The Nociception Coma Scale (NCS) is a pain observation tool, developed for patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC) due to acquired brain injury (ABI). The aim of this study was to assess the interrater reliability of the NCS and NCS-R among nurses for the assessment of pain in ABI patients with …

Clinical practice guidelines are considered important instruments to improve quality of care. However, success is dependent on adherence, which may be improved using peer assessment, a strategy in which professionals assess performance of their peers in a simulated setting. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this …

Background: Paratonia causes severe movement dysfunction in late stage dementia. Passive Movement Therapy (PMT) is often used to decrease high muscle tone, but the efficacy has never been shown. The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of PMT on muscle tone after two and four weeks of …

Colleague van Dijk wrote an interesting article about the perception of pain scores, based on the relationship between two questionnaires and the results on these questionnaires of patients and caregivers (van Dijk et al., 2011). It is a nice article with a good description of the questionnaires and …

OBJECTIVE: To analyse the prevalence of phantom (limb) pain over time and to analyse factors associated with phantom (limb) pain in a prospective cohort of amputees. DESIGN: A multicentre longitudinal study. PATIENTS: One hundred and thirty-four patients scheduled for amputation were included. METHODS: …

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Functional Capacity Evaluations (FCEs) are used to quantify physical aspects of work capacity. Safety is a critical issue for clinical use of an FCE. Patients with Chronic Low Back Pain (CLBP) are known to report a temporary increase in pain following an FCE, but it is not known whether …

INTRODUCTION: A stay in the intensive care unit (ICU), although potentially life-saving, may cause considerable discomfort to patients. However, retrospective assessment of discomfort is difficult because recollection of stressful events may be impaired by sedation and severe illness during the ICU stay. …