Autonomous rehabilitation at stroke patients home for balance and gait: safety, usability and compliance of a virtual reality system.

BACKGROUND: New technologies, such as telerehabilitation and gaming devices offer the possibility for patients to train at home. This opens the challenge of safety for the patient as he/she is called to exercise neither with a therapist on the patients' side nor with a therapist linked remotely to supervise the sessions. AIM: To study the safety, usability and patient acceptance of an autonomous telerehabilitation system for balance and gait (the REWIRE platform) in the patients home. DESIGN: Cohort study. SETTING: Community, in the stroke patients' home. POPULATION: Fifteen participants with first-ever stroke, with a mild to moderate residual deficit of the lower extremities. METHODS: Autonomous rehabilitation based on virtual rehabilitation was provided at the participants' home for twelve weeks. The primary outcome was compliance (the ratio between days of actual and scheduled training), analyzed with the two-tailed Wilcoxon Mann-Whitney test. Furthermore safety is defined by adverse events. The secondary endpoint was the acceptance of the system measured with the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Additionally, the cumulative duration of weekly training was analyzed. RESULTS: During the study there were no adverse events related to the therapy. Patients performed on average 71% (range 39 to 92%) of the scheduled sessions. The TAM Questionnaire showed excellent values for stroke patients after the training. The average training duration per week was 99±53min. CONCLUSIONS: Autonomous telerehabilitation for balance and gait training with the REWIRE-system is safe, feasible and can help to intensive rehabilitative therapy at home. CLINICAL REHABILITATION IMPACT: Telerehabilitation enables safe training in home environment and supports of the standard rehabilitation therapy.

Las enfermedades diarreicas de la infancia en Cali, Colombia: diseño e informe resumido de un estudio sobre los agentes patógenos aislados / Diarrheal diseases of infancy in Cali, Colombia: study design and summary report on isolated disease agents

Es importante aislar los agentes etiológicos de la diarrea de la primera infancia y definir sus vías de transmisión, especialmente en los países en desarrollo. Este artículo describe un estudio realizado con esos fines en cinco distritos de clase obrera de Cali, Colombia, cuyas condiciones ambientales pueden compararse con las de otros distritos análogos de muchas ciudades latinoamericanas (AU)

Diarrheal diseases of infancy in Cali, Colombia: study design and summary report on isolated disease agents

For public health reasons, it is important that the etiologic agents of early childhood diarrhea be isolated and identified, and that their routes of transmission be defined. This is especially true in tropical and subtropical developing countries, where childhood patterns of exposure to diarrheal disease agents usually differ from those in developed countries, and where diarrheal illness is a frequent harbinger of death among children under five years of age. This artical describes a study designed to identify diarrheal disease agents and transmission patterns in Cali, a large city of western Colombia's fertile Cauca River Valley. The study area, composed of five working-class districts with a total population of some 40,000, appeared to provide an environment fairly similar to those of many other «average» working-class communities in Latin America. Beginning in July 1962, a cohort of 296 children being born in these districts was studied, the period of investigation starting with the date of birth and continuing until each child's second birthday or its premature withdrawal from the study. Weekly home visits were made to establish defecation patterns, feeding practices, and anthropometry. The resulting data were then analyzed in terms of defecation frequencies, occurrence of liquid stools, and the presence of blood, mucus, or pus in the stools. Differences were noted in male and female defecation patterns and in the defecation frequencies of different age groups. Stool specimens for bacteriologic, virologic, and parasitologic examination were collected monthly on a regular basis and weekly when diarrhea occurred. Numerically, viruses were isolated and identified more often than other agents. The most commonly isolated parasite species and viral and bacterial serotypes were G. lamblia (from 222 subjects), echovirus 11 (from 166 subjects), and enteropathogenic Escherichia coli 026:B6 (from 138 subjects). Compared with the findings of several studies in other countries, isolations of shigellae were relatively rare (Au)

Diarrheal diseases of infancy in Cali, Colombia: study design and summary report on isolated disease agents

For public health reasons, it is important that the etiologic agents of early childhood diarrhea be isolated and identified, and that their routes of transmission be defined. This is especially true in tropical and subtropical developing countries, where childhood patterns of exposure to diarrheal disease agents usually differ from those in developed countries, and where diarrheal illness is a frequent harbinger of death among children under five years of age. This artical describes a study designed to identify diarrheal disease agents and transmission patterns in Cali, a large city of western Colombia's fertile Cauca River Valley. The study area, composed of five working-class districts with a total population of some 40,000, appeared to provide an environment fairly similar to those of many other «average» working-class communities in Latin America. Beginning in July 1962, a cohort of 296 children being born in these districts was studied, the period of investigation starting with the date of birth and continuing until each child's second birthday or its premature withdrawal from the study. Weekly home visits were made to establish defecation patterns, feeding practices, and anthropometry. The resulting data were then analyzed in terms of defecation frequencies, occurrence of liquid stools, and the presence of blood, mucus, or pus in the stools. Differences were noted in male and female defecation patterns and in the defecation frequencies of different age groups. Stool specimens for bacteriologic, virologic, and parasitologic examination were collected monthly on a regular basis and weekly when diarrhea occurred. Numerically, viruses were isolated and identified more often than other agents. The most commonly isolated parasite species and viral and bacterial serotypes were G. lamblia (from 222 subjects), echovirus 11 (from 166 subjects), and enteropathogenic Escherichia coli 026:B6 (from 138 subjects). Compared with the findings of several studies in other countries, isolations of shigellae were relatively rare (Au)

Las enfermedades diarreicas de la infancia en Cali, Colombia: diseño e informe resumido de un estudio sobre los agentes patógenos aislados / Diarrheal diseases of infancy in Cali, Colombia: study design and summary report on isolated disease agents

Es importante aislar los agentes etiológicos de la diarrea de la primera infancia y definir sus vías de transmisión, especialmente en los países en desarrollo. Este artículo describe un estudio realizado con esos fines en cinco distritos de clase obrera de Cali, Colombia, cuyas condiciones ambientales pueden compararse con las de otros distritos análogos de muchas ciudades latinoamericanas (AU)