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An Erb’s Engram is a common debility that develops in recovering children with Erb’s palsy. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of kinesiotaping over the deltoid and the forearm on the development of proper upper extremity function in children recovering from Erb’s palsy. Thirty patients with Erb’s palsy participated for 3 months in this study and were equally divided into two groups; control group A and study group B. The two groups received the same designed physical therapy program, while group B along the program, received kinesiotaping over the deltoid and the forearm. The subjects were evaluated, pre and post-treatment, and scored functionally, using the Toronto Active Motion Scale, and objectively, using an EMG device utilized to obtain the percentages of degeneration of the deltoid and the biceps muscles. Post-treatment values of six out of nine measured variables, between the two groups, revealed significant difference in favor of group B. The obtained results strongly support the introduction of kinesiotaping of the deltoid and the forearm as an adjunct to the treatment program of Erb’s palsied children.

Background: hemiparetic children usually tend to avoid the use of their impaired arm and are remarkably tend to perform inherently bimanual tasks of daily living with the less impaired arm only rather than with both arms. In fact, these children actually may have never learned to use their impaired arm for certain motor tasks or may only use it in the simplest manner, so the purpose of the study was to determine the impact of combining HABIT and mirror therapy on hand grip in hemiparetic children. Methods: A total of 30 hemiparetic children divided randomly into two groups (A and B) of equal number, (N of each =15). Eligibility criteria to our study were age ranged from 4-8 years, ability to score more than 50 % of grasps and associated domains of quality of upper extremity skills test (QUEST) and grade 2 in manual ability classification system (MACS), assessment done by baseline hand held dynamometer for hand palmar & pinch grasp strength (in pounds) at start (0 week), reassessed at 4 & 8 weeks. The treatment protocol for two groups include: 2 months total time, 3 sessions\ week, 1.5 hour\session. Children in study group (A) received selected occupational therapy program with modified mirror apparatus while children in control group (B) Children received the same occupational therapy program as in study group but without modified mirror apparatus. Results: there is significant improvement in both groups when comparing the pre and post I & II treatment mean values. However comparing the post treatment results of both groups were statistically non-significant. Conclusion: This study confirmed that combining mirror therapy and HABIT is effective in improving hand function.

Background: Adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells (AD-MSCs) were proved to differentiate into insulin-producing cells (IPCs), but the amount of insulin secreted was relatively low compared to the insulin secreted by mature pancreatic islets. Enrichment of MSCs culture with melatonin (MT) was found to promote cartilage matrix synthesis, osteogenic and neuronal differentiation. Therefore, the present study was conducted to evaluate the potential role of MT pre-treated AD-MSCs in enhancing the treatment and regeneration of the islet cells of Langerhans in rats with diabetes induced by streptozotocin (STZ). Materials and methods: Forty adult male Sprague Dawley albino rats were divided equally into groups; group I (control group), group II (STZ group), group III (STZ + AD-MSCs) and group IV (STZ+MT pre-treated AD-MSCs). Biochemical studies were implemented including measurements of the body weight, fasting blood glucose and serum insulin levels, Interleukin 17 (IL-17) and IL-10. Samples of the pancreas were taken and prepared for light, fluorescent microscopic examination, proliferating cell nuclear antigen and caspase-3 immunohistochemical studies and histomorphometric analysis. Results: The present study confirmed the regenerative and therapeutic effects of AD-MSCs on the pancreatic cells. Concomitant supply of MT to the culture of AD-MSCs, in group IV, was shown to retain the normal architecture of the islet cells of Langerhans. They appeared well-defined and lightly stained, surrounded by classical pancreatic acini and contained a large number of islet cells with vesicular nuclei and prominent nucleoli. Improvement of all the biochemical parameters, in the same group, was demonstrated by increased body weight and serum insulin levels with a decrease in the fasting blood glucose levels. Significant decrease in the pro-inflammatory cytokine; IL-17 and increase in the anti-inflammatory cytokine; IL-10, compared to the STZ group, were also discovered. Significant increase in the proliferating cell nuclear antigen proliferation index, decrease in caspase-3 and increase in PKH26 labelled MSCs area per cent was recorded in the group of AD-MSCs enriched with MT compared to the group of AD-MSCs without MT. Conclusions: The present study confirmed the potential therapeutic and protective role of MT pre-treated AD-MSCs against the STZ-induced pancreatic islet cells’ damage. Further studies are recommended to investigate the efficacy of MT and AD-MSCs over longer experimental durations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diabetic retinopathy (DR), a consequence of diabetes, is one of the prominent contributors to blindness. Effective intervention necessitates accurate classification of DR; this is a need that computer vision-based technologies address. However, using large-scale deep learning models for DR classification presents difficulties, especially when integrating them into devices with limited resources, particularly in places with poor technological infrastructure. In order to address this, our research presents a knowledge distillation-based approach, where we train a fusion model, composed of ResNet152V2 and Swin Transformer, as the teacher model. The knowledge learned from the heavy teacher model is transferred to the lightweight student model of 102 megabytes, which consists of Xception with a customized convolutional block attention module (CBAM). The system also integrates a four-stage image enhancement technique to improve the image quality. We compared the model against eight state-of-the-art classifiers on five evaluation metrics; the experiments show superior performance of the model over other methods on two datasets (APTOS and IDRiD). The model performed exceptionally well on the APTOS dataset, achieving 100% accuracy in binary classification and 99.04% accuracy in multi-class classification. On the IDRiD dataset, the results were 98.05% for binary classification accuracy and 94.17% for multi-class accuracy. The proposed approach shows promise for practical applications, enabling accessible DR assessment even in technologically underdeveloped environments.

Background: Valproic acid (VPA), one of the most important antiepileptic drugs, proved to be inevitable for epileptic pregnant women to limit the hazards of convulsions on the foetuses and mothers. Periconceptional folic acid supple-mentation was investigated to protect against several birth defects. However, its role against VPA cerebellar toxicity was not properly investigated. The present study was conducted to evaluate the protective effect of folic acid against VPA cerebellar neurotoxicity.Materials and Methods: Twenty-four pregnant female albino rats were divided into three groups; group I (control group, did not receive any drugs), group II (given VPA at a dose of 50 mg/kg body weight once daily) and group III (given the same dose of VPA and 400 μg/kg of body weight folic acid once daily). Ten male offspring from each group were sacrificed at two ages: at 2 and 12 weeks after birth. Samples of cerebellar cortex were taken and prepared for light, electron microscopic examination, glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) immunohistochemical study and histomorphometric analysis.Results: The present study confirmed the neurotoxic effect of prenatal VPA on the cerebellar cortex, especially on Purkinje cells. The cells appeared shrunken, reduced in density, disorganised and surrounded by empty haloes. Nuclear damage and axon degeneration in the form of vacuolation, loss of organelles and absence of neurofilaments with myelin sheath depletion were detected. Concomitant supply of folic acid was shown to retain the normal architecture of Purkinje cells with their axons and nuclei. In many animals receiving folic acid, the thickness of all layers of the cortex increased up to that of the control groups, after being markedly reduced in VPA-treated groups. GFAP immunoreaction was also improved against the strong positive gliosis detected in VPA-treated groups.Conclusions: The present study confirmed the protective role of folic acid against the cerebellar neurotoxic effects of VPA prenatal exposure. It is recommended that folic acid supplements should be given to every epileptic pregnant mother treated with VPA. (Folia Morphol 2018; 77, 2: 201-209). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Objectives: With advances in healthcare leading to longer life expectancy, the edentulous geriatric population is increasing. Expectantly, head and neck trauma surgeons will encounter atrophic (edentulous) mandible fractures in their practice. The objectives of this paper are to review the prevalence, etiology, and diagnosis of atrophic mandible fractures with a descriptive discussion on the different methods of treatment. Materials and Methods: The review included a search using PubMed (National Library of Medicine, NCBI) and Medline from 1950–2016 with keywords such as “atrophic mandible” with the addition of the words fracture and computerised guided technology and Virtual Surgical Planning (VSP). Results: This search produced 499 articles. Of those 499 articles, 18 were included in this critical review. Management discussion identified papers to provide the most powerful evidence in the decreasing order of strength by cohort studies, case‐control studies, surveys, and case‐series. The update provides new information on virtual surgical planning that will assist in time under general anaesthesia for complex case management. Conclusions: A comprehensive update reviewed all forms of treatment from soft diet to open reduction with computerised technology to provide head and neck trauma surgeons a better basis for clinical management of these fractures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Adequate and efficient standing postural balance is key for functional walking and handling abilities in children with spastic diplegia. This study was designed to evaluate the effect of kinesiotape applied on ankle dorsiflexor muscles on balance in children with spastic diplegia. Thirty children with spastic diplegia of both genders participated in the study: 16 boys and 14 girls between 4 and 10 years old. They were divided randomly and equally into two groups: a control group, in which children received the standard physical therapy program for children with diplegia; and the study group, who received the same physical therapy program as in the control group but after kinesiotape application over the ankle dorsiflexor muscles. Both groups received the treatment program for 1 h, three times per week, for three successive months. Postural stability was assessed through evaluation of three stability index (anteroposterior, mediolateral, and overall) for all children by the Biodex Balance System before and after treatment. Results Statistical analysis of results before and after treatment was performed by mixed MANOVA to compare effects both within and between groups on stability indexes, and post hoc tests were carried out for subsequent multiple comparison. The level of significance for all statistical tests was set at p < 0.05. Before treatment, there was no significant difference in the stability index between both groups (p > 0.05). Comparison between both groups post-treatment revealed a significant decrease in the measured variables of the study group compared with that of the control group (p < 0.05). Conclusion Adding ankle kinesiotaping over dorsiflexor muscles in conjunction with a balance and gait training exercise program for children with diplegia can enhance postural stability and decrease sway. This study suggests that it should be added to the treatment program for children with diplegia. Trial registration This study was registered retroactively. Identifier: NCT04243928