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The article focuses on the role of therapeutic modalities in patient care management. It mentions its use in areas to decrease pain, increase range of motion (ROM), improve muscle activation, and complement elements of comprehensive patient care plan like therapeutic exercise. It also highlights assessment of therapeutic modalities to affect muscle inhibition following knee joint effusion.

The utilization of pneumatic muscles in the actuation of robotized systems is still in its early stages, thus calling for further study of such constructive solutions. The need for light robotized systems with improved dynamics has led to the development of pneumatic muscles as a power source for the system. This type of actuator, which has also an excellent power/weight ratio, meets the need for safety, simplicity and lightness. Starting from the human model, the paper presents and discusses the performance of a standardizable rotation module, actuated by pneumatic muscles and adaptable on robotic systems designed for the aid of disabled persons. Rotation of a cylindrical joint by means of pneumatic muscles is achieved in a considerably similar way to that generated by human muscles, based on the agonist vs. antagonist principle, namely as one muscle contracts the other will relax. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chapter 1 of the book "The Dystonia Patient: A Guide to Practical Management" is presented. It discusses the clinical features of dystonia, as well as the medical and surgical approaches applicable to it. Treatments mentioned include oral medication of drugs like Levodopa and anticholinergics and surgical treatments such as rhizotomy, pallidotomy and deep brain stimulation (DBS). In addition, it provides tips for practitioners performing or managing dystonia surgery patients.

Applying continuous passive rehabilitation movements as part of the recovery programme of patients with post-traumatic disabilities of the bearing joints of the inferior limbs requires the development of new high performance equipment. The paper discusses a study of the kinematics and performance of such a new isokinetic rehabilitation system actuated by pneumatic muscles. The utilized energy source is compressed air ensuring complete absorption of the end of stroke shocks, thus minimizing user discomfort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Unting is all that's worth living for – all time is lost wot is not spent in ‘unting – it is like the hair we breathe – if we have it not we die – it's the sport of kings. The most vital possessions of the plant are the chloroplasts in the cells of its leaves. Through these, the organism can convert, for its own purposes, a fraction of the solar energy that falls upon it. Sunlight is remarkably uniform in its intensity, and a plant has little to gain by moving about. It can thus afford a relatively stationary existence, the only motion being that required to reach regions beyond the shade of its immediate environment and its competitors. Because they have no chloroplast-bearing cells, animals have paid the penalty of having to develop several specialized functions in order to satisfy their energy requirements. They must have a means of locomotion and feeding, and some form of coordination of these faculties, however primitive, is needed. And as insurance against the unsuccessful forage, they should be able to store digested energy. Moreover, unless an animal is so small that the normal process of diffusion is adequate, it must have a circulatory system to distribute dissolved gases and chemical compounds to its various parts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evolution of the horse was certainly a most tortuous process. None of your seven day nonsense! Seven days' labour wouldn't evolve one primitive earthworm. There are interesting parallels between the structuring of multicellular organisms and societies. We see the same elements of aggregation, communication, commitment and differentiation, and although some regret the decline of the protean ideal, specialization was a minor penalty to pay for the development of modern society. After all, more people have flown in aeroplanes than ever held a pilot's licence, and more have enjoyed the benefits of surgery than ever wielded a scalpel. And how many of us would be meat eaters if we had to do our own butchering? There are even similarities in the way societies and multicellular organisms subordinate the individual to the point of dispensability. A nation survives the death of any citizen, however prominent, and a mature organism hardly seems to notice replacement of its individual cells. Moreover, it now appears that the collective structure has a vested interest in the mortality of its members; the multicellular organism follows a policy of programmed death, and a steady turnover increases the chance of a favourable mutation. This too might have its social counterpart; what happens to individual members after they have procreated is of minor importance, and old worn-out citizens are replaced by fresh young individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proposed 3D finite element model of the face aims at a faithful representation of the anatomy, the mechanical interactions between different tissues, and the non linear force deformation characteristics of tissues. Bones and soft tissues were reconstructed from magnetic resonance images. Non linear constitutive equations are implemented in the numerical model. The corresponding model parameters were selected according to previous work with mechanical measurements on soft facial tissue. Model assumptions concerning tissues geometry, mechanical properties and boundary conditions were validated through comparison with measurements of the facial tissue response to gravity loads and to the application of a pressure inside the oral cavity. In particular, parametric studies were carried out in order to quantify the influence of constitutive model parameters of muscles. The model described in this paper might be used for simulation of plastic and reconstructive surgery and for investigation of the physiology and pathology of face deformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the results of an experimental and finite element analysis of tibial screw fixation in hamstring ACL reconstruction. The mechanical properties of the bone and tendon graft are obtained from experiments using porcine/calf bones and tendon. The results of the numerical study are compared with those from mechanical testing. Analysis shows that the model may be used to establish the optimum placement of the tunnel in anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction by predicting mechanical parameters such as stress, strain and displacement at regions in the tunnel wall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents several games related to skeletal-muscular system including puzzle, crossword and word search game.

The article presents illustrations of the anatomy of myology, including the muscles of the palmar and dorsal surfaces of the human hand, and the muscles of the lateral radial, posterior and anterior surfaces of the forearm.

With the overturn of the old physiology underpinning Galenic medicine, new physiological foundations for medicine were searched for. Systems based on new physical principles proposed by Galileo and other physicists, and those on chemistry following its transformation from alchemy, were advanced: on physical principles by the iatrophysicists and on chemical principles by the iatrochemists. Both groups proposed agents to replace the ancient concept of animal spirits, but they essentially represented only a change of name. Alongside the nervous system by which sensations were perceived and motor nerves innervating muscles expressed the will, an involuntary nervous system was recognized – one by which the various bodily organs and its movements were carried out independently of the will (autonomously). Since Galen, the intercostal nerve chains were known, but were thought to be an offshoot of the vagus nerve originating from the brain, and it was so figured by Vesalius. These chains were then recognized as not connected directly to the brain, having its origin in neural connectives from the spinal cord. How the ganglia associated with this system, the intercostal chains and the ganglia found elsewhere with the involuntary nerves in the abdomen, their relation to the voluntary nervous system, and mode of action, became a matter of inquiry. BOERHAAVE'S SYSTEM OF NERVE FIBERS One of the most eminent clinicians of his day who incorporated the developments in physics and chemistry into a new system of physiology and medicine was Hermann Boerhaave (1668–1738), whose influential six-volume compendium, Institutiones medicae, was aimed at eliminating metaphysics from medicine and medical science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTRODUCTION The scientific revolution of the seventeenth century has long been a centre of interest for historians of science. Traditionally, a major topic within it was astronomy, the ideal science on account of its being objective, intellectual, based on the senses, uncontaminated with contemporary unscientific things and pointing firmly to the future. This image – and the name ‘scientific revolution’ itself – are now seen to be constructions of recent historians, but the name has stuck and we are still invited to see science in the seventeenth century and celebrate its earliest exponents. But to many observers at the time, the new doctrines were a pernicious heresy spread by men who had betrayed the old traditions of learning and piety. The new doctrines were also a minority opinion, promulgated by a handful of people limited largely to two European countries, England and Holland. Elsewhere, the men with the greatest vocational need for philosophy were the physicians, whose use of it is the subject of this book. When and if they finally absorbed the new doctrines, it was not until well into the eighteenth century, which makes a European ‘scientific revolution’ a thing of the Enlightenment. It is only recently that the role of medicine in these changes has begun to be appreciated. There are several things we should note. First, as we have seen, the doctors had a practical use for natural philosophy and treated it as professional knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTRODUCTION Few histories of medicine are without an evolutionary approach. Histories adopting this approach are not now generally ‘whiggish’, but they invariably give much attention to signposts indicating the direction of the road and bearing legends such as ‘mechanism’ or ‘circulation’. Many of these directional milestones are clustered in England and the United Provinces of Holland, and, even in the seventeenth century, medical mechanism could be seen by a major figure in Paris as so much modern Dutch nonsense. But as we have seen, Learned and Rational Doctors were successful in the familiar territory of traditional natural philosophy where they did not need signposts or milestones. This was mostly the case in Catholic countries such as Italy and Spain, and we have glanced at some probable religious reasons for this. In Spain in particular, the universities were happy to do without the new doctrines from England and Holland, and viewed with suspicion the instrument of their dissemination, the tertulia, which were private associations. In 1700 the rector of the University of Seville wrote to his counterpart in Osuna urging the destruction of a tertulia.These organisations co-operated, he said, with the object of destroying the Aristotelianism and Galenism of the schools. There were also political and economic circumstances that seem to bear on the matter. The economic centre of gravity of Europe was moving north. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTRODUCTION The natural context of the Rational and Learned Doctor was scholastic medicine. The term ‘scholastic’ is taken here in a simple sense to mean that which relates to the schools. The schools were the incorporated studia generalia, and within them, the incorporated medical faculty. Scholastic medicine flourished most vigorously from the beginnings of the faculties in the late thirteenth century to the middle of the fourteenth century, when the Black Death arrived. In terms of personalities, it spanned the period from the floreat of Taddeo Alderotti to the death of Gentile da Foligno. This was the high point in the history of rational and learned doctors: their reputation was growing, their numbers were small and they were patronised by popes and monarchs. Instead of breaking down the period into smaller fragments, this chapter presents the story of the scholastic doctor from entry into the studium to his practice of a potentially lucrative trade. BECOMING A RATIONAL AND LEARNED DOCTOR Where to go It was known in the twelfth century that Salerno and Montpellier were good places to go to learn how to be a doctor. Bologna, too; and in the north, the size of the city of Paris gave many opportunities for medical practice, and so was attractive to medical teachers. Indeed, until the middle of the fourteenth century, Bologna, Paris and Montpellier had a virtual monopoly of the teaching of medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTRODUCTION Galen was, in the words of a number of Renaissance title-pages, the ‘Prince of Physicians, second only to Hippocrates’. For those who founded and followed the Latin medical tradition of the West, what was the relationship between the Father of Medicine and the great Galen, physician to emperors? What did medieval and Renaissance man find in Galen as he found medical wisdom in Hippocrates? The answer in brief is that he found rationality and learning in a richer measure and partly of a new kind. Galen was a potent image of the Learned and Rational Doctor who had a Good Story to tell to his patients. We can best demonstrate this by following Galen's life. Galen wrote voluminously and often very personally, quite unlike the impersonal historia-like reports, case-histories and aphorisms of the Hippocratic writings. It was partly a question of time and place: Galen was born in about ad 129, some five hundred years after the earlier of the Hippocratic works had been written. His home town was Pergamon, an important Hellenistic city, but the political centre of his world was imperial Rome where, he decided, his medical career was to be. Galen was the son of a prosperous architect called Nikon and as a young man had received an extensive education in philosophy. He seems to have had a particular interest in problems of proof, or demonstration. But Galen's father, guided by a dream (we might call it non-medical prognostication) sent his sixteen-year-old son to learn medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MEDICAL WISDOM When the medieval doctor looked into the past for the beginnings of his own profession, what he found was the figure of Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine in the medical tradition from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment. Modern scholarship has not revealed much about the historical Hippocrates or which of the ‘Hippocratic’ works were written by him, but the medieval doctor felt more secure in his knowledge. The Hippocratic works gave him a number of things. There was technical advice in a practical subject, which told him what to do and what to expect. For instance, the corpus includes works that explain how to reduce dislocations and how to bandage wounds. The Hippocratic works were also valuable because they were Hippocratic, that is, ancient and authoritative in an age that revered antiquity. These first two chapters are not directly concerned with the first of these aspects of antiquity, the technical content of Greek medicine and philosophy. They are not, that is, a background to or an early history of a professional activity developed during the Middle Ages and beyond. Rather, they present an image of the medieval and later perception of antiquity, a construction (however false in our historical terms) within the Latin tradition and on which the later Western doctors based their actions. It is not a story of beginnings but of resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]