Upper limb pain and disability are common problems, especially among working populations. The overall aim of this thesis was to investigate peripheral nerve function in the upper limb by nerve conduction test and vibration threshold test in working populations including female computer users (n = 82), hand-arm vibrationexposed male manual workers (n = 116), and female workers with chronic diffu...

BACKGROUND The Melbourne Assessment of Unilateral Upper Limb Function is a valid tool for measuring quality of upper-limb movement in children ages 5 to 15 with cerebral palsy. This study presents the first phase in establishing the validity of a modified version of the assessment for children ages 2 to 4. OBJECTIVE We sought to determine whether children without neurological impairment score...

BACKGROUND Mirror therapy (MT) has been proposed to improve the motor function of chronic individuals with stroke with mild to moderate impairment. With regards to severe upper limb paresis, MT has shown to provide limited motor improvement in the acute or sub-acute phase. However, no previous research has described the effects of MT in chronic individuals with stroke with severely impaired upp...

INTRODUCTION Noxious electrical stimulation of the fingers produces a coordinated reflex response in upper limb muscles that results in the withdrawal of the limb, analogous to removing the hand from touching a hot stove [1, 2]. In general, the upper limb withdrawal is accomplished by a proximaldistal progression of shoulder extension, elbow flexion, and wrist extension [1]. However, exceptions...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The ability to live independently after stroke depends on the recovery of upper limb function. We hypothesized that bilateral priming with active-passive movements before upper limb physiotherapy would promote rebalancing of corticomotor excitability and would accelerate upper limb recovery at the subacute stage. METHODS A single-center randomized controlled trial of bi...