Background and aim:The reporting of clinical studies in rehabilitation has been criticized in several aspects, including the reporting of patient characteristics. This paper aims to contribute to the improvement of the reporting of patient characteristics in rehabilitation trials. Specifically, we want to determine the type of information that should be reported in rehabilitation trials that is specific to rehabilitation patients, and how this information is captured by current reporting standards.Methods: In the first step, we made a conceptual analysis of characteristics of rehabilitation patients by addressing the specifics of the field of medical rehabilitation, including the definition of rehabilitation and a description of its beneficiaries. In the second step we compared this reference framework to the current reporting standards, especially the CONSORT statement and its extensions, as well as standards for the reporting of clinical guidelines (AGREE, RIGHT). Results: Patients included in rehabilitation interventions should be distinguished by specific information. From a clinical perspective, patients dealt with in rehabilitation comprise broader diagnostic groups compared to other clinical settings. Information on comorbidities should be added in the description of the patients. Also, a description of baseline characteristics of patients should always include functioning characteristics of the patients, including information on relevant context factors, i.e. environmental and personal factors. The CONSORT statement aims to provide patient characteristic to enable transferability of results to users. It is represented in terms of selection (inclusion/exclusion) criteria and the description of the resulting samples.Extensions of the CONSORT statement specified that information on socioeconomic variables should be added, and the selection of patient characteristics to be reported at baseline should be based on the selection of outcome variables. Also, all relevant prognostic variables should be

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Introduction The overall frequency of postural abnormalities (PA) in Parkinson's disease (PD) is unknown. We evaluated the overall prevalence of PA and assessed the association with demographic and clinical variables. Methods For this multicenter, cross‐sectional study, consecutive PD outpatients attending 7 tertiary Italian centers were enrolled. Patients were evaluated and compared for the presence of isolated PA such as camptocormia, Pisa syndrome, and anterocollis and for combined forms (ie, camptocormia + Pisa syndrome) together with demographic and clinical variables. Results Of the total 811 PD patients enrolled, 174 (21.5%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 18.6%–24.3%) presented PA, 144 of which had isolated PA and 30 had combined PA. The prevalence of camptocormia was 11.2% (95% CI, 9%–13.3%), Pisa syndrome 8% (95% CI, 6.2%–9.9%), and anterocollis 6.5% (95% CI, 4.9%–8.3%). Patients with PA were more often male and older with longer disease duration, more advanced disease stage, more severe PD symptoms, a bradykinetic/rigid phenotype, and poorer quality of life. They were initially treated with levodopa, and more likely to be treated with a combination of levodopa and dopamine agonist, took a higher daily levodopa equivalent daily dose, and had more comorbidities. Falls and back pain were more frequent in PD patients with PA than in those without PA. Multiple logistic regression models confirmed an association between PA and male gender, older age, Hoehn and Yahr stage, and total Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale score. Conclusions PA are frequent and disabling complications in PD, especially in the advanced disease stages.

turchEtti 34 , donatella bonaiuti 35 on behalf of italian consensus conference on robotics in neurorehabilitation (cicEronE)1 irccs centro neurolesi bonino-pulejo, Messina, italy; 2 department of Medicine and rehabilitation, polyclinic of Monza, Monzabrianza, italy; 3 spinal cord unit and intensive rehabilitation Medicine, ausl piacenza, Villanova sull'arda and castel san Giovanni, piacenza, italy; 4 Gait and Motion analysis laboratory opa sol et salus, torre pedrera, rimini, italy; 5 department of Experimental and clinical Medicine università politecnica delle Marche (uniVpM), ancona, italy; 6 spinal cord unit, department of rehabilitation Medicine, Gervasutta hospital, udine, italy; 7 azienda sanitaria universitaria friuli centrale (asu-fc), udine, italy; 8 neuromotor and rehabilitation department, laM-Motion analysis laboratory, ausl-irccs reggio Emilia, reggio Emilia, italy; 9 rehabilitation therapeutic center, tramutola, potenza, italy; 10 irccs a. Gemelli university polyclinic foundation, rome, italy; 11 section of neurorehabilitation, department of translational research and new technologies in Medicine and surgery, university of pisa, pisa, italy; 12 Montecatone rehabilitation institute, imola, bologna, italy; 13 unit of neurophysiopathology, ics Maugeri, Montescano institute, pavia, italy; 14 centro protesi Vigorso di budrio, istituto nazionale assicurazione infortuni sul lavoro (inail),