Objective This pilot study investigates the use of telerehabilitation to improve upper limb performance in chronic stages of stroke recovery. Design Intervention study with pre/post/one month follow-up tests. Methods Seven adults with chronic stroke participated in the study. Tests consisted of lab-based clinical and kinematic assessments. Participants completed the Upper Limb Training and Assessment (ULTrA) program at home. Training was 5 days/week, 60 min/day for 6 weeks with intermittent supervision of participants. Results Participants showed improvements in the training program tasks as well as clinical and kinematic assessments. Results also suggest there may be auxiliary benefits in cognitive function. Conclusions A home-based telerehabilitation program is a viable approach to provide rehabilitation in chronic stages of stroke.

Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) affects a significant number of combat veterans returning from Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF). Although resolution of mTBI symptoms is expected over time, some individuals continue to report lingering cognitive difficulties. This study examined the contributions of self-reported mTBI injury characteristics (e.g., loss of consciousness, post-traumatic amnesia) and psychiatric symptoms to both subjective and objective cognitive functioning in a sample of 167 OEF/OIF veterans seen in a TBI clinic. Injury characteristics were not associated with performance on neuropsychological tests but were variably related to subjective ratings of cognitive functioning. Psychiatric symptoms were highly prevalent and fully mediated most of the relationships between injury characteristics and cognitive ratings. This indicates that mTBI characteristics such as longer time since injury and loss of consciousness or post-traumatic amnesia can lead to increased perceived cognitive deficits despite having no objective effects on cognitive performance. Psychiatric symptoms were associated with both cognitive ratings and neuropsychological performance, illustrating the important role that psychiatric treatment can potentially play in optimizing functioning. Finally, subjective cognitive ratings were not predictive of neuropsychological performance once psychiatric functioning was statistically controlled, suggesting that neuropsychological assessment provides valuable information that cannot be gleaned from self-report alone.

The new Disability Attitudes in Health Care scale developed in this study shows good internal consistency and criterion validity. Attitudes toward caring for patients with disability seem to be unrelated to the standard medical education curriculum or previous experience with disability. Specific educational experiences may be designed to engender more positive attitudes toward providing health care to this patient population.

Reliable Digit Span (RDS) is a measure of effort derived from the Digit Span subtest of the Wechsler intelligence scales. Some authors have suggested that the age-corrected scaled score provides a more accurate measure of effort than RDS. This study examined the relative diagnostic accuracy of the traditional RDS, an extended RDS including the new Sequencing task from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-IV, and the age-corrected scaled score, relative to performance validity as determined by the Test of Memory Malingering. Data were collected from 138 Veterans seen in a traumatic brain injury clinic. The traditional RDS (≤ 7), revised RDS (≤ 11), and Digit Span age-corrected scaled score ( ≤ 6) had respective sensitivities of 39%, 39%, and 33%, and respective specificities of 82%, 89%, and 91%. Of these indices, revised RDS and the Digit Span age-corrected scaled score provide the most accurate measure of performance validity among the three measures.