This article provides a critical review of a popular functional index, the Barthel Index. The strengths and weaknesses of the index with an emphasis on its use by nurses is considered and the need to use this and other functional indices for measuring disability is addressed.

Introduction: Many patients have only diastolic dysfunction without any abnormality in systolic function. We compared cardiac diastolic parameters obtained by gated myocardial perfusion SPECT (Gated SPECT) with those evaluated by echocardiography. Methods: Forty-nine patients (aged 37-85 years, 19 males and 30 women) underwent Gated SPECT and echocardiogr...

objective: to assess the neuroprotective effects of local administration of 17- beta- estradiol on nerve regeneration. methods: sixty female wistar rats were overiectomized and divided into four experimental groups (n = 15), randomly: in autograft group a segment of sciatic nerve was transected and re-implanted reversely. in sham-surgery group sciatic nerve was exposed and manipulated. in trans...

conclusions although ceiling effects should be considered for rehabilitation targets, the two-factor model of fim (motor and cognitive independence) has an eligible fitness for iranian patients with tbi. results the results of this study showed that the floor effect was not observed; however, ceiling effects were observed for the fim total score and its subscales. the confirmatory factor analys...

the phytoplankton structure and dynamics were analysed in relation to abiotic variables inpaso de las piedras reservoir, argentina. phytoplankton driving forces were explored using a functionalapproach. a total of 15 functional groups were identified among which d, p, h1, f, j and c were the mostimportant. a canonical variate analysis indicated that the categorization of the species in function...

We present the first representative and quantified overview of the indices used worldwide for assessing the biodiversity of coral reef fishes. On this basis, we discuss the suitability and drawbacks of the indices most widely used in the assessment of coral fish biodiversity. An extensive and systematic survey of the literature focused on coral reef fish biodiversity was conducted from 1990 up ...