what a disclosure would uncover. They wanted training, defined pathways and brief tools so screening became as routine as red flags.
• OTOther2026Does a reclined backrest with less legroom meet the same comfort as a fixed backrest with 80 mm more leg room?Work (Reading, Mass.)Reclining the backrest 17 degrees and taking away 8 cm of legroom lowered total discomfort ratings, but comfort ratings were the same in both seats, foot and leg discomfort went up, and the 20 participants split evenly on which seat they preferred.
• SLPQualitative2026'Team Speech Sounds'-How Speech and Language Therapists Work With Parents of Young Children With Speech Sound Disorder: A Focus Group Study.International journal of language & communication disordersTherapists said the relationship with the parent is what makes home practice happen: setting expectations early, watching parents practise and giving feedback. Time and service limits get in the way, and many avoid watching or filming parents for fear of making them feel judged.
• SLPOther2026A Binaural Front End for Speech Intelligibility Models: Application to the Hearing-Aid Speech Perception Index (HASPI).Trends in hearingNot a clinical study. The paper builds and tests a signal-processing component for a computer model that predicts speech understanding in noise, checked against previously published headphone measurements from normal-hearing listeners.
• PTOTSurvey2026Pediatric Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy: Current Practices and Implementation Barriers.OTJR : occupation, participation and health75% of surveyed US paediatric providers said pCIMT was available in their region, but only 14% said every eligible child could actually get it. Cost, therapist and family availability were the top reported barriers, and academic programmes spend 0 to 1 hour on it.
• PTOther2026SIMFER guidelines on physical modalities for chronic primary pain management.European journal of physical and rehabilitation medicineThe panel suggests adding physical modalities such as TENS, laser or cryotherapy to conventional treatment for fibromyalgia and complex regional pain syndrome, never using them alone. The supporting evidence is low certainty, but side effects were mild and transient.
• Qualitative2026Mind the Gap! Sleep Problems in Children With ADHD-A Qualitative Analysis of Clinician Training Needs.Child: care, health and developmentClinicians treating children with ADHD say sleep is one of the biggest problems families bring, yet most had no formal sleep training and learned on the job. Asked directly about sleep disorders, they recognised how little they knew and wanted short, evidence-based, interactive training.
• PTSLPQualitative2026Exploring the Barriers and Facilitators to Physical Activity Behaviour in Older Adults With Intellectual Disabilities: Lessons From and for a Co-Design Study.Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDROlder adults with intellectual disabilities in one care home said pain, fear of falling and past bad experiences stopped them moving. What helped was doing activity with someone else, encouragement and compliments, and activities matched to their interests rather than being told to exercise.
• PTNarrative Review2026Mechano responsiveness of neuroimmune cross-talk in bone and joints: A narrative review with implications for force-based manipulations.Musculoskeletal science & practicePhysical activity and loading exercise are the best-supported way to build bone. Hands-on treatments such as massage, acupuncture and spinal manipulation change some blood chemicals tied to bone turnover, but almost no human study checked whether the bone itself improves.
• OTQualitative2026Exploring Shared Stress Experiences Among Teens With Chronic Health Conditions.Child: care, health and developmentTeens with long-term conditions described feeling set apart from their peers, carrying stressors their friends never face, and never being able to switch off. Several felt dismissed by healthcare providers for so long they started doubting their own symptoms. Safe places helped.
• PTOTOther2026Wheelchair skills test questionnaire for manual and powered wheelchair users: arabic translation, adaptation, and validation.Frontiers in rehabilitation sciencesArabic-speaking wheelchair users can now be asked in their own language about their wheelchair skills. The translated self-report gave consistent answers about nine days apart and lined up with two existing Arabic measures. It records what users say they can do, not observed skill.
• PTCohort2026Altered temporal variability-based functional reorganization of brain networks predicts motor outcome after stroke.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationMonths after a subcortical stroke, brain regions shifted connections from moment to moment differently than in healthy controls, and the pattern varied with the side of stroke. More of this shifting in the right inferior frontal gyrus went with better arm and hand scores.
• OTOther2026Modeling passenger comfort in turboprop aircraft using objective measures.Work (Reading, Mass.)On two real turboprop flights, hip width and other body measurements ranked as the strongest contributors to passenger comfort, with seat position and time seated driving discomfort. The prediction models were only moderately accurate, and this is cabin design research, not clinical evidence.
• SLPOther2026Visual Implicit Learning and Speech Recognition in Adult Post-Lingual Cochlear Implant Users.Trends in hearingPost-lingual adult cochlear implant users picked up visual patterns about as well as hearing adults. Those who did it better understood sentences and words in background noise more accurately, but the study cannot show that improving this skill would help.
• PTCohort2026Patient characteristics of non-participants and reasons for non-participation in cardiac (tele)rehabilitation-a prospective analysis.Frontiers in rehabilitation sciencesOf 328 patients who agreed to a rehabilitation study after a heart attack, 200 took part in the hospital programme, 64 took the home app programme and 64 took neither. Non-participants were older, and most said they were simply not interested.
• SLPOther2026What About Foods? The Influence of Food Texture on the Safety, Timing, Kinematics, and Efficiency of Pharyngeal Phase Swallowing in Healthy Adults.Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHRTexture slowed food's path to the upper swallowing sphincter only when timing started at the hyoid burst. Started from when food gathered in the throat, texture made no difference. Soft and bite-sized food left least residue; a cracker left most. 20 healthy adults.
• PTOTOther2026Psychosocial Factors Are Rarely the Focus of Rehabilitation After Hip Fracture: A Short Report of Routinely Collected Health Data.Physiotherapy research international : the journal for researchers and clinicians in physical therapyIn 100 people rehabilitating after hip fracture, only 4 of 231 therapy goals were about psychosocial functioning, and only 3 patients had such a goal. Of 17 screened as at risk of anxiety or depression, 9 had nothing documented to address it.
• PTRCT2026Abdominal Massage for Adults With an Intellectual Disability and Constipation: A Feasibility Pilot Study.Journal of applied research in intellectual disabilities : JARIDSupporters of adults with severe or profound intellectual disability learned abdominal massage in one session and felt confident giving it, but only 6 of 20 kept to the full 6-week schedule. The study was too small to show whether it eases constipation.
• SLPSystematic Review2026The Impact of Nasogastric Tubes (NGTs) on Swallow Function in Adults with Post-stroke Dysphagia: A Systematic Review.DysphagiaStroke survivors with dysphagia may swallow worse while a nasogastric tube is in place, with longer pharyngeal transit, more penetration or aspiration, and more residue, but no change in oral transit. Seven of the eight studies were at moderate to high risk of bias.
• PTOther2026Cognitive decline outweighs adiposity in influencing lower limb gait kinematics in older adults.Gait & postureThinking scores tracked how the 30 older adults walked far more than their body fat did. Fatness showed up only at the ankle, so weight on its own does not explain the walking patterns in this group.
• PTOTRCT2026Wearable Myoelectric Interface for Neurorehabilitation (MINT) to Recover Arm Activity After Stroke: A Randomized Controlled Trial.Neurorehabilitation and neural repairSix weeks of home training with a myoelectric arm game improved timed arm function by 6.8 seconds only in the group training three muscles at once. That group beat sham only in the per-protocol analysis; the main analysis found no group better than sham.
• PTOTRCT2026Predictors of Functional Recovery in Individuals Exposed to Late-Stage Exercise Programs After Total Knee Replacement: A Secondary Analysis of a Randomized Controlled Trial.Physical therapyFour months after knee replacement, better self-rated health, going home rather than to rehab after surgery and higher knee pain scores predicted who recovered function six months later. Nothing predicted recovery in the community exercise group, likely because too few people improved.
• SLPOther2026Assessment of Hyoid Bone Movement by Simultaneous Ultrasound and Videofluoroscopic Imaging.DysphagiaHandheld submental ultrasound tracked the hyoid through swallowing and, once the probe's own movement was corrected frame by frame, matched simultaneous videofluoroscopy closely. Correcting only for the starting angle did not. Uncorrected probe movement alone adds an estimated 0.37 cm of error.
• Other2026Predictors of long-term outcome in open spina bifida.Developmental medicine and child neurologyNothing here to change practice: this is a commentary, not a study. It argues that the sensory level recorded at birth is worth using to predict long-term outcome in open spina bifida.
• SLPCohort2026The Relation of Home Literacy Environment to Brain Specialization and Sensitivity for Phonological and Semantic Processing of Spoken Words.Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHRHome reading environment showed no strong link to how children's brains divided the work of processing sounds and word meanings. In older children only, being read to more often went with a stronger response when word pairs were only loosely related in meaning.
• OTCohort2025Anatomy Learning Outcomes in Occupational Therapy: Impact of Prior Coursework.Canadian journal of occupational therapy. Revue canadienne d'ergotherapieStudent occupational therapists who had never taken anatomy caught up with classmates who had. The prior-coursework group scored higher on the first three quizzes of the term; by the final quizzes and the practical exam the two groups were similar.
• OTOther2025Occupational Therapy Research Publications From 2001 to 2020 in PubMed: Trends and Comparative Analysis with Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation.OTJR : occupation, participation and healthOccupational therapy research publications grew from 39 in 2001 to 144 in 2020, but still make up under 2.5% of rehabilitation research and fell relative to physiotherapy, from 7% to about 4%. Reviews are now the single largest category.
• PTNarrative Review2025Mastering the use of hand-held dynamometry in clinical practice.Archives of physiotherapyA teaching article on choosing and using hand-held dynamometers, not a study. It reports no patients and no outcomes of its own, so there is nothing here that changes what you do on Monday.
• OTQualitative2025Occupational Participation Among Older Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic.Canadian journal of occupational therapy. Revue canadienne d'ergotherapieOlder adults' pandemic losses centred on doing things with other people, not the activities themselves; virtual versions were 'better than nothing' but rarely enough. Some were also barred from volunteering by age rules.
• Survey2026Digital Screen Exposure of Children During Complementary Feeding: The Role of Maternal Social Media Addiction.Child: care, health and developmentA quarter of children (25.1%) were exposed to screens while being fed. Mothers who used screens during feeding, had children with more screen time, or rated their feeding confidence low scored higher on social media addiction. The study cannot show cause and effect.
• SLPSurvey2026Analyzing the Attitudes of Teachers in Spain Toward Stuttering.International journal of language & communication disordersTeachers in Spain scored better on stuttering attitudes than the worldwide average, but many still blamed trauma, learning or illness for stuttering and rarely named genetics as a cause. Training and experience with students who stutter went together with better scores.
• PTMeta-Analysis2026Addressing Shoulder Weakness in Individuals With Rotator Cuff-Related Shoulder Pain: A Systematic Review With Meta-analysis.The Journal of orthopaedic and sports physical therapyExercise-based rehabilitation improved shoulder strength in people with rotator cuff-related shoulder pain, with the largest gains when strengthening was the main focus. The review could not compare one programme against another, and about four in ten studies were at high risk of bias.
• PTSystematic Review2026The role of virtual reality in balance training for Parkinson's disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in rehabilitation sciencesVirtual reality balance training was not shown to beat conventional physiotherapy for balance in Parkinson's disease. Both groups improved, but not by enough to be confident the change was real, and the six small trials disagreed strongly with each other.
• OTQualitative2026Factors Influencing the Implementation of Transitional Care for Adolescents With Profound Intellectual and Multiple Disabilities: Experiences of Dutch Healthcare Professionals.Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDRDutch professionals rated their transition care for adolescents with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities 6.2 out of 10. Records do not talk to each other, adult teams lack expertise, funding will not pay for coordination, and parents carry the burden.
• OTCohort2026Early Head Start Services Buffer the Effects of Maternal Depression on Child Development.Infants and young childrenCaregivers who engaged more with Early Head Start had fewer depressive symptoms a year later, and children in more engaged families scored better on social-emotional competence by age 3. Depressive symptoms did not predict later engagement, so the link ran one way.