The Concept and Epidemiology of Disability.

A profound need for rehabilitation services exists, especially in developing countries. This article highlights the role of the epidemiology of disability in addressing this critical need. The article concludes that national and global disability epidemiology statistics inform stakeholder development of rehabilitation policies and programs necessary to meet the global need for rehabilitation, directly supporting the World Health Organization Rehabilitation 2030: Call for Action and United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3 to "ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages."

The Lower Body Positive Pressure Treadmill for Knee Osteoarthritis Rehabilitation.

Here, based on a clinician's point-of-view, we propose a two-model lower body positive pressure (LBPP) protocol (walking and squatting models) in addition to a clinical, functional assessment methodology, including details for further encouragement of the development of non-drug surgical intervention strategies in knee osteoarthritis patients. However, we only present the effect of LBPP training in improvement of pain and knee function in one patient through three-dimensional gait analysis. The exact, long-term effects of this approach should be explored in future studies.

A Survey of Speech-Language-Hearing Therapists' Career Situation and Challenges in Mainland China.

AIMS: The aim of this survey was to investigate the background of speech-language pathologists and their training needs to provide a profile of the current state of the profession in Mainland China. METHODS: A survey was conducted of 293 speech-language therapists. The questionnaire used asked questions related to their career background and had a 24-item ranking scale covering almost all of the common speech-language-hearing disorders. A summary of the raw data was constructed by calculating the average ranking score for each answer choice in order to determine the academic training needs with the highest preference among the respondents. RESULTS: The majority of respondents were female, <35 years old and with a total service time of <5 years. More than three quarters of the training needs with the highest preference among the 24 items involved basic-level knowledge of common speech-language-hearing disorders, such as diagnosis, assessment and conventional treatment, but seldom specific advanced technology or current progress. CONCLUSION: The results revealed that speech-language therapists in Mainland China tend to be young, with little total working experience and at the first stage of their career. This may be due to the lack of systematic educational programs and national certification systems for speech-language therapists.

Gait improvement after treadmill training in ischemic stroke survivors: A critical review of functional MRI studies.

Stroke survivors often present with abnormal gait, movement training can improve the walking performance post-stroke, and functional MRI can objectively evaluate the brain functions before and after movement training. This paper analyzes the functional MRI changes in patients with ischemic stroke after treadmill training with voluntary and passive ankle dorsiflexion. Functional MRI showed that there are some changes in some regions of patients with ischemic stroke including primary sensorimotor cortex, supplementary motor area and cingulate motor area after treadmill training. These findings suggest that treadmill training likely improves ischemic stroke patients' lower limb functions and gait performance and promotes stroke recovery by changing patients' brain plasticity; meanwhile, the novel treadmill training methods can better training effects.