Razi Journal of Medical Sciences

    Background & Aim: Closed kinetic chain exercises are the most popular methods of lower limb muscles strengthening both in physical therapy and sports. One of these exercises is squatting. Despite the common idea about the activation of many muscular groups during this exercise, there is little research work on the activation pattern of muscles while squatting. In this regard, some researchers propose that there be different activation patterns while squatting in different hip positions. The purpose of this study was to show whether hip position can alter electromyographic(EMG) activity of vastus medialis, vastus lateralis, adductor magnus , and biceps femoris muscles. Patients & Method: Twenty non-athletic healthy females participated in this experimental descriptive study. They were asked to make parallel squat moves in three different positions namely abduction, adduction, and neutral. While exercising, EMG signals associated with the above-mentioned muscles were recorded and parameters of normalized EMG were analyzed using ANOVA(repeated measure). Results: The findings showed that there was no significant difference between EMG patterns recorded in different positions of squatting. Conclusion: It is concluded that in strengthening programs for rehabilitation purposes, hip position has no specific effect on any of different muscles tested in this study and all are strengthened equally.

  Introduction: Balance and gait disorders are common motor complications after stroke. Studies have revealed that conventional physiotherapy cannot manage these disorders efficiently so more studies addressing the causes of these complications and presenting efficient treatment protocols are crucial.

  Methods: Thirty hemiparetic patients (age range 40-60 years old) participated in this experimental study. Patients were randomly divided in to 2 groups. One group received Constraint Induced Movement Therapy (CIMT) (group1) and the other Mass Practice (group 2) for 3 weeks. Experimental assessments included stride velocity and kinetic parameters of gait (amplitude and velocity of center of pressure sways of paretic and non-paretic limbs in sagittal and frontal planes) that were recorded and compared before and after treatment. For statistical analysis of data, if distribution of data was normal, parametric tests of t and pair t-tests were used. If distribution of data was not normal, non parametric tests of Wilcoxon and Mann-Whitney were used. SPSS V.11.5 was also used for data analysis.

  Results: In both groups, stride velocity increased (p=0.03, p=0.01). In CIMT group, COP sway for paretic and non-paretic limbs decreased in frontal plane (p=0.03, p=0.008). COP sway velocity for paretic limb decreased in both planes (p=0.01, p=0.03). For mass practice group, only COP sway amplitude for non-paretic limb decreased in sagittal plane (p=0.03).

  Conclusion: Physical therapy based on “Constraint Induced Movement Therapy” can more efficiently manage dynamic balance gait disorders by overcoming "learned non-use" phenomena and improving somato-sensory deafferentation to central motor controllers.