0000000000214831
AUTHOR
Caterina Formica
The psychometric measures to assess aggressive dimension following traumatic brain injury: A review.
Abstract Background: higher level of aggression and antisocial behavior are frequent following head trauma, due to specific brain alterations. Many tests are used to assess this aspect. A descriptive review was conducted on the main tests used to detect the appearance of aggressive dimensions following traumatic brain injury. Review summary: we searched on PubMed and Web of Science databases and screening references of included studies and review articles for additional citations. From initial 723 publications, only 7 met our search criteria. Findings showed that various psychometric tools are used to assess aggressiveness and its subdomains, following head trauma. Conclusions: further inve…
Role of neurorehabilitative treatment using transcranial magnetic stimulation in disorders of consciousness
Disorders of consciousness (DOC) result from brain injuries that cause functional changes in vigilance, awareness and behaviour. It is important to correctly diagnose DOC so that the most appropriate rehabilitation treatments can be initiated. Several studies in DOC patients have demonstrated that repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) has an important role to play in the recovery of consciousness as highlighted by monitoring clinical scale scores. Although studies indicate that rTMS can be used to aid recovery, it is not combined with other rehabilitative cognitive treatments. As of December 2018, there have been no studies published that combined DOC cognitive rehabilitation…
Factors related to cognitive reserve among caregivers of severe acquired brain injury.
Stroke is one of the severe cause of motor and cognitive disabilities. These type of disabilities occurred a strong impact on whole family system. Caregiver burden may determine in relatives of patients with brain injury a decreasement of mental and physical health. The present study aims to better clarify the mechanism through which chronic stress influence caregivers' cognitive functioning and how the psychological and cognitive resources may represent as a predictive factor. Caregivers were submitted to neuropsychological tests that evaluated level of mental health ad level of burden. Our results showed a significant correlation between cognitive reserve and self-efficacy skills in healt…
Analgesic hypnotic treatment in a post-stroke patient
In recent years, hypnotic suggestions have been used in several clinical conditions. This treatment is often used for anxiety treatment, somatization, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Hypnotic analgesia is one of the most clinically useful phenomena of hypnosis. The article describes the case of a patient who underwent hypnotic treatments for hypersensitivity and chronic pain. Results showed an improvement of pain control and a decrease of pain hypersensibility. In addition, during rehabilitative treatments, the patient reported a high level of compliance with the multidisciplinary team. These findings suggest that hypnosis could be a useful treatment for post-stroke pain management.
The role of mind theory in patients affected by neurodegenerative disorders and impact on caregiver burden
Abstract Background Theory of Mind (ToM) is defined as the ability to understand mental and emotional state. This ability is assessed also in neurodegenerative disease. Few studies have investigated the impact that social cognition of patients could have on caregiver burden. The aim of this study was to investigate a possible correlation in level of social cognition impairment between patients with different neurodegenerative disorders and their caregivers with possible impact on caregivers burden. Methods we enrolled 48 patients with dementia divided in different groups: Fronto-Temporal Dementia (FTD), Alzheimer Disease (AD), and Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and also the three groups of…
Cortical Reorganization after Rehabilitation in a Patient with Conduction Aphasia Using High-Density EEG
Conduction aphasia is a language disorder occurred after a left-brain injury. It is characterized by fluent speech production, reading, writing and normal comprehension, while speech repetition is impaired. The aim of this study is to investigate the cortical responses, induced by language activities, in a sub-acute stroke patient affected by conduction aphasia before and after an intensive speech therapy training. The patient was examined by using High-Density Electroencephalogram (HD-EEG) examination, while was performing language tasks. the patient was evaluated at baseline and after two months after rehabilitative treatment. Our results showed that an intensive rehabilitative process, i…
A multidisciplinary approach to assess recovery of consciousness in a patient with moyamoya disease
Abstract Introduction Moyamoya disease (MMD) meaning “hazy puff of smoke” in Japanese is a rare chronic cerebrovascular syndrome characterized by progressive stenosis and occlusion of the internal carotid arteries (ICAs) anterior cerebral arteries (ACAs), and middle cerebral arteries (MCAs). Methods Our moyamoya patient with severely impaired cognitive and motor functions underwent a specific motor and neuropsychological rehabilitative treatments to assess the recovery of consciousness. Results Results obtained showed an improvement of clinical and neuropsychological examination. These findings highlighted the importance of an intensive rehabilitation techniques used in the care of disorder…
Applicazioni della Spettroscopia nel vicino infrarosso (fNIRS) e della Mirror Therapy per la riabilitazione dell’arto superiore in pazienti post-storke: uno studio di plasticità cerebrale
L’ictus cerebrale negli ultimi 20 anni registra un aumento della sua incidenza sulla popolazione italiana, conseguente anche ad un aumento dell’è demografica media. L’ictus determina un’ampia gamma di deficit funzionali che possono essere recuperati con un progetto riabilitativo mirato ed anche rimanere in parte o in toto permanenti. Negli ultimi anni è stato affermato che l’approccio multidisciplinare sembra essere necessario per contribuire ad un recupero funzionale del paziente in tempi brevi. Cercando di garantire al paziente, quanto più possibile, la restituzione di una vita quanto più autonoma possibile, nell’espletamento delle attività di base di vita quotidiana. Lo scopo dell’interv…