Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy Journal

Physiotherapy has been widely accepted as an integral part of post operative care following open heart surgeries. Preventing and correcting postoperative pulmonary complications are the main goals of postoperative physiotherapy. In the health care practice following a uniform protocol based on the available evidence is considered as one of the important tool in improving the quality of care. With this back ground this study was aimed to identify the variability in postoperative care at national level., Methods: The randomly identified centres which perform open heart surgeries were approached for this survey. The senior most therapists were interviewed through telephone by using a standardised questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of various aspects of postoperative physiotherapy., Results: Out of 28 centres which were contacted, representatives of 25 centres participated in this interview. There was a marked difference in postoperative physiotherapy care among these centres. In all the centres Deep breathing was practised mandatorily but the recent techniques like Active Cycle of breathing techniques were underutilized. Phase II cardiac rehabilitation was followed only in two centres. This survey leads us to think of formulating a nationwide protocol for postoperative Physiotherapy.

Key words: Postoperative Pulmonary Complications, Physiotherapy, Open Heart Surgery.

Many studies have been done on effect of age on H-reflex and motor nerve conduction velocity but all have controversial results. In this study effect of age on H-reflex and MNCV of Tibial and CPN was studied on 50 healthy normal subjects which were divided five age groups which are 10-20, 20-30, 30-40, 40-50, 50-60, with 5 males and 5 females in each group. The F-value for any of the variable was not significant against table value 2.57 and the correlation values show that in Gp1 there is significant correlation between tibial and CPN LD, in Gp2 H-latency and tibial LD, in Gp3 between H-latency and tibial LD, CPN MNCV and tibial NCV, H-latency and CPN LD, CPN MNCV and tibial MNCV, in Gp4 between H-latency and CPN LD and in Gp5 significant correlation not between any of the values. It was concluded that there is no significant effect of age on H-reflex and MNCV of tibial nerve and CPN and there is no significant difference in the values of H-reflex and CPN MNCV between both the sexes except tibial MNCV. The age correction formula for H-latency could not be created because of little variations in the mean values.

Key words Age, H-reflex, tibial motor nerve conduction velocity (MNCV), common peroneal nerve (CPN) MNCV, latency difference (LD) sex.

Background and purpose: Impaired sitting balance in people with spinal cord injury is related to defective motor performance. For individuals with paraplegia, most functional activities, such as eating, dressing, and transferring, is performed in a seated position. Thus ability to balance while reaching a variety of objects both within and beyond arm’s length is critical to independent living. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of long reach balance training and short reach balance training and to compare these training programs to see how these affect the functional performance of spinal cord injury patients.Methods: 30 subjects with low thoracic spinal cord injury were recruited into two groups randomly. Group one participated in long reach balance training and group two participated in short reach balance training. Functional performance of these patients was measured using seven items of the Spinal Cord Independence Measure including dressing, mobility in bed, transfers-bed to wheelchair, transfers-wheelchair to toilet tub, mobility indoors, mobility moderate distances, mobility outdoors. Modified Functional Reach Test scores for both the groups were also taken prior and after the training. Results: After training both the groups showed significant improvement in all the seven items of Spinal Cord Independence Measure and also significant improvement in Modified Functional Reach Test. Long reach balance training group was found to be better in improving dressing, mobility in bed, mobility outdoors and modified functional reach test score. In other four items of Spinal Cord Independence Measure both groups were found to be equally effective.Conclusion: This study provides evidence that both the training programs are effective in improving functional performance of patients with spinal cord injury. For improvement in dressing, mobility in bed and mobility outdoors long reach balance training is more effective.

Keywords: Sitting Balance, Long Reach Balance Training, Short Reach Balance Training