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Objective: To compare the effectiveness of I-tape and button hole kinesio taping (KT) techniques added to exercises in the treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS)., Design: Prospective randomized controlled blinded study., Setting: Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Outpatient Clinic., Participants: A total of 108 patients (165 wrists) diagnosed with CTS (N=108)., Interventions: Button hole technique (BG), I-band technique (IG), and exercises (EG)., Main Outcome Measures: Visual analog scale (VAS), Douleur Neuropathique 4 Questions (DN4), Boston carpal tunnel syndrome questionnaire, and Jamar dynamometer were used. Median sensory nerve action potential (SNAP), compound muscle action potential (CMAP), median distal sensory latency (DSL), median distal motor latency (DML), sensory conduction velocity, and motor conduction velocity were recorded. Measurements were made at baseline, week 3, and week 12., Results: Thirty-six patients were in each group. Significant statistical improvements in VAS and DN4 scores were found in the BG and IG compared with EG (P<.05). Statistically significant improvements in hand grip strength were observed in the IG compared with the EG (P<.05). Significant improvements in DML levels and motor conduction velocity were observed in the BG and IG compared with the EG (P<.05). A significant increase in sensory conduction velocity was detected in the BG compared with the other groups (P<.05)., Conclusions: Both KT techniques are effective in terms of pain, functionality, symptom severity, grip strength, and electrophysiologically. The button hole technique was more effective in DSL, sensory conduction velocity, CMAP amplitude, and SNAP., (Copyright © 2024 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: Poor sleep quality, mood disorders, and vitamin D deficiency are common in stroke. We investigated the association between serum vitamin D levels and pre-stroke sleep quality and the occurrence of poststroke depression (PSD) and poststroke anxiety (PSA) in acute ischemic stroke (AIS)., Methods: This prospective cross-sectional study included hospitalized patients with AIS and age- and sex-matched controls. Vitamin D levels were measured within 24 h of admission. Sleep quality was assessed using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) at admission. The severity of depression and anxiety symptoms was evaluated according to Beck Depression Inventory and Beck Anxiety Inventory scores, respectively, within 72 h after admission., Results: Comparing 214 AIS patients with 103 controls, patients had significantly higher scores of Beck Depression Inventory, Beck Anxiety Inventory, and PSQI and lower vitamin D levels (p < 0.001). Among AIS patients, Beck Depression Inventory (p = 0.004) and Beck Anxiety Inventory (p = 0.018) scores were significantly higher in bad sleepers (PSQI score ≥ 6) than in good sleepers (PSQI score ≤ 5). Correlation analysis revealed negative correlations between serum vitamin D levels and Beck Depression Inventory (r =  - 0.234; p < 0.001), Beck Anxiety Inventory (r =  - 0.135; p = 0.016), and PSQI (r =  - 0.218; p < 0.001) scores., Conclusion: Decreased serum vitamin D levels at admission are associated with a high risk for PSD and PSA in patients with poor pre-stroke sleep quality during the early stages of AIS., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.)

This study aimed to develop the "Pandemic Period Physical Activity Scale (PPPAS)" to determine the physical activity level of healthy individuals during the pandemic period. Research data were collected from the "Socio-Demographic Questionnaire Form," "International Physical Activity Short Form," "Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia," "Coronavirus Anxiety Scale," "Epidemic Anxiety Scale," "Expert Evaluation Form," and "Pandemic Period Physical Activity Scale," exploratory factor analysis revealed that the scale consisted of 3 sub-dimensions and 31 items. Confirmatory factor analysis suggested that the fit indices χ 2 /Df: 2.343; root mean square error of approximation: 0.048; incremental fit index: 0.955; comparative fit index: 0.954; goodness of fit index: 0.912; normed fit index: 0.923; non-normed fit index: 0.950; adjusted goodness of fit index: 0.896; root mean square residuals: 0.060; standardized root mean square residual: 0.047. The total Cronbach Alpha coefficient of the scale was found to be 0.912 while the intraclass correlation coefficient of the scale was calculated as 0.958 (p<0.001). As a result of the analyses conducted, it was concluded that the PPPAS is a valid and reliable measurement., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright © 2024, Turhan et al.)

This systematic literature review aimed to provide an overview of the characteristics and methods used in studies applying the disability-adjusted life years (DALY) concept for infectious diseases within European Union (EU)/European Economic Area (EEA)/European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries and the United Kingdom. Electronic databases and grey literature were searched for articles reporting the assessment of DALY and its components. We considered studies in which researchers performed DALY calculations using primary epidemiological data input sources. We screened 3053 studies of which 2948 were excluded and 105 studies met our inclusion criteria. Of these studies, 22 were multi-country and 83 were single-country studies, of which 46 were from the Netherlands. Food- and water-borne diseases were the most frequently studied infectious diseases. Between 2015 and 2022, the number of burden of infectious disease studies was 1.6 times higher compared to that published between 2000 and 2014. Almost all studies (97%) estimated DALYs based on the incidence- and pathogen-based approach and without social weighting functions; however, there was less methodological consensus with regards to the disability weights and life tables that were applied. The number of burden of infectious disease studies undertaken across Europe has increased over time. Development and use of guidelines will promote performing burden of infectious disease studies and facilitate comparability of the results.

A wide spectrum of neurological symptoms (NS) has been described in patients with COVID-19. We examined the plasma levels of neuron-specific enolase (NSE) and neurofilament light chain (NFL) together, as neuronal damage markers, and their relationships with clinical severity in patients with NS at acute COVID-19. A total of 20 healthy controls and 59 patients with confirmed COVID-19 were enrolled in this pilot prospective study. Serum NSE and NFL levels were measured by using the enzyme-linked immunoassay method from serum samples. Serum NSE levels were found to be significantly higher in the severe group than in the nonsevere group (p = 0.034). However, serum NFL levels were similar between the control and disease groups (p > 0.05). For the mild group, serum NFL levels were significantly higher in patients with the sampling time ≥5 days than in those with the sampling time <5 days (p = 0.019). However, no significant results for NSE and NFL were obtained in patients with either single or multiple NS across the groups (p > 0.05). Increased serum NSE levels were associated with disease severity regardless of accompanied NS in patients with acute COVID-19 infection. However, serum NFL levels may have a role at the subacute phase of COVID-19., (© 2022 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Background: Calculating the disease burden due to injury is complex, as it requires many methodological choices. Until now, an overview of the methodological design choices that have been made in burden of disease (BoD) studies in injury populations is not available. The aim of this systematic literature review was to identify existing injury BoD studies undertaken across Europe and to comprehensively review the methodological design choices and assumption parameters that have been made to calculate years of life lost (YLL) and years lived with disability (YLD) in these studies., Methods: We searched EMBASE, MEDLINE, Cochrane Central, Google Scholar, and Web of Science, and the grey literature supplemented by handsearching, for BoD studies. We included injury BoD studies that quantified the BoD expressed in YLL, YLD, and disability-adjusted life years (DALY) in countries within the European Region between early-1990 and mid-2021., Results: We retrieved 2,914 results of which 48 performed an injury-specific BoD assessment. Single-country independent and Global Burden of Disease (GBD)-linked injury BoD studies were performed in 11 European countries. Approximately 79% of injury BoD studies reported the BoD by external cause-of-injury. Most independent studies used the incidence-based approach to calculate YLDs. About half of the injury disease burden studies applied disability weights (DWs) developed by the GBD study. Almost all independent injury studies have determined YLL using national life tables., Conclusions: Considerable methodological variation across independent injury BoD assessments was observed; differences were mainly apparent in the design choices and assumption parameters towards injury YLD calculations, implementation of DWs, and the choice of life table for YLL calculations. Development and use of guidelines for performing and reporting of injury BoD studies is crucial to enhance transparency and comparability of injury BoD estimates across Europe and beyond., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Objective: Neurological symptoms (NS) were often reported in COVID-19 infection. We examined the plasma levels of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and S100B together, as brain injury biomarkers, in relation to persistent NS in a cohort of patients with COVID-19 during the acute phase of the disease., Methods: A total of 20 healthy controls and 58 patients with confirmed COVID-19 were enrolled in this prospective study. Serum GFAP and S100B levels were measured by using enzymle linked immunoassay method from blood samples., Results: Serum GFAP levels were found to be significantly higher in the severe group than in the controls (p = 0.007). However, serum S100B levels were similar between control and disease groups (p > 0.05). No significant results for GFAP and S100B were obtained between the disease groups depending on whether the sampling time was below or above 5 days (p > 0.05). We did not find a correlation between serum GFAP and S100B levels and the presence of NS (p > 0.05). However, serum S100B levels were slightly higher in patients with multiple NS than in those with a single symptom (p = 0.044)., Conclusions: Elevated GFAP was associated with disease severity but not with NS in COVID-19 patients. Whereas, high serum S100B was associated with the multipl NS in these patients. Our data suggest that GFAP and S100B may be of limited value currently in order to represent the neuronal damage, though serving a basis for the future work., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: Personalized medicine (PM), as a rapidly growing research area, provides treatments, practices, and interventions being adapted to an individual patient based on his own risk of disease. This study aims to analyze the productivity of countries, institutions, and authors in this field, to determine the existing research trends worldwide, and to forecast future research activity for specific countries., Methods: Documents published between 2000 and 2020 were retrieved from the Web of Science (WoS) database. Bibliometric analysis was performed to assess the outputs, correlation analysis was applied to analyze the relationship between Gross Domestic Product per capita (GDP-PP) and the number of publications, and an extrapolation method was used for predicting the future productivity trends for certain countries., Results: A total of 7,772 documents were published globally on PM between 2000 and 2020. The most productive country, journal, and institution are the USA, Personalized Medicine , and Harvard Medical School, respectively. The USA is also first in line in terms of total citations. Netherlands, Denmark, and the USA are listed at the top in terms of the total number of papers and citations, after adjusting for GDP-PP and population size. Also, as predictions suggest, the USA will maintain its predominant role in the PM field in the next 5 years., Conclusions: Owing to its both interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary nature, PM bestows researchers' numerous sources to benefit and enables them a field that they can be productive of for the future. Therefore, this field is expected to progress and be the lead area in medicine in the upcoming years.

This study assessed the additional contribution of balneotherapy on physical therapy in subacute supraspinatus tendinopathy. Ninety patients with subacute supraspinatus tendinopathy were included. They were randomized into two equal groups. In group 1 (n = 45), transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS), hot pack, ultrasound treatments, and Codman's and range of motion (ROM) exercises were performed. In group 2 (n = 45), balneotherapy was added to the treatment program. In both groups, shoulder active ROM and handgrip strength were measured. Pain was evaluated using a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) (rest, sleep, movement); functional assessment and quality of life were measured respectively with the Shortened Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand Questionnaire (QuickDASH), and the Short Form-36 health survey (SF 36) form. All measurements were repeated before and after 15 treatment sessions. There were statistically significant differences between the before and after assessment parameters in group 1 (all p < 0.05), but not for SF-36 General Health Perceptions, SF-36 Mental Health sub-parameters, and handgrip strengths. However, there were statistically significant differences between all the evaluation before and after the treatment in group 2 (all p < 0.05). When the two groups were compared in terms of alpha gains, statistically significant differences were observed in favor of group 2 in all measurements (all p < 0.05) except for SF-36 Emotional Role Difficulty and SF-36 Mental Health sub-parameters. This study shows that the addition of balneotherapy to physical therapy for subacute supraspinatus tendinopathy can make additional contributions to shoulder ROM, pain, handgrip strength, functional status, and quality of life.

Background: Serial C-reactive protein (CRP) biomarker values are frequently recorded from patients in adult intensive care units (ICU). The aim of this study was to assess the time-dependent diagnostic accuracy of repeated CRP measurements in predicting ICU mortality and determine the time-dependent cutoff values for this biomarker in mixed ICU population., Methods: Joint modeling was performed to model repeated CRP measurements and survival data. Time-dependent AUC (td-AUC) values were used to assess the diagnostic performances. Maximization of the product of sensitivity and specificity rule was applied to determine the time-dependent cutoff values., Results: Time-dependent diagnostic performance of serial CRP values were found as moderate in overall, observed to be higher in males than females, ranging from 0.603 to 0.624 in females and 0.639 to 0.690 in males. On the other hand, time-dependent cutoff values either remained constant or decreased through the 3rd day after the last measurement for both gender groups., Conclusions: Newly proposed time-dependent cutoff values for CRP biomarker are suggested to be used in clinics to discriminate subjects who are at risk and who are not during the first three days after the last measurement. Furthermore, taking serial CRP values in predicting the risk of death at ICU is highly recommended, to be able to assess the change in longitudinal profiles of subjects throughout the follow-up period.