SUSAN B O' SULLIVAN is a name that needs no introduction to physical therapists across the globe. Her book “Physical Rehabilitation” has been a guiding force in teaching the fundamentals of rehabilitation to PT’s across the globe for over three decades. Having retired from active teaching, this stalwart of physical therapy is yet to hang up her boots and continues to pursue activities related to writing and editing by adding newer insights in the forthcoming editions of ... Read More

Handling - refined and magical; that’s what may come to mind when a therapist thinks of treating the child or adult with neurological impairments using an NDT/Bobath framework.  When Dr. and Mrs. Bobath first started treating these individuals, the focus was very much on skillful handling.  NDT/Bobath in 2015 still includes handling as a hallmark of the approach.  However, what we do as therapists practicing within the NDT Practice Model* is so much more than just handlin... Read More

Noninvasive Brain stimulation (NIBS) encompasses a series of techniques that are used to induce electric currents to and within the brain for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes. While NIBS has been predominantly used to study brain behavior and physiology, in recent years, researchers have explored the possibility of using NIBS as a potential treatment option for a wide variety of clinical diagnosis and also for the treatment of motor deficits due to neurological conditions such as stroke, ce... Read More

SURANGIKA WADUGODAPITIYA

To be able to walk independently is one of the primary goals of a rehabilitation programme for people who have suffered a stroke. On regaining the ability to walk, patients often do so with abnormal walking patterns that are a result of the underlying neurological impairments and the compensatory strategies that they develop as they attempt to walk. Abnormal walking patterns are undesirable as they reduce the ability to balance; increase ene... Read More

Simply put science is seeking of truth or knowledge based on experiments or research. If knowledge is not based on research and just out of personal observation then it becomes a matter of faith. In physiotherapy science “approaches” or techniques start with personal observations, theoretical considerations of that particular time and a therapist’s ingenuity. This is true for all the approaches in neurology starting from Knott & Voss’s PNF to Carr & Sheppard&rs... Read More

Neuro-physiotherapist often comes across patients with hemiplegic shoulder pain. A neuro-physiotherapist is trained to understand and treat the changes caused by neurological conditions. Following the acute phase of a cerebral vascular accident (CVA) the patient enters a rehabilitative phase that will ultimately impact on their residual functional ability. During this rehabilitative phase common complications include shoulder pain and subluxation of the gleno-humeral joint. These complication... Read More

In India, stroke and is a leading cause of disability. The latest available estimates from Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) indicate that in 2004 there were 930,985 cases of stroke in India with 639,455 deaths and 6.4 million disability adjusted life in terms of Weakness or paralysis associated with stroke often leaves individuals functionally impaired, and it is estimated that one-third of all stroke survivors are functionally dependent at 1 year Post stroke.

Traditional t... Read More

Virtual reality (VR) is a technology that has found its way from games to healthcare.  Virtual reality has been used in psychosocial rehabilitation since a long time and it is only since 1990 that it has entered the field of physical rehabilitation. 1 Since then a lot of research has been taken over to identify its effect, feasibility and applicability.

In virtual reality, the user (patient, therapist) interacts with a multidimensional, multisensory computer generated environme... Read More

Graded Motor Imagery (GMI) - sequential process of rehabilitation provides a series of brain exercises. The process consists of: laterality reconstruction, motor imagery and mirror therapy. Mirror therapy is the final stage of GMI and the evidence suggests that this form of therapy is more effective if the sense of laterality is intact.

Graded Mirror therapy or Mirror Therapy is the use of a mirror to present the reverse image of a body part to the brain. This therapy had been used ... Read More

A worth of an individual in society is measured by the value they bring to family/society etc. For persons with severe disability, this can be severely affected due to lack of physical ability. However with the help of newer technological developments within India, we can make them much more self-reliant as well as improve their employability. This makes a big impact on their quality of life as well as the way society treats them.

Technological advances keep taking place all the tim... Read More

Cortical stimulation with electrical currents, a technique developed many decades ago and then largely forgotten, has remerged recently as a promising tool for experimental neuroscientists, physiotherapists and psychologists in chronic pain conditions. Chronic pain is defined as pain that persists beyond the normal recovery period or pain that is paired with a chronic health condition. The pathology of chronic pain is extremely varied; the variables involved include, but are not limited to: m... Read More