This study deals primarily with the stability of the base of the spine. The sacroiliac joints are vulnerable to shear loading on account of their predominantly flat surfaces. This raises the question of what mechanisms are brought into action to prevent dislocation of the sacroiliac joints when they are loaded by the weight of the upper part of the body and by trunk muscle forces. First a model...

We report two cases of bilateral chronic exertional compartment syndrome (CCS) in the forearm and hand. Measurement of the intramuscular pressure was useful for diagnosis. These two cases illustrate that bilateral CCS should be suspected in patients complaining of bilateral exercise-induced pain in the anconeus muscle, the forearms, the thenar and hypothenar regions and in the first dorsal inte...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Cervical radiculopathy is a pathological process involving a nerve root of the cervical spine. The most common causes of radiculopathy are cervical disc herniation followed by cervical spondylosis. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of dropped shoulder as a cause of lower cervical radiculopathy. METHODS In total, 132 patients, comprising 105 women (79.5%)...

Observation and imagery of movement both activate similar brain regions to those involved in movement execution. As such, both are recommended as techniques for aiding the recovery of motor function following stroke. Traditionally, action observation and movement imagery (MI) have been considered as independent intervention techniques. Researchers have however begun to consider the possibility ...

Muscle is a three dimensional (3D) entity with varying shape across the length of the muscle and changes shape during contraction. Changes in muscle shape can influence the orientation of the fascicles within the muscle [1]. Dissection studies examining 3D muscle fascicles architecture have reported regional variations in the fascicle architecture [2]. 2D ultrasound studies have shown that the ...

Most motor tasks require the simultaneous coordination of multiple muscles. That coordination is poorly understood in part because there is no noninvasive means of isolating a single muscle's contribution to the resultant endpoint force. The contribution of a single motor unit to isometric tasks can, however, be characterized using the spike-triggered averaging (STA) technique, applied to a sin...

Oscillatory activity in the primate motor cortex has been shown to be phase locked to oscillations in contralateral hand and forearm muscle activity in the 15- to 30-Hz frequency range. Recent studies have shown that the degree of coupling between the cortex and the periphery is strongly influenced by the type and degree of movements of the digits. It has also been suggested that changes in cor...

In a study of 42 tetraplegic patients, physiological, neurological, electrophysiological and radiological examinations were made in 11 patients with complete tetraplegia who had wrist pain after rehabilitation. Pain relief produced by a selective, posterior interosseous nerve lidocaine block indicated distal posterior interosseous nerve syndrome. This syndrome can sometimes be treated conservat...

Task-specific focal dystonia is thought to have a neurological basis where stereotypical synchronous inputs and maladaptive plasticity play a role. As afferent input is a powerful driver of cortical reorganization, we propose that a period of asynchronous afferent stimulation may reverse maladaptive cortical changes and alleviate symptoms. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), 3 hand m...