ABSTRACT
Purpose@#A hyperextended knee is described as knee pain associated with an impaired knee extensor mechanism. Additionally, a hyperextended knee may involve reduced position sense of the knee joint that decreases the individual’s ability to control end-range knee extension movement. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of visual biofeedback information for plantar pressure distribution on knee joint angle and lower extremity muscle activities in participants with hyperextended knees. @*Methods@#Twenty-three participants with hyperextended knees were recruited for the study. Surface electromyography signals were recorded for the biceps femoris, rectus femoris, gastrocnemius, and tibialis anterior muscle activities. The plantar pressure distribution was displayed and measured using a pressure distribution measuring plate. Knee joint angle kinematic parameters were recorded using a motion analysis system. The visual biofeedback condition was the point at which the difference between the forefoot and backfoot plantar foot pressure on the monitor was minimized. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to determine the significance between the visual biofeedback condition and the preferred condition. @*Results@#The knee joint angle was significantly decreased in the visual biofeedback condition compared to that in the preferred condition (p<0.05). The rectus femoris and gastrocnemius muscle activities were significantly different between the visual biofeedback and preferred conditions (p<0.05). @*Conclusion@#The results of this study showed that visual biofeedback of information about plantar pressure distribution is effective for correcting hyperextended knees.
ABSTRACT
Purpose@#A hyperextended knee is described as knee pain associated with an impaired knee extensor mechanism. Additionally, a hyperextended knee may involve reduced position sense of the knee joint that decreases the individual’s ability to control end-range knee extension movement. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of visual biofeedback information for plantar pressure distribution on knee joint angle and lower extremity muscle activities in participants with hyperextended knees. @*Methods@#Twenty-three participants with hyperextended knees were recruited for the study. Surface electromyography signals were recorded for the biceps femoris, rectus femoris, gastrocnemius, and tibialis anterior muscle activities. The plantar pressure distribution was displayed and measured using a pressure distribution measuring plate. Knee joint angle kinematic parameters were recorded using a motion analysis system. The visual biofeedback condition was the point at which the difference between the forefoot and backfoot plantar foot pressure on the monitor was minimized. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to determine the significance between the visual biofeedback condition and the preferred condition. @*Results@#The knee joint angle was significantly decreased in the visual biofeedback condition compared to that in the preferred condition (p<0.05). The rectus femoris and gastrocnemius muscle activities were significantly different between the visual biofeedback and preferred conditions (p<0.05). @*Conclusion@#The results of this study showed that visual biofeedback of information about plantar pressure distribution is effective for correcting hyperextended knees.
ABSTRACT
Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) is an easily accessible and valuable tool in clinical microbiology, which can be used for identifying novel and rare species. We isolated grampositive cocci from the blood of a pediatric patient, which could not be phenotypically identified using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) (BioMérieux, Marcy-l’Étoile, France). We could not identify the isolate to the species level using 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) sequencing. WGS was performed using the Illumina MiSeq platform (Illumina, San Diego, CA, USA); however, the subsequent genomic sequence database search using the TrueBac ID-Genome system (ChunLab, Inc., Seoul, Korea) did not yield any hits with an average nucleotide identity value > 95.0%, which is the cut-off for species-level identification. Phylogenetic analysis suggested that the isolate belonged to a new Arsenicicoccus species, forming a subcluster with Arsenicicoccus bolidensis. Our data demonstrate that WGS allows a more accurate annotation of microbial genomes than other clinical microbiology tools, such as MALDITOF MS and 16S rRNA sequencing. This is the first report of the isolation of a novelArsenicicoccus species from a clinical sample.
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to assess the intra-rater and inter-rater reliability and validity of pelvic tilting angle measurements using a smart phone-based inclinometer (Clino) compared to a palpation meter (PALM) in the standing and sitting position. This study used an interchangeable method with Clino to measure the pelvic tilting angle in the standing and sitting positions. METHODS: Twenty healthy subjects were recruited. Measurements of the pelvic tilting angle in the standing and sitting positions were obtained by two examiners using the Clino and PALM. A resting session was conducted 10 minutes later to assess the intra and inter rater reliability. To assess validity of the measurement using Clino, a PALM was used as the gold standard. The intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) was used to determine the intra and inter rater reliability of Clino and a PALM. To assess the validity, the Pearson correlation coefficients were used for two measurement techniques to measure the pelvic tilting angle in the standing and sitting positions. The statistical significance was set to α=0.05. RESULTS: Measurements of the pelvic tilt had high inter-rater reliability in the standing (ICC=0.82) and sitting (ICC=0.88) positions using Clino and intra-rater reliability in the standing (ICC=0.87) and sitting (ICC=0.91) positions using Clino. Measurements of the pelvic tilt had high validity by a comparison of PALM and Clino in the standing (r=0.83) and sitting (r=0.89) positions (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: The use of Clino can be recommended as a tool to replace the PALM and measure the pelvic tilt angle in the standing and sitting positions while maintaining the clinical reliability and validity.
Subject(s)
Healthy Volunteers , Methods , Palpation , Reproducibility of ResultsABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Next-generation sequencing is increasingly used for taxonomic identification of pathogenic bacterial isolates. We evaluated the performance of a newly introduced whole genome-based bacterial identification system, TrueBac ID (ChunLab Inc., Seoul, Korea), using clinical isolates that were not identified by three matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) systems and 16S rRNA gene sequencing. METHODS: Thirty-six bacterial isolates were selected from a university-affiliated hospital and a commercial clinical laboratory. Species was identified by three MALDI-TOF MS systems: Bruker Biotyper MS (Bruker Daltonics, Billerica, MA, USA), VITEK MS (bioMérieux, Marcy l'Étoile, France), and ASTA MicroIDSys (ASTA Inc., Suwon, Korea). Whole genome sequencing was conducted using the Illumina MiSeq system (Illumina, San Diego, CA, USA), and genome-based identification was performed using the TrueBac ID cloud system (www.truebacid.com). RESULTS: TrueBac ID assigned 94% (34/36) of the isolates to known (N=25) or novel (N=4) species, genomospecies (N=3), or species group (N=2). The remaining two were identified at the genus level. CONCLUSIONS: TrueBac ID successfully identified the majority of isolates that MALDI-TOF MS failed to identify. Genome-based identification can be a useful tool in clinical laboratories, with its superior accuracy and database-driven operations.