These results suggest that, for people with Parkinson's disease, a small-to-medium-sized handle is more suitable than a large-sized built-up handle.

We tested the reliability, sensitivity, and validity of a Chinese translation of the Schizophrenia Quality of Life Scale Revision 4 (SQLS-R4). One hundred Taiwanese individuals with schizophrenia were recruited. The internal consistency reliability was satisfactory for both the psychosocial and vitality domains (Cronbach's a = 0.92, 0.84). The test-retest reliability was also high (psychosocial: ICC = 0.84, vitality: ICC = 0.84) for those individuals whose psychological conditions remained stable between the two-week interval. However, the responsiveness coefficient for those with considerable changes in psychological conditions ranged from very small to moderate, suggesting either low responsiveness for the vitality domain or a complex relationship between the change of psychological conditions and quality of life, and the need to estimate responsiveness more conclusively in a future intervention study. The convergent validity was supported by moderate-to-large correlations between domains measuring related constructs of the SQLS-R4 and SF-36 (r = -0.65 to -0.67). Overall, the results of this study provide preliminary evidence for the reliability and validity of the SQLS-R4 used in Taiwanese individuals with schizophrenia. This study provides a common ground for international researchers to understand quality of life in Taiwanese patients with schizophrenia.

The trend toward international cooperation in research projects emphasizes the need to translate existing validated tools into local languages. The purpose of this study was to test the reliability and validity of a Chinese-translated version of the 39-item Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire (PDQ-39). Seventy-three Taiwanese individuals with Parkinson's disease were consecutively recruited. The internal consistency reliability was satisfactory for all domains (Cronbach's alpha = 0.80-0.96), except for the social support, cognition, and bodily discomfort domains (alpha = 0.58-0.63). The convergent validity was also supported by strong correlations between domains measuring related constructs of the PDQ-39 and Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (r = 0.81-0.86), and between those of the PDQ-39 and SF-36 (r = -0.70--0.93). Except for the bodily discomfort domain, all domains of the PDQ-39 significantly discriminated patients at different stages, as indicated by the Hoehn and Yahr scale. Overall, the results of this study are consistent with the reports of the PDQ-39 in other countries (e.g., UK, Spain, US, and Greece), which suggests that the PDQ-39 is appropriate for use among Taiwanese individuals with PD. This study lays the foundation for future combinations and comparisons of data cross-nationally.

Occupational therapy aims to help patients resume their occupations. Therefore, we must know their work status after our intervention. We collected demographic and burn-related data from patient charts and analyzed it to determine the work status of former patients with burned hands and what influenced their returning to work. From 284 former patients with burns, we screened 159 with burned hands, 108 of whom were interviewed through the telephone about their work status. We used logistic regression analysis to analyze factors for having work, returning to work, the length of time required to return to work, and job modifications. We found that 1) having preburn employment increased the likelihood of having postburn employment; 2) being the primary wage earner in a family increased the likelihood of having work and of a return to work postburn; 3) a longer stay in the hospital, and burn injuries on both hands and trunk increased the time required to return to work; and 4) being older and having a smaller percentage of total body burn area decreased the likelihood of returning to a job modified because of a burn injury. Returning to work was affected not only by burn-related factors but also by general demographic and employment factors. We urge occupational therapy departments to include a return-to-work program in their routine services to improve the chances of patients with hand burns to return to work. We strongly recommend that a multicenter prospective study of hand-burn injuries should be performed.

Our findings first confirmed impaired stance control in children with SMD.