Earticle

This study was to determine the effects of robot rehabilitation on motor function and gait in children with cerebral palsy (CP) and the effect of robot type. Inclusion criteria were children with any type of CP, robot re-habilitation studies, non-robot rehabilitation comparison groups, out-comes related to motor function and gait, and randomized controlled trials. PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, CINAHL, and Web of Sci-ence databases were searched. Risk of bias was assessed using phys-iotherapy evidence database. Seven studies with a total of 228 partici-pants were selected. Motor function was significantly improved in three studies comparing robot rehabilitation and control groups (standard mean difference [SMD], 0.79; 95% confidence intervals [CIs], 0.34–1.24; I2=73%). Gait was not significantly improved in five studies comparing robot rehabilitation and control groups (SMD, 0.27; 95% CI, -0.09 to 0.63; I2=45%). When comparing effects by robot type, robotic-assisted gate training (RAGT) showed significant improvements in both motor func-tion (SMD, 0.89; 95% CI, 0.36–1.43; I2=77%) and gait (SMD, 0.62; 95% CI, 0.12–1.11; I2=44%). Robot rehabilitation effectively improved motor function, and among the robot types, RAGT was found to be effective in improving motor function and gait.

This study aimed to assess and compare changes in body composition, standing balance, cardiovascular parameters, and salivary biomarkers, particularly salivary antioxidant status, after brisk walking training with or without music in older women. Twenty-four subjects were randomly assigned to brisk walking groups: with music (BWM) (n= 12) or without music (BW) (n= 12). Eighteen subjects completed the exercise training (9 in each group), and their data were used for analysis. The research protocols were classified into three phases: pretraining phase, training phase, and posttraining phase, while the data collection was divided into four sessions: resting condition, during treadmill exercise testing, immediately posttreadmill exercise testing, and 5-min posttreadmill exercise testing defined as after the cool-down session. The results showed that 8 weeks of home-based brisk walking with or without music did not improve standing balance, blood pressure, salivary biomarkers including total protein concentration, and antioxidant status but maintained or prevented the decline of these parameters. Only the BWM group reduced fat mass relative to increasing fat-free mass (P< 0.05) and improved recovery heart rate (P< 0.05) by modifying cardiac autonomic control in posttreadmill exercise testing. Therefore, brisk walking with preferred music can be a tool to delay the progression of cardiovascular dysfunction in older women. A longer duration of the exercise program and larger groups of participants are needed for further investigation of brisk walking with or without music on physiological and biochemical changes.

The objective of this study was to assess the perceived usefulness, ac-tual use and limitations for the application of recovery strategies among water polo (WP) players and their coaches around the world. A total of 231 WP players and 76 coaches representing all continents, both gen-ders and all levels of competition, completed a freely accessible online survey. This was divided into three sections: sociodemographic data (8 questions), importance of perceived usefulness of recovery strate-gies (3 questions), and actual use of recovery methods (6 questions). The majority of players and coaches considered recovery strategies as very important (52.4% and 59.2%, respectively) and posttraining session (28.1% and 26.5%) were the most frequently used times. The most se-lected reasons to justify their use were to reduce the injury risk (30.4% and 26.9%) and the most limitation to the use of recovery strategies were that they are too time-consuming (34.9% and 29%). In the case of the players, stretching were the strategies perceived as most useful and used (12.7% and 18.1%); and in the case of the coaches, it was ac-tive recovery (11.2% and 15%). The present study suggests a degree of discrepancy between the scientific literature and the research partici-pants’ perceptions and usages of recovery methods. This information may be of interest for coaches and technical staff of WP teams to look for appropriate recovery strategies for the improvement of their players’ performance.