We would like to thank Leitinger et al. for relevant and constructive comments on our article. These are valid objections that we acknowledge as relevant to future readers. We are grateful that they have discovered that we in the methods section on the STESS scoring had given patients older than 65 years one point instead of two points. This was an unfortunate misprint on our part. We have scor...

INTRODUCTION In this prospective clinical study, we assessed the relative speed of archwire changes, comparing self-ligating brackets with conventional elastomeric ligation methods, and further assessed this in relation to the stage of orthodontic treatment represented by different wire sizes and types. METHODS The time taken to remove and ligate archwires for 131 consecutive patients treated...

This study explored the feasibility and preliminary effectiveness of a short (one week) intensive intervention combining Constraint Induced Movement Therapy (CIMT) and bimanual training (BiT) to improve upper limb capacity and bimanual performance guided by individual goal setting in children and adolescents with unilateral cerebral palsy aged 8-18 years. Self-management training was added to t...

BACKGROUND Objective outcome measures reflecting the level of effectiveness of care is a clinical imperative for practitioners dealing with neck and back pain. It is widely recognised that there is no relationship between physical pathology, pain and disability. Traditional measures of function such as range of motion and strength, on their own, are no longer sufficient when assessing treatment...

Clinical trials for acute stroke treatments have often used composite clinical rating scales as primary outcome measures of treatment efficacy. Recent preclinical and clinical studies highlight the opportunity to administer treatments in the subacute and chronic phase of stroke to promote neurological recovery. Because different neurological deficits recover to different extents at different ra...

STUDY DESIGN Randomized controlled trial. Objective To determine if force magnitude during posterior-to-anterior mobilization affects immediate and short-term outcomes in patients with chronic, nonspecific neck pain. BACKGROUND The optimal dose of mobilization to effectively treat patients with neck pain is not known. METHODS Patients with neck pain of at least 3 months in duration (n = 64)...

Timely access to safe hospital care remains a major concern. Target bed-occupancy rates have been proposed as a measure of the ability of a hospital to function safely and effectively. High bed-occupancy rates have been shown to be associated with greater risks of hospital-associated infection and access block and to have a negative impact on staff health. Clinical observational data have sugge...

Improved diagnosis of coeliac disease has increased incidence and therefore burden on the health care system. There are no quality outcome measures (QOM) in use nationally to assess hospital management of this condition. This study applied QOM devised by the East of England paediatric gastroenterology network to 99 patients reviewed at two tertiary hospitals in the Network, to assess the qualit...

The Motion Sensitivity Test (MST) is a clinical protocol designed to measure motion-provoked dizziness during a series of 16 quick changes to head or body positions. The MST has been used as a guide for developing an exercise program for patients with motion-provoked dizziness and as a treatment outcome measure to monitor the effectiveness of vestibular rehabilitation therapy. This study determ...

BACKGROUND There is concern that non-inferiority trials might be deliberately designed to conceal that a new treatment is less effective than a standard treatment. In order to test this hypothesis we performed a meta-analysis of non-inferiority trials to assess the average effect of experimental treatments compared with standard treatments. METHODS One hundred and seventy non-inferiority trea...