Effects of mental imagery technique in addition to conventional physical therapy to improve hand functions in chronic stroke patients.

OBJECTIVE: To observe the effect of mental imagery and conventional physical therapy for the treatment of hand function in chronic stroke patients. METHODS: The study was conducted at Rana and Alvi welfare society. A sample of 50 stroke patients was selected and divided in two groups; group A (experimental) and group B (control). Inclusion and exclusion criteria were established and patients meeting inclusion criteria were included in the study. A p-value of <0.05 was considered significant. Group A was treated with conventional physical therapy combined with mental imagery whereas Group B was treated with conventional physical therapy alone. Wolf motor function test and action research arm test was used as outcome measures. RESULTS: Group A consisted of 17 (68%) females and 8 (32%) males and group B comprised of 11 (44%) females and 14 (56%) males. Mean age of group A and B were 59.68±2.37 and 58.52±2.46 years respectively. Mean duration (in months) of stroke for group A was 16.32±3.77 (minimum and maximum duration 13 and 23 months respectively). The stroke mean duration of group B was 16.00±2.34 (minimum and maximum duration 13 and 20 months respectively). Both groups did not show significant difference at 5th week (p=0.721) whereas a significant difference was observed at 10th week (p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: It was concluded that mental imagery technique in combination with conventional physical therapy is significantly effective to improve hand function among chronic stroke patients in comparison to conventional physical therapy alone.

Comparative effectiveness of routine physical therapy with and without instrument assisted soft tissue mobilization in patients with neck pain due to upper crossed syndrome.

OBJECTIVES: To determine the effectiveness of routine physical therapy with and without instrument-assisted soft tissue mobilisation on pain intensity and range of motion in patients with neck pain due to upper crossed syndrome. METHODS: The randomised controlled trial was conducted from January to March 2020, and comprised diagnosed male patients aged 18-40 years of upper crossed syndrome complaining of neck pain visiting the Agile Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Complex and the National Orthopaedic Hospital, Bahawalpur, Pakistan. The subjects were randomised into control group A which received routine physical therapy and experimental group B which received instrument-assisted soft tissue mobilization along with routine physical therapy. The inclinometer was used to measure range of motion and the numeric pain rating scale for pain measurement. Data was analysed using SPSS 22. RESULTS: Of the 60 subjects, there were 30(50%) in group A with a mean age of 31.50±6.388 years and 30(50%) in group B with a mean age of 32.60±5.55 years. Pain rating at baseline in group B compared to group A show significant difference (p=0.01). Neck range of motion, including flexion, neck right bending, and neck left bending showed significant differences between the groups (p<0.05). The results for neck extension showed that both techniques were equally effective (p>0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Instrument-assisted soft tissue mobilisation with combination of stretching exercises was found to be more effective in the management of neck pain in upper crossed syndrome compared to routine physical therapy. REGISTRATION NUMBER: IRCT20190912044754N1.

Hermite-Hadamard, Fejér and trapezoid type inequalities using Godunova-Levin Preinvex functions via Bhunia's order and with applications to quadrature formula and random variable.

Convex and preinvex functions are two different concepts. Specifically, preinvex functions are generalizations of convex functions. We created some intriguing examples to demonstrate how these classes differ from one another. We showed that Godunova-Levin invex sets are always convex but the converse is not always true. In this note, we present a new class of preinvex functions called $ (\mathtt{h_1}, \mathtt{h_2}) $-Godunova-Levin preinvex functions, which is extensions of $ \mathtt{h} $-Godunova-Levin preinvex functions defined by Adem Kilicman. By using these notions, we initially developed Hermite-Hadamard and Fejér type results. Next, we used trapezoid type results to connect our inequality to the well-known numerical quadrature trapezoidal type formula for finding error bounds by limiting to standard order relations. Additionally, we use the probability density function to relate trapezoid type results for random variable error bounds. In addition to these developed results, several non-trivial examples have been provided as proofs.