Subacromial balloon spacers for the treatment of irreparable rotator cuff tears: a review.

Massive irreparable rotator cuff tears (RCTs) are a commonly encountered orthopedic condition that can be difficult to treat. Several techniques have been described to manage these tears, with the implantable subacromial balloon spacer being one of the most recent. The device, which has only been approved for clinical use in the United States since 2021, functions by resisting the superior humeral head migration seen in the setting of massive RCTs and restoring normal shoulder biomechanics, as corroborated by cadaveric studies. However, results regarding clinical outcomes have been mixed to date, and further high-quality studies are needed to define the optimal use of the subacromial balloon spacer in the treatment of massive irreparable RCTs.

Evaluation of the Relative Citation Ratio Among Academic Orthopedic Hand Surgeons: A Novel Measure of Research Impact.

Background: Publication metrics such as article citation count and the Hirsch index (h-index) are used to evaluate research productivity among academic faculty. However, these bibliometric indices are not field-normalized and yield inaccurate cross-specialty comparisons. We evaluate the use of the relative citation ratio (RCR), a new field-normalized article-level metric developed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), among academic orthopedic hand surgeons and analyze physician factors associated with RCR values. Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed using the iCite database. Fellowship-trained orthopedic hand surgeons affiliated with accredited orthopedic surgery residency programs were included. Mean RCR, weighted RCR, and publication count were compared by sex, career duration, academic rank, and presence of additional degrees. Mean RCR represents the total number of citations per year of a publication divided by the average number of citations per year received by NIH-funded papers in the same field. Mean RCR serves as a measure of overall research impact. A value of 1.0 is the NIH-funded field-normalized standard. Weighted RCR is the sum of all article-level RCR scores and represents overall research productivity. Results: A total of 620 academic orthopedic hand surgeons from 164 programs were included. These physicians produced highly impactful research with a median RCR of 1.27 (interquartile range [IQR] 0.86-1.66). Weighted RCR was associated with advanced degree, advanced academic rank, and longer career duration. Conclusions: Fellowship-trained academic orthopedic hand surgeons produce highly impactful research. Our benchmark data can be used to assess grant outcomes, promotion, and continued evaluation of research productivity within the hand surgery community.

A longitudinal study of kindergarten children at risk for reading disabilities: the poor really are getting poorer.

Over the past decade, educators and researchers concerned about children with reading disabilities have called for widespread adoption of early identification tools and early effective programming. This call may be the result of, in part, what Stanovich calls "Matthew effects in reading." That is, when stakeholders delay identification and support for young children struggling to read, the variance of individual differences in reading will inevitably increase, creating a widening of the gap between strong and struggling readers. In this longitudinal study, reading achievement data from 382 children were collected as they progressed from kindergarten through Grade 3. In kindergarten, children were screened with a battery of phonological awareness measures. Percentile rank scores were collected, and children were identified as having poor, average, or strong phonological awareness. As children moved through Grades 1, 2, and 3, reading-based data were collected in the spring of each year. Results indicated that, in general, as children progressed from kindergarten to Grade 3, those in lower ranks of reading achievement were likely to remain in the lower ranks, and furthermore, at each progressing data collection point struggling readers fell further behind their grade-level reading peers. In other words, as each year passed the variance between strong and struggling readers increased significantly. The authors hypothesized that this finding is consistent with the "Matthew effect"-the rich were getting richer while the poor were getting poorer.

Memory for everyday information in students with learning disabilities.

This study compared students with and without learning disabilities (LD) on their recall of academic information and information encountered in the students' everyday lives. The academic recall measures included a sentence listening span test, a rhyming words working memory test, and a visual matrix working memory task. Students' cued recall of all the tasks was also measured. The everyday working memory tasks included a dance episode event recall test; a library procedure recall test; and recall tests of commonly found objects, such as a coin, a telephone, and a McDonald's sign. Compared to students without LD, students with LD performed poorly on both the academic recall tasks and the everyday recall tasks. These results support the notion that some students with LD may have working memory problems that affect their performance on tasks other than reading. The results of the cued recall showed that the availability of cues significantly decreased the ability group differences on many of the academic and everyday tasks. This result replicates prior research findings that students with LD do not use retrieval strategies effectively and that some students with LD may have a production deficiency that affects their retrieval of previously encoded information.