STATEMENT OF PROBLEM Oral parafunctional activity can be fatigued and painful masticatory muscles and/or pain in the temporomandibular joints. There is controversial discussion in the literature as to what role parafunctional activity plays in the multi-causal pathologic process. PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to determine any association between the level of parafunctional habits vers...

INTRODUCTION The main aim of medical education is to foster the development of clinical competence in students at all levels. Differences in experiences, methods of instruction and ambiguous forms of assessment are obstacles to attaining this goal. Dissatisfaction with the conventional methods of clinical assessment on the part of teachers and students led assessors to search for appropriate al...

An objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) was introduced at the end of the fourth year undergraduate paediatric training. We have compared the results obtained with those of our traditional method of assessment. We feel that the OSCE is a valid and reliable assessment; it provided good feedback and was well received by the students.

In the linked study (doi:10.1136/bmj.a2428), Appelboam and colleagues extend this work with the results of the SWEET study—a multicentre prospective diagnostic cohort study that investigates a simple clinical test (extension of the supine elbow) for detecting elbow fracture.10 The authors assessed 1740 adults and children with acute elbow injury and found that inability to extend the elbow full...

History taking in patients with problems in the neck, trapezius or shoulder region should be as detailed as possible and great care should be taken to define every symptom precisely. Especially when a controversial treatment, such as manipulation, is to be considered, it is vital that nothing has been forgotten that could constitute a contraindication. Age may be important, because some disorde...

Musculoskeletal disorders are widely spread throughout the world-wide population inducing patients’ pain and limitation of movement. Nowadays, the large amount of multimodal data, available from acquisition and modeling, is difficult to exploit effectively. Therefore, to help and guide orthopedists during clinical examination, we designed a medical-based ontology of the musculoskeletal system. ...

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES To study the impact the use of portable ultrasound can have for the benefit of the patients when used by doctors other than radiologist, in this case surgeons. METHODS Ultrasound performed by surgeons in the pre-operative, operative and post-operative period was studied. Patients presenting to the Hospital with acute abdomen was subjected to ultrasound. They were either pr...